Willie Obiano, Anambra State governor, recently hosted contestants of the just concluded Gulder Ultimate Search at his lodge in Awka. After the reception, Obiano spoke with select journalists on his young administration and how he is set to take the state to another level. FUNSHO AROGUNDADE was there How has it been since your coming as Anambra State governor? It has been a great privilege to serve this state and we have been trying to make the difference. What we have been doing is not rocket science as it has been a well thought-out and simple process. And these processes are under economic enablers. There are about four items under these enablers. They are education, health, infrastructure and security. One of these enablers, education, is very critical to whatever we are doing. And my approach to education is very simple. To give myself a pass mark in education, I must have achieved three things: infrastructure, which includes the buildings and furniture; equipment and facilities like libraries and laboratories. Apart from the comfort of our students, teachers’ are also very critical. If I build only infrastructure and there are no teachers then that is not education. If I take care of the teachers and they are in a non-conducive environment, that is not education. We are looking at having adequate number of teachers, caring for them, training and retraining them. We are working at getting more teachers to teach, especially in the rural areas. We are partnering with the United Nations to see that these teachers are paid extra allowance. Health is also part of the enablers. Same as education. We are also tackling the infrastructure in the health sector, especially building and equipping more hospitals in different parts of the state. As we look at the comfort of the patients, the welfare of health workers themselves is also essential. We are to train and retrain health workers and make sure they are well taken care of. We are also focusing on roads. I tell you, any bad roads you see here are Federal roads. And some of them are being worked on. Anambra prides itself as having the largest road network in Nigeria. All our state roads are state-of-the-art. My predecessors did a good work. (Senator Chris) Ngige did well with the roads, while Mr. Peter Obi did over 1,000 kilometres of roads. Most of them I am still working on. What you see here is a government of continuity. All his projects are being worked on and none will be abandoned. [caption id="attachment_15884" align="aligncenter" width="256"] •Governor Willie Obiano[/caption] What are you doing in the area of agriculture? Our administration is looking at agriculture from the perspective of getting the subsistence farmers to come out of their shell and become bigger. Before now, we had 10 agricultural machines. My predecessor ordered 100 more, which are about to arrive. Once they are around, it will enable us to prepare the land for the farmers free of charge. We are also going to give them enhanced seedlings free of charge. But after the first harvest, they can no longer get them for free; they will get them at subsidised rates. This is in order for the scheme to go round. Also, the first thing I did when I became governor was to contract 14 agronomists to chart Anambra and give me an agricultural blueprint. We are forming co-operatives based on the type of crops they grow. The co-operatives are also for administrative purposes. We want to know that we are dealing with real farmers and not business men who will just sell the seedlings. We also have the outgrowers scheme where farmers can get loans to produce crops that are being ordered. We are also working with commercial farmers who are the employers of labour. Coscharis Group has now veered into agriculture in Anambra with their COSAT and we are fully in support of their project. By the time they are in full production, they will be producing 120,000 metric tonnes of rice. Anambra today produces 80,000 metric tonnes as a state but consumes 340,000 metric tonnes so there is a gap. COSAT farms will be producing half of the state’s need. That is just one farmer. We are signing on other farmers as well. In two to three years, we will be self-sufficient in rice production and will be exporting to neighbouring states and even Lagos. Basically, all that will create employment in areas of processing, packaging, manufacturing and that is a lot of jobs. Anambra has been a notorious place in terms of crime. How have you been tackling the issue of security in the state? Things are changing. In fact, you wouldn’t have come here for the search if you thought Anambra is still unsafe. We are giving security a very robust attention and we will continue to do so till the end of my tenure. We have successfully driven away kidnappers. This does not mean that they don’t strike once in a while, but we always arrest the culprits any time they strike. How have you been coping in terms of raising fund to execute all these enablers? Talking about Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, we met an IGR position of N550 million monthly and that is a far cry from what we need to drive this state. The salary bill of the state is about N2.8 billion. Until my IGR equals or is above salary range, I will not score myself as having done well in terms of IGR. Anambra is the second smallest state by land mass, next to Lagos. It is not a very big state by land mass. Yet we have over seven million people. However, we have been able to increase the IGR from that N550 million to N1 billion a month in just six months. We have the capacity to reach N3.5 billion monthly, so we are trying to block all the loopholes and leakages. Since Aguleri Forest has been used for the Gulder Ultimate Search thus exposing its tourism potential, what else are you doing to actually tap into this to boost tourism in your state? We have very good scenery and things that will promote tourism potential in Anambra. We have a lot of potential but they are not developed. I am currently working on a stretch of road that will lead to the Ogbunike Cave. It is one of the best caves in the world, with 11 entrances. If you go to that cave, you will be amazed. There are waterfalls and also rivers in there that can be explored. We will get a team of explorers to go in there to make sure that there are no dangerous animals like lions there before we open it to the public to explore. Igbo-Ukwu culture is also there, and of course Awka is known for our metallurgy and gun implements. Aguleri, as you know, is also popular for being the birth place of the Reverend Father Francis Tansi. We also have here the confluence of Ezu and Omabala rivers, where for 100 years there has been a boiling going on there because of the confluence. These are interesting centres that could fetch me the money needed for the development of this state. This state has also produced some well-accomplished entertainers. What are you doing to use entertainment to drive the empowerment of your youth? We are doing that in a lot of ways. The first thing is to restore security, which we have done. We are keen on reviving the entertainment sector in the state. In December, we are going to have a four-day cultural revival activities that will become the norm throughout my tenure. We are trying to create routes to beautiful places in the state that will encourage film makers to shoot their films. Miss Tourism Nigeria, I just employed her as the special assistant on tourism. Bob-Manuel is my senior special assistant on movie and entertainment. We are employing and encouraging artistes from Anambra to look home. We are also going to build malls just like you have in Lagos. The one in Onitsha is going to be the size of five football fields, while the one in Awka will be the size of four football fields, with cinemas. They will be ready in a year’s time. What about sports? We want to revive football especially at the primary and secondary schools level. Many Anambra indigenes have represented Nigeria in various tournaments. You all know the likes of Emmanuel Okala, the former national goalkeeper; he hails from Onitsha here. There are many more of them. Sports keep the youth very busy and keep them in the right focus. That is why we want to encourage them to be involved in sporting activities. We are also doing our best to protect the youth from external influences and hard drugs. We are working hand in hand with the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, to destroy the sources of drugs that are made available to the youth. We have almost conquered Obosi, which is the drug capital of Africa. We are trying to make it a lot more difficult for students to get the drugs. We are also doing things on women empowerment. We are trying to set up three vocational schools in each senatorial district to assist women and youth in the area. Oil and gas reserve has been discovered in Anambra. How will the state harness these resources? Anambra is blessed with oil and gas reserves, yet it has not been tapped. We are working on producing oil from Enugwu to Aguleri. Already, Orient Petroleum is working on 11 oil wells, and they are producing about 2,000 barrels a day as we speak. We have a committee set up headed by Dr. Emmanuel Egbogah, to review these areas. We are also working on becoming a member of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC. This is because last year alone, nine states shared 20 per cent of N400 billion in projects. If we become the 10th state, it will in a significant manner contribute to the work we are doing here. The only active oil company here is Orient Petrol and they are in the process of setting up a refinery. They will be processing ATK, aviation fuel. We are also on the verge of having a cargo airport in the state. The airport will store the ATK and we expect international airlines to come to Anambra to refuel and all these will create jobs. You were in the corporate world before now; how do you find politics? The truth is, I did not wake up or plan to be a governor. I retired from Fidelity Bank plc after 23 years of a successful banking career. Before then, I was at Chevron Texaco as internal auditor. I was also at First Bank for one and a half years. At Fidelity Bank, I was number two man for 10 years until I retired in August 2012. Upon my retirement, I moved to Houston, Texas in the United States with my family to rest. While there, I followed developments at home and noticed that 24 people were vying for the governorship position to replace Obi, my predecessor. While reading about this in newspapers, I never thought I would be one of them. I am a very comfortable man and do not need anybody’s money. I never wanted to be a politician but my shoulder was tapped to come down to Nigeria for a political appointment. I initially thought it was about a ministerial request I had made in the past. When I came down I found out that I was needed for the governorship seat. I agreed to stay and I ran for the seat. Thank God I am where I am today. My experience as a technocrat is what is reflecting in our achievements in the state today. Has anything changed about your person since you became governor? It is my privacy. I miss my privacy immensely. I no longer have time for myself as a governor. You have to answer every call you get no matter how mundane. There was one I received recently, with the person calling repeatedly and when I finally picked it, the caller complained of a business competitor who bought all the goods from a dealer and left nothing for her to buy. She wanted me to intervene. I did not know whether to get angry or to burst into laughter. I had to refer her to her local government chairman. Another one called me saying his wife was in labour and did not have any money. He was commanding me to do something about the issue. I referred the case to the commissioner for health. Also, people believe that I have all the jobs and immediately they see me their children will get a job. I spend two days a week to go out to inspect projects. I also get feedback from the people. So as the governor, it is a selfless work; I now belong to the people and that has changed my life.