Ogiemwonyi: I 'll Use My Exposure to Deliver Quality Leadership in Edo

Ogiemwonyi: I 'll Use My Exposure to Deliver Quality Leadership in Edo

THISDAY LIVE
29 Nov 2015
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Chris Ogiemwonyi

Chris Ogiemwonyi is an engineer by profession. He retired as Executive Director (Exploration and Production), Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, before his appointment as Minister of State for Works. The former Peoples Democratic Party chieftain and ex-minister, who later defected to All Progressives Congress, is a governorship aspirant on the platform of APC for next year’s election in Edo State. In an interview with some journalists recently, Ogiemwonyi explained the motivation for his governorship bid as the desire to use his talent and experience to work for his people. Adibe Emenyonu was there. Excerpts:

You are aspiring to become governor of Edo State next year. What is driving your interest in the race?

I am motivated to render service, and don’t forget I did this successfully for 34 years at the central government. Thirty four years I worked for NNPC and haven done that to the satisfaction of my people. I think the remaining part, when I am still strong, I should equally come to render that same service to my people.

What do you think you have to offer differently?

Because of who I am, I have my character. One thing I market today is my name, which is a brand in terms of integrity and accountability, good governance. These are things I cherish seriously and I market them as a brand. Then my experience, exposure for 34 years in a key sector of our economy, which is oil and gas, my pedigree as a hard working person, everybody knows that. So if you look at these attributes, by the time you accumulate these things, you will see a fine gentleman coming out for this cause.

It is widely insinuated that you do not have the necessary structures in the party to win the primaries. What would you say about this?

I hear that and I laugh when I hear it; structure, what is structure, these are human beings. What is going to play out now and tomorrow in Nigeria is not how deep you are in politics, but people are going to respect the character of the person. As things are evolving, it will get to a point where even the party is not going to be the determinant but the person. When you talk about this issue of structure, the delegates in their quiet moments at home are human beings, they will keep on analysing who is the best among us, people will on their own make up their minds who to vote for based on the character of that person. I promise you the parties we belong to now are not going to be very serious about those considerations. People will be looking at the persons. Because they are human beings, they will be very analytical in reaching their decisions.

There is an outgoing governor who many believe will be leaving big shoes behind. Do you think you have the wherewithal to step into Governor Adams Oshiomhole’s shoes when his tenure ends?

I wish you will have time to ask about me when I was in NNPC, if it is possible you interrogate the people I worked with in my last three to four years in the NNPC. You will get a better judgment if you do that. Why was this man so highly respected by everybody in the oil companies, in NNPC? Let me save time by not saying who I am but I expect you should go out and find out who Chris Ogiemwonyi is, my name is synonymous with courage to do what is right, that is my name.

What are your plans for the state in terms of job creation, considering the number of unemployed youths, especially graduates?

On the average today in Edo State, just like in other states, in every house, we have a minimum of two to three unemployed graduates. The situation is like that in all homes, not only in Edo State. So the issue of job creation is something every incoming government needs to think through in Nigeria. My take on this is that I must commend Comrade Oshiomhole for what he has been able to do, but I think it is an area we should look deeper to find out how we should address this.

I must commend the state government for rebranding the Okpella Cement factory. I was in NNPC; I was part of those that worked in Obajana because the gas pipeline to Obajana was done when I was the CEO of NGC. The first day I went to Obajana, when I saw the number of people working in that cement company, we can recreate more of Obajana here. But why I will not talk too much on this is that it is like me reeling out my manifesto. But believe you me, I think the incoming government should do a feasibility of all mineral resources in Edo State and me coming from the oil and gas sector, it is one thing that I will do, to put a strong team to quickly do the feasibility.

Do a feasibility of the whole and quickly identify these resources and then pursue foreign investors. I already have some. Some people have told me, Chris, if you come in, we need some amount of land for car assembly, they want to come to Edo State for that. I have some friends from China they have told me already that plant can employ about 3,000 youths. All they need from me is to provide the land. This state will be a place for industry destination in this part of the country. People believe me, they trust that there will be sanctity of agreement, I will respect the content of that agreement and I will not go round to ask for favour in terms of equity interest, they know me already. I have established my name, my name is a brand.

What is your take on the opinion in some quarters that your party’s anticorruption fight is selective?

Every process when it is starting people hold different opinions. I hate to generalise, but I haven’t seen it to be like that. What I have seen is that this is a regime preaching change and so far, being led by somebody who is an apostle of change, so far so well. With what we are seeing with Mr President, and because of who he is, I am 100 per cent sure that this philosophy will come down gradually. Don’t forget there may be one or two Judases but it is the generality that we should look at in the various sectors.

There are insinuations that the governor may anoint one or two aspirants and the issue of people actually voting during the primary may not arise. How do feel about this?

When you hear things like this, many people prepare to discuss things they don’t know. Oshiomhole preached one man one vote four- five years ago and we saw what happened in this state, things have changed to that philosophy. I as a person like to commend people; this guy destroyed godfatherism. In our state here before now, we had about three people deciding how things were shared. But today, godfatherism is buried and our prayer is that it will never rise again in Edo State. All APC is going to do is that we are going to the field, there will be an open primary, it is the people that decide. He has promised that there will be free and fair primaries, how will anointing come into that? If he is anointing, it is the people you should blame because the only way you can exhibit democracy is through open ballot and that is what the man is preaching.

I have left my base in Abuja to be here so that I can participate in the process and since I joined APC last year, I have been following process by process, I have not seen where this man has defaulted, I must confess. I hate to join people to just condemn. He has done well. But don’t forget that I am an apostle of transparency and what you are saying, if I sense it, I am like him, I will go to the streets, I will protest. I don’t want to join people to say that, who was there when he did the anointing? Let us try and destroy rumour mongering, that thing has destroyed so much in Nigeria.

What would you say about the controversial land use charge?

Ask yourself, these people complaining, how many of them have seen the government gazette on the charge? People are just doing this bandwagon effect, my friends are crying and you want to join the cry. By my training, I prefer to go to the Ministry of Justice, get a copy and study it and from those who have studied it, it is not for the whole state, it is not for the whole city, it is for the low density areas. The question you will ask yourself is, is it new, does it exist in other parts of the world? By the time you answer these questions, it is not new. Even those that have houses in London, not on the ground, maybe in the ninth floor, they still pay. Those that have flats in New York, as compact as the city is, they still pay. I think we should commend him for being creative in IGR and I think what people should ask is the usage of the money.

What would you advice as a way out of the perennial fuel crisis in Nigeria?

I will advise Mr President to take a serious look at that price. My question is, what rarely constitutes that landing price of the PMS? I want a proper check on this.

During my period in the NNPC, we tried to look into the issue, the structure in the supply chain. I must tell you one thing, till Nigerians are prepared to do things courageously, we may never see an end to this. Several governments have tried to see what the major problems were, one area they identified was that decisions will be based on the landing cost of the product in Nigeria. What is the landing cost? We must check that thing seriously. Are there inefficiencies, are there corrupt practices. I will expect again, President Buhari should get those that know the business to study the process line. The product arriving at Apapa, what is the actual landing cost? My take on that is that there are issues, some wastage. We have heard of demurrage being paid for some ships just at the wharf and they will all account for this landing price.

They can do that. The NPA charges, for example, we must do a serious review of these charges in order to arrive at the actual landing cost of the product. On a global scale, my take on this is to deregulate. Let us pay for the proper price of this product. Open the market, let there be more participant, more players.

If we deregulate, the subsidy we are doing now for our neighbours, Ghana, Benin, Toko, Mali Chad and others will stop and this would see us paying less price for the product. Because of the porous nature of the Nigerian borders, most of the products that have been heavily subsidised by the Nigeria government find their way into these countries. Our borders are very porous, we are subsidising the products for our neighbouring countries. Go to our borders and you see trucks crossing over with products.

What do you think the current Minister of State for Petroleum, who also doubles as GMD of NNPC, can do to solve the fuel problem?

What is his background? It is in Nigeria you just say come and serve. When they made me Minister of State for Works, I asked Mr President, what do you expect me to do? He said, just minister. But I said, abroad, ministers are supposed to add value. Before appointing someone minister, his/her training should be considered. I respect Ibe Kachukwu, a lawyer, I expect he will do well when it comes to policy formulations but when it comes to the nitty-gritty of the operations, I expect he will depend solely on the technical people.

What do you think should be done to make our refineries work?

What the refineries are crying for is that they lack products. They need crude to process. I tell you one thing, not because I am a former staff of the NNPC and I am trying to praise them, I still rate the NNPC boys as some of the most patriotic Nigerians, a company still worth the best workforce. When you talk about corruption in NNPC, I will always advise people, please, be specific. Before the time of Deziani in NNPC, NNPC was doing well but when you now bring some ministers that are trying to double as minister and GMD, down the line the only thing these companies can do well is to guarantee supply of crude and with the high number of vandalism, for example, there is no way Kaduna can do well because it cannot get products. Between here and Kaduna they break the line in several places. But we expect that Warri and Port Harcourt should, but again vandalism and I understand that is why they sought for a third party company to bring crude from Excravos and other places to the two refineries.

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