Chike Christopher Ogeah
Psychology graduate who has served this country in many capacity claims that being the image maker of a State as complex as Delta can never be boring but challenging.
In this exclusive interview, Chike Christopher Ogeah says that as 2015 draws close, whoever will take up the mantle of leadership of the State as Governor come 2015 should consult with His Excellency, Dr. Uduaghan to acquire some very intricate knowledge on how to manage Delta State with her diverse ethnic nationality.
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Excerpts
How did you join Uduaghan’s adniinistration?
Yeah, that is a very good one because really and truly speaking; I had just finished the one and most successful privatization programme of the Skypower Aviation Handling Company where I had been at the helm of affairs as the Managing Director for 6 years.
We took a non-profit making organization, the government parastatal In the aviation industry, which was idling and wasting away. In fact, myjob when I went there was to go as an undertaker but I got there and found out that the situation was not irredeemable and we could revive the place and with just a few thug you know, talking to the work force, getting to know what the challenges were with the company and we managed to achieve a remarkable turn around and that resulted in pivotal eventual privatization of that company that was valued at about N I .2bn for a price ofN5.6bn. That shows you the kind of value we created for government.
And after doing that, as far as I was concerned my Adhoc work was finished with government and I wanted to sit down, go for a short time out with my wife because all my children are grown. Then take some time off and maybe go for one of these six months Public Administration Courses in Harvard University. This must have been about 2008 and 2009. I still have my aged father who is 86 years old. He is a medical doctor and he lives here in Asaba. So, it was wise of me to come and let him know that I will not be around for a considerable amount of time.
Asaba in those days, if you will have to fly, you have to send a car to Benin airport, then you fly to Benin and start driving in after waiting in the airport for so long in Lagos because flights were not regular.
Anyway, as I was driving into Asaba, we drove pass what is now the Asaba airport but at that time it was an idea; they had just cleared the site, few bricks were been put upon each other for what is now the terminal building. Nothing like runways, everything was there on board and I said to my driver as we drove pass the airport to turn in there and being someone with aviation background, I realized that an airport was been considered here in Asaba.
Off course, you can imagine the joy that greeted my heart here and then. But more importantly, I wanted to know who was doing it, I didn’t know whether it was some private investors or the present administration or indeed was an abandoned project from the previous administration. I didn’t know what was going on. So I got into town, off course I saw my father and I spoke to him and he said to me no, is this governor that is building the airport and building that and that. So the next day on my way out I saw this again and I went there and said to God whoever the governor that is doing this, I have to go and express my own personal gratitude to him because he does not know what he is about to do for me as a person. I was looking at it purely from a selfish Asaba man point of view; that coming home for me now to see my aged father would be a simple thing and so I left.
I have a very good friend in Lagos who is from this area and when I got back I said to him, “have you seen what the Governor is doing at Asaba?” He said yes. He informed me that he was going to see the Governor tomorrow and if I am talking so much about him why don’t I follow him to see him.
I went with him and we met the Governor at Abuja and I said to the Governor “you are wonderful, I came personally to say thank you for the work I saw been done, the vision you are carrying out, I dare say that the airport must be the most costly airport in the country due to what I have seen”.
Before I could even conclude, my friend had told the Governor that the man is so glad and happy with you and he is ready to work for your re-election; that he had just finished the work he is doing in SAFICO and the governor acknowledged. What I did not even realize was that my friend had come to see the Governor based on some issues they had including getting ready [or the governo1s re-election which was gothg to come up in 2011 . When we left the Governor, I told my friend why? I said but I told you I was going to do some studies, he said what studies are you going to do?
Now families come into it. Like I said to you that all was set for this journey, the only thing I had to contend with was my wife who was already ready for the journey, off course that is when I knew that God has a hand in this assignment because immediately I got back I told my wife, I thought I would get a reaction like why, when we had planned this for so long and now you are changing it. But nothing like that, everywhere was cool. So I said what do you have to say about this? She said let me pray. She prayed over it and by the next day, she said in fact, I don’t know what we were doing, God made it clear that you should go and work in your state and serve yOur people and I said work in your state and serve your people, how does campaign come in? She said that is what God told me and I said okay.
Anyhow, I started coming to see the Governor, I started knowing him. His own personal attribute of candour, of calmness, you know, of being a very insightful and intelligent human being. Those qualities started manifesting itself in those my early interaction with the governor even though I had come to work in his campaign team or whatever it was that we were supposed to be doing; I was actually learning from another procedure of University of Life. I then realized so many things about my great state that I didn’t know even things about Anioma because the guy is almost like the encyclopedia of this state and you know, it comes from when you have been committed and here and then the turnaround was just achieved. And I was clear in my mind that I was doing the right thing and up till this minute I am having this interview with you, I have never regretted that action I have taken.
Again, like I said the whole idea was to come and work for his re-election off course somewhere down the line the rest is history and the Court of Appeal judgment came out from Benin which nullified that election. So instead of working for that re-election we went to start working for what they call rerun election, which culminated in us having two major elections in less than 3 months. It was particularly a trying time I can assure you and in all that, even when we the campaigners as we were, were panicking because there was sometimes where we saw betrayals and counter betrayals you know what politicians are like and we were panicking; this man’s resolve was stoked, his resolve and faith in God was unshaken.
There was a day I remember he made a commitment to Church at Ubiaja where his mother came from, I think his mothers parents are from there and he has very strong link with them and we were supposed to go for a campaign somewhere when they said things have gone folly wrong; a normal person with normal eye would have headed for where we were going to, I think it is Udu or somewhere. And we woke up about 6 7am and we headed for Ubiaja where we went to Church and did everything we did. We finished all that before we started talking of anything campaign, so you see what I learnt from him is that once your faith in God is unshaken and our belief is strong you will overcome every challenges.
In fact, in everything he does he uses fairness, you know give Caesar what belongs to Caesar and all that, and we overcame those very challenging times. Like I said all we did was under all we did was under all temperatures, hot, cold and warm you know but he was ever the same.
In the course of your duty, has there been any time that you felt bored, what has actually been your success story so far?
Boring, no! I am sure: thank God you are a media man. En information management you can never be bored of it, if anything springs up exciting challenges daily. What you can be maybe is exasperated sometimes. You can be disappointed, there can be those seizures of motion when you give out a story and people go and mutilate your story. That is the reason we sent even the community newspapers, the main line media for training, which we did with Reuters Institute. We have done it twice since I have been here. Many times I have given out interviews just as I am giving out to you now and what has come out has not been anything like what I said and it is nobody’s faults it is just the way it was reported.
In fact, there was a friend of mine who came in from England and she said to me that Nigerian journalists she thinks is about the best and I think because she came and was trying to promote a project here in Nigeria and she went around doing all kinds of interviews and she showed me. I remember she brought 3 different National newspapers I don’t want to call names. In all the interviews, none of them captured the essence of what she was talking about. Then forget the one about tenses and sentences that were wrong.
So, that is the highest level of frustration one get in this job, but on the issue of the boring, never because media work is one of the most fluid and exciting thing you can find. Like I keep saying each time I talk to my boss we try and do what we can within the limited resources we have because information is just one of the many ministries and yet we are important. But that does not mean health or education is less important.
In fact, the funny thing is that this is about the only sector that the more you spend, the more you need to spend. For instance, if you build hospitals, all the luxury schools we built, there are still so many other schools that are out there but at least if we have 1,000 schools that were bad and we build 10, then we are 10 short of bad schools from the 1,000. But in information, if you have 1,000 problems and you take care of them, be sure the next day you have 20,000 problems. So, that is the thing about information and that makes it even more challenging but I thank God for the kind of paradigm we have adopted to operate in Delta State. It is really one that was set by my principal and that makes it a whole lot easier for me, which is presenting facts as they are. There is really no need to engage in propaganda. That is what we have been trying to do here in Delta State.
Again, talking about criticism, you see, without criticism, no government will be able to achieve its set goals, because sycophancy will become the order of the day. And what people do not understand about criticism, is that once criticism is constructive, it is the best thing that happens to any government. If you don’t criticize, it then means you are yes men media group and that is not doing the government any good.
Has the Government of Uduaghan lived up to the People’s expectation?
Absolutely yes! Yes in the sense that if you go round the state to measure the achievements of this administration with some governors in the country then you will agree with me that the governor has actually done beyond expectations of all Deltans especially with the Delta beyond oil initiative that is paying off and this indeed singled out my boss as the most articulate and visionary governor.
Are we going to talk of his achievements in education, health, infrastructure, and agriculture? As a media man, I want to urge you to go round the state to see things for yourself and what you will see is what I am going to tell you that 80 per cent of Deltans are very happy with my boss for all the feats he has recorded so far. I am not surprised, though I have not been part of any government in Delta State because before I came in here I was at the federal level. I don’t think any government in any state not just Delta has surpassed my boss even states that seem to be enjoying publicity that the governor has performed so well. You have small towns you do things there and everybody is just shouting, meanwhile we have to do those things in towns in Delta and then we have riverine big towns and the challenges of tarring a kilometre of road in a riverine area like Uduor Bomadi is 5 time more the amount to tar a kilometer of road in an upland area like Asaba. We are talking about a state that is 40 percent riverine, so our paradigm and whole essence of development differ from a lot of these other states.
It is not just about doing work, the Governor came and said my strategy is 3 point agenda; human capital development, infrastructure development and peace and security. Oft course, peace and security been the very important one because without that you cannot do anything else. He said to achieve this strategy the tactics he is going to use to deliver is Delta beyond oil. Delta beyond oil really is the diversification of our resources. Let us look in those critical areas shere we have comparative advantage so that those revenues we are earning from that final term which is oil hydrocarbon, all the derivatives thereof we can use them to open our economy in such a time when incase those oil runs out or as we are saying better alternatives are been developed.
Now we identified five or so critical areas; agriculture, culture and tourism, entertainment, small and medium enterprises and ICT which really is the key changer.
Malaysia, Singapore and all other countries that were at the same level of human development just as Nigeria in the 70’s have gone into the developed League of Nations now, either because they used small and medium enterprises or ICT to transform their economies and that is exactly what we are doing in Delta State.
Basically, I think we have done a lot. Like keep saying we don’t have projects in Delta State we have programmes because every single project you talk about has a multiplier effect on other things. What I mean is that we are blessed being the only state for instance that has two seaports and 2 airports in the same state. To connect those seaports and airports, because one is an economic zone for oil and gas, another is an economic zone commerce. As you are aware we have Onitsha the biggest market in sub Saharan Africa five minutes away, Nnewi the China of Africa 20 minutes away also. To link these ports that is why we thought about the 160 kilometer double expressway, (160 x 2 of 6 lanes), that is Ughelli-Asaba dualization first class infrastructure. But it goes beyond just been a road, its connecting these two important zones because we found out that all our brothers across the Niger, instead of going all the way to Lagos to get their flight if we can provide that kind of infrastructure and then the federal government does its own bit by dredging the waters in Koko and Warn ports then they will just be going there to get their goods. All the arm robbers and everything they encounter in Benin-Ore-Lagos axis will be a thing of the past and off course it will reduce the time and all that.
Again, the airport is one activity in the aviation industry that cut across so many other industries. You can’t find lands to buy here in Asaba any more, hotels are springing up everywhere. 5-star hotel – the construction of Hilton is going on very fast now, Protea is there; and then to cap it up, the federal government has designated it a cargo airport, which means again agriculture aspect of our Delta beyond oil dream is even with the airport because we can now start exporting our crops. By the time the international aspect of the airport starts working, you can take fresh fruits abroad, and these are things they are looking for.
A community called Umeh, which we found out was like a food basket of Delta State but was cut off from everywhere nobody could go there to buy fruits, the farmers cannot take the fruits anywhere, the minute we found out about this community we delivered a first class road; now food, everything is coming out of there. These are the kind of things we are trying to do and off course, we have some massive projects, which are private public partnership, those ones are what the government cannot do alone like the Warn Industrial Park and the Leisure Park in Udu, which is supposed to be like a Disney land kind of thing with hotels and all those kind of swings for children, women and all that but government does its own part to provide land, provide infrastructure, initial buildings and all that.
There is also going to be a component of that Leisure Park, at the Ogwashi-Ukwu Game Reserved where we will get a real time zoo. We have all the animals so the whole idea again is to develop tourism, which is part of the agenda.
Anytime they ask the Governor what you want to be remembered for when you had left office, he says depending on who is remembering me. Like me the commissioner under him, I will remember him for his airport because he made me to come and see my aged father without stress. What about the woman he talked about that was brought to him that could not deliver her baby and had to go to see a quack and the baby got strangled in between her legs and then he as a doctor started trying to save the woman’s life? This happened many years ago. He said he realized what it was and gave them free anti- natal and free child birth. Such women that would have been in that kind of trauma, will remember him for that and off course, all the many Deltans will remember him for one thing or the other. The small and medium scale entrepreneurs who were vulnerable section of the society, even the physically challenged people that are ingenuous but could not do things can now get monies from the micro-finance bank to start their little businesses.
Off course, the teaching hospital at Oghara where the governor and some doctors recently carried out kidney transplant, that again is medical tourism because what we are trying to do is to attract dollars and pounds. Instead of people running to India and other places, they can start getting such health care here and at a much more reduced cost.
In the transportation sector, the Governor has stabilized prices and has introduced modern buses/vehicles that ply all routes across the State and they are gradually phasing out the killer Okada, replacing it with a more comfortable and safe recycle. They are so many achievements to talk about.
What about the first class graduate scholarship scheme hat has enabled our best students to further their studies to any evel in any part of the world. All these are happening in this administration under the leadership of my boss, the visionary governor of this great State.
Just like I read in the interview granted recently by Governor Babatunde Fashola that “if governance is not a continuous thing, then the former governor of Lagos State would have finished all the works in Lagos and there will be no work for Bola Ahmed Tinubu to do not to talk of himself the current Governor”.
Government is a continuous process, what we pray for is that successive government to continue from where the present administration will stop.
What idea would you proffer for the incoming Governor after Uduaghan vacates office in 2015?
Well, every government has his own agenda. I cannot sit down here and say the new government should just follow whatever Uduaghan did. No! The incoming governor will certainly draw up his own programmes but along the line may discover that we have done so much already and may want to consolidate in what we have done.
But I dare say that the incoming leader should try and find time to sit down with Governor Uduaghan as this will go a long way to boosting his administration. I am saying this with all sense of responsibility especially to find out how to deal with the different ethnic groups in the state, because every ethnic group is different and every ethnic group needs to be dealt with differently. Once you are fair and just, I believe you will succeed and I think that is the pillar that will determine the success or not of any administration in Delta State, your ability to be fair across board.
Sir, as the image maker of the State, what in your opinion do you think can be done to bridge the communication gap between the Government and the governed especially as the 2015 general election is fast approaching?
Well, what I think and belief is that the press has a major role to play. Lately we have a situation where same reporters came out with a publication, which did not do the much in promoting peace and brotherliness, we are talking to Deltans about. I still believe that it has to do with some form of misrepresentation or whatever you may call it of a simple interview.
We don’t need that, I don’t believe we should engage in what is called lifting the veil in law where you talk to a public official and you now want to speculate him. You ascribe to him thought, so I think the press especially as we go into the election should have one thing paramount in their minds and that is; whatever you are putting out there is it going to engender peace among the different ethnic groups we have in the state?
We are looking at and making sure to have a cordial working relationship and of course we the public officials should hold ourselves accountable of the things we say. Always go through that LITMUS TEXT and if you ask me, I will say that whatever you need to say, does it enhance peace and security in Delta State and among the ethnic groups? If it is not, may that thought remain silent with you forever because, there is no need to deliberately cause problem in the state. So like I said, the press owes us a duty to work as partner to ensure that people do not go round speculating and putting up reckless statements that will heat up the polity, we don’t need that in Delta State.
