All Progressive Congress (APC) candidate for Igbo-Etiti/Uzo-Uwani federal constituency of Enugu, Sam Ekwueme, speaks on governance in the state, and other sundry issues in this interview with LINUS ALEKE

Why are you in the race?

My motive is to give my people quality representation. In the past 24 years, we have not had quality representation in the House of Representatives. The situation is even made more worrisome, considering the abysmal performance of the incumbent Member of Parliament, representing the federal constituency. I had not seen any visible dividend democracy in our constituency. Therefore, major stakeholders in the constituency have asked me to contest the coming elections to rescue the area from poor representation at the national level. I think there is a burning desire in my place for a change that will enhance quality representation. When my people began to ask me to run, I had to commission an independent study and the result was what compelled me to throw my hat in the ring for the contest. At least 95 per cent of those surveyed from various communities in the two local government areas that make up the constituency, were of the view that the person representing us today did not do a good job. So, what this means is that there was a 95 per cent disapproval rating for the incumbent. These are the people that are yearning for change.

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What are those visible gaps that your constituents have noticed that you believe you can fill if given the opportunity?

My people are known to be agrarian, we needed to pursue policies and programmes that will enhance that. But has the incumbent in any form, made a case, made a request, or have been supportive of bills that will enhance that? The answer has been no. My people need a good education and good health. How has my representative in the past years been able to drive that conversation or drive legislation, or use the instrumentality of oversight function to achieve good health or quality education or improved agriculture for our people? The answer again is no and that is why we had 95 per cent of people polled rate the performance of the incumbent very low. The things that make for a quality life are lacking in our place since the return to democratic rule in 1999. The whole essence of representative democracy is how best elected and appointed officials of government represent their people in government. At the National Assembly, we have two key processes, the law-making aspect, and the oversight functions.

Looking at the mechanism governing representative democracy, it is believed that it is the executive that implements government policies and programmes that affect the lives of the people, while the legislature put in place the legal framework that enables seamless implementation of these policies. In specific terms what laws do you intend to push for that will positively affect the living conditions of your constituents if elected to represent them in 2023?

Let me correct an impression, the legislators also have what we call oversight functions, as entrenched in the constitution. So, after making the laws and it is poorly implemented or is not satisfactorily implemented, we also have that oversight functions to say that there are gaps here that must be filled. It is not about abdicating that responsibility and saying that the executive has failed. The oversight function is basically to make the executive do the right thing at the right time. In terms of legislation, one of the things we all look forward to in this country is moving lots of items from the exclusive legislative list to the concurrent list. That way we would empower the sub-nationals. We need to empower the sub-nationals so that everybody does not start running to Abuja. That is one area and it is a lot. A lot can be done in that space, there is also the need to develop a framework for collaboration. This can be achieved through a legislative framework that will enhance collaboration between the sub-nationals. We will have a framework to collaborate amongst states and local government areas. There are lots that the legislature can do to enhance that collaboration, as well as facilitate growth and development. In the area of legislation, there are lots of laws that we need to amend to empower our women. Women are the engine of growth, the engine of economic growth, the engine of social growth, and the engine of family growth. Unfortunately, there are lots of discrimination against women in our society. So, lots of laws need to be amended and new laws enacted to empower our women.

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Enugu is a PDP state, why do you think the electorate jettison the PDP candidate and cast their votes for you?

Let me also shock you, that the survey I talked about earlier, where the disapproval rating of the current member was 95 per cent. During the same survey, when the respondents were asked about their approval of the PDP government in the two local government areas, 80 per cent disapproved of the PDP government at the local government levels. I am also sure that if the survey is done state-wide, it would be more than 80 per cent. The reason is not farfetched, the two local governments that I am aspiring to represent at the National Assembly in the past 24 years have not had any significant infrastructural presence.

Your party promised Nigerians change in 2015, unfortunately, when they came on board, they offered Nigerians death, hunger, poverty, and debt. Don’t you think the platform will de-market your personality in the coming elections?

When you talk about debt, most of the debts are project-tied debt. They are not debt-supporting salaries or supporting budgets. Projects are tied to debt in the sense that they are tied to infrastructures and you will agree with me that there is a significant infrastructural deficit. Whether it is housing, roads, electricity, or whether it is IT infrastructure, there is a significant infrastructural deficit and for you to feel these deficits, you need external support or external borrowing that is one. Number two, the debts are in what we call concessionary loans. A very low-interest rate that we cannot get in the Nigerian financial markets. Some of them are ten years moratoriums before we start paying back and some of them are as low as two per cent interest rate. So, whether we are businessmen or countries such facilities that will enable us to kick start our economy are key to kick-starting because without those infrastructures, our cost of manufacturing will be so high and the cost of doing business will be so high too. Therefore, the question should be what are we using those loans for and not necessarily that it is too high or too low. Let us have a conversation about what we are using the loans for. Most of these loans are tied to projects as I said earlier. Riding on the above, we can see improvement in infrastructure, improvement in the road network, improvement in rail transportation, and improvement in most other facilities. Are we making significant improvements in those areas? The answer is yes, I am not ashamed of what we have achieved. But the deficit that we inherited is so huge that it will take a lot of time to feel all those deficits.

Under the PDP that handed over all the deficit you itemised above, India was the capital of poor people on earth, today under your party the APC, Nigeria took over the inglorious position from India. How do you explain that?

I don’t know the source of the statistics you are quoting from. Is it World Bank data, the International Monetary Fund, or the National Bureau of Statistics?

Cut in … Brooklyn Institution

I am not aware of that data, yes, there are challenges but I need proper data to be able to comment on that, I don’t want to rely on social media data.

Do you mean that Brooklyn Institution data is social media data?

You know that we have NBS data, so if you are making a comparison based on NBS data. I don’t know which data Brooklyn Institution is relying on. I don’t know about that, so I need to reconfirm that.