Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State recently hosted President Goodluck Jonathan, who was in the state on a two-day official visit. The governor spoke with select senior journalists from Nigerian Tribune on sundry development issues concerning the state, declaring that the opposition was on a campaign of calumny against him, among other issues. Assistant Editor Dapo Falade, who was there, brings excerpts.

Your vaunted achievements notwithstanding, the opposition is saying that your government and agents are the masterminds of the cases of kidnapping and assassination. What is your take on this?
You can help me there; do you know how you can do that? When they talk about it, dismiss it as a fabrication, as a normal character assassination; a situation of giving a dog a bad name in order to hang it.

It is part and parcel of the same friction we are talking about. I contested election within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2007, against 57 aspirants and not one person lost his life, not one person lost his car tyre or received a threat message. In the general election, I contested with eight other candidates of different political parties and no lives were lost and we are still friends till today. If you check my campaign slogan, it says, “Let God’s will be done”. Is it a man who wants God’s will to be done in his electoral fortune who will then take laws into his hands to go and kill just to perpetuate himself in the office?

If I did not kidnap or kill anybody when 57 aspirants contested against me, is it now that I would begin to do all those things? I had no access to the PDP; the party’s national chairman, by then, never met me; he didn’t know me, until a week to the primary and also I had no access to the Aso Rock.

The then national chairman, Dr. Ahmadu Ali, never met me until I went to introduce myself to him a week to the primary. I was even walked out of his office. Having gone through all that, before I became a governor, I will suddenly now become desperate, when I have proven myself as a leader and millions of my people are admiring me, after winning their confidence. They reposed confidence in me when they saw my performance as a commissioner for six years. Is it now that I have added “A” performance to my credentials that I will say people should not contest against me? The portfolio of performance I am carrying behind me into 2011 is like a man walking on a booster escorted by the lion; will he be afraid of a goat? So, disregard those insinuations and help to tell them not to play politics with people’s lives.

I have petitioned the presidency about the sinister plot of the opposition to frame me up, believing that that is the only way to stop me. There is a plot in which they said they want to give the governor of Akwa Ibom State the Mbadinuju treatment.

And what is Mbadinuju treatment? It was thought that the only way the oppositions could stop former Governor Chinwoke Mbadinuju of Anambra State from going for re-election in 2003 was to kill as many Anambrarians as possible and frame up the so-called Bakassi boys. Of course, they killed some people and took pictures to show former President Olusegun Obasanjo to paint the man bad. By framing up insecurity and murder, they finally stopped him, got him arrested after he had lost immunity and charged him to court. Please help to tell Nigerians that they should shout now and not to allow the opposition to frame me up. That is what is happening here.

I have gone to the National Security Adviser (NSA) in February and reported the situation in the state that these people were plotting to assassinate people in order to frame me up as a means of stopping me from going for the second term, because they cannot fault me on performance.

There is this young man who came from the diaspora to contest; they went to his house and shot him. He escaped, but they kidnapped his mother. Initially, I thought it was one of the usual stories. I did not know it was true. They murdered the woman and dropped her body by the roadside. Even my friend, Paul Inyang, was killed in a church in Ibesikpo. He was the secretary of the South-South Aspirants Electoral Screening Committee which screened the governorship aspirants in 2006, of which the chairman was Hassan Adamu. The opposition in Akwa Ibom, who did not want me to be governor, tried to bribe him to use him to disqualify me, but he refused. It became a problem since they had no case against me; they wanted to block me, but the man refused.

In fact, the 29-year-old son of the man, when I went on a condolence visit to deceased’s house, said, “Your Excellency, I want you to know that my father was killed because of his support for you”.

But the opposition, who wants to get hold of power by all means, are going about painting my name black with such evil story. All these are been plotted because they could not fault me on performance. We are sitting here in a brand new Governor’s Lodge which I built with my team in one year four months. The flyover in Uyo is there, the dualised Ikot 59 Ikot Ekpene Abak Road and the Airport Road were done within the short period we have spent in the office. We have completed more than 204 urban roads and we have provided electricity to 852 communities. I have done more than 3,100 projects; I have also constructed and repaired more than 1,500 classroom blocks. Still, the opposition is saying I have done nothing. I have completed five brand new general hospitals, while work is ongoing on the specialist hospital here.

What is the motivation behind the numerous projects you are doing in various parts of Akwa Ibom State?
We are not particular about any part of the state or sector. This administration is for an all-inclusive development. We embarked upon several feasible projects to enhance the socio-economic development of this state and its people.

For instance, we have started another major project which I call The 20th Anniversary Specialist Hospital; it is under construction and it was designed by a Switzerland-based company to meet international standard. I would like to finish it by myself because I believe it would be a major medical resource centre. When I finished the e-library, I want to furnish it to meet my vision in which people can see a place to do advanced degree research studies; it will also be a major resource centre for both adult research and children development. It will be completely electronic.

The idea is to attract people to Akwa Ibom. I told myself that the lives of my people cannot be the same again. I met a state that was pedestrian in the sense that people pass here to Port Harcourt or to Calabar, but nobody was coming to Akwa Ibom. So, I decided to make Akwa Ibom a commercial hub and no longer a pedestrian state. And if we are to become a destination, it means that we must begin to expand the existing infrastructure. That is why we are pursuing aggressive infrastructure development.

I have completed about 49 brand new roads, in Eket, which is unprecedented in the history of development since 1960 in that local government area and the people are very grateful for it. I told President Goodluck Jonathan that what will shock him is not what he saw in the state capital, but the development projects in the hinterlands.  He had a glimpse of it, because he commissioned in just one location 18 brand new roads in Ikot Abasi. In his amazement, he asked where these are and I said this is only a local government area. Also if you go to Oron, at least you will see 34 roads that we have commissioned, hoping that before December, all the other roads would have been completed.

At Ikadihan, we are building a road with the longest bridge in the state which will, on completion, bring succour to that community. This is because the people of that community normally use canoe to get there because of flood. Of course, you saw the mammoth crowd when we commissioned the Ibroron/ Oko Ita Road. It is one road that has opened up the hinterland that goes into the food basket of Akwa Ibom State. There is one other road I could not take the president to see; we call it Eneng Igit and it transcends about four local government areas. The other one is the 56 km road from Afaha Obong, all the way to Aba in Obehi with a bridge and fantastic landscape done by Setraco Contractors. Those are areas which have been crying for roads for over 45 years. The last road which was done in that place was in 1963 by the Eastern Region government.

So, I want you to imagine the impact. People have built their houses which became dilapidated because of lack of good roads and these houses were abandoned. There are people who have not visited their homes for over 30 years because of bad roads. We called what we are doing in Akwa Ibom, an uncommon transformation. This is because I am being led by God.

You mentioned motivation. I was angry when people say so much money goes to the Niger Delta and there is nothing to show for it. So, I am trying to justify the fact that this area needs development. We are talking about 13 per cent derivation, but with what you have seen in Akwa Ibom today, if I tell you to  give me 15 -20 per cent, you gladly say we have something to show for the one we were given. We want to see if we can use the derivation money we are collecting to change lives in Niger Delta forever so that it would not just amount to a case of stolen funds. Of course, we are working to meet the needs of the people, so that we have the right to demand for more money from the Federation Account so that this region can change.

What informed your idea a sewage project in your state?
I used to ask questions about what our leaders see when they go outside the country. Beside the sewage project, many of the projects we are embarking upon were what I saw outside Nigeria.  For instance, my plan for Akwa Ibom International Airport was informed by my trip to South Africa. We landed at an airport called Land in a Private International Airport for Cargo Light. On landing there, I demanded for the people who built the airport and I appealed to them when we advertise the building of our terminal here that they should bid for it because it was going to be Design, Build and Operate. What I saw at the South African airport was a very functional international airport that was not loud and that does not have excess baggaging. Also, this was the case of our new Government House; it is a functional lodge and every single room and parlour you see there is useful.

I expect our leaders to do the same; if our leaders see discipline outside, why don’t they bring the same discipline into our system? Why do you go as Nigerian leaders and line up in a train stations or enter a cinema hall or buy something in a supermarket on queue only to come here and the mentality of orderliness change? Our leaders see good houses, nice road networks and flyovers, regenerated environment and quality housing scheme, but when they come home, they don’t replicate them here.

The waste management we introduced here was another thing the president would have commissioned. I brought truck with compactors. That facility helps to compact 74 bins in one truck and empty it to be compacted into a size not bigger than a table. We are now going to bring a major sanitation agency which would handle the metropolis. These are the kind of things we see outside. That was the same way we conceived the idea of flood control. It was first seen in Copenhagen, in Denmark. We see it as something that can apply in Niger Delta because of the nature of our swampy terrain and I thank God that the president saw it. Many of our cities like Lagos, Port Harcourt have flood challenges when it comes to rainy seasons. I don’t know how Abuja is.

One of the advantages that our flood control system has is that you don’t need to break into people’s property and begin to pay compensation. So, at the intermittent level, we have this reservoir and the water goes into it while the reservoir goes into a big pipe laid 40 feet below every house. That is the way modern construction is done all over the world, like the tunnel system in Europe that moves all the way through the ocean. Of course, as it discharges the water, if it is a place that has too much rainfall and you put the discharge in a small turbine, it can get between 10 and 20 megawatt of electricity. So, our underground flood control project here in Akwa Ibom is actually something that can be useful.

For Nigeria to develop, we must stop this idea of doing shabby projects, where funds end up in private pockets, while the projects are being repeated, for example, the Nigerian roads. All the major Nigeria roads, from Lagos to Ore, Ore to Benin, Benin to Onitsha are in the national budget every year and maintenance costs are being paid, but everybody who passes through those roads knows where the monies are going. We must begin to change things.

The kind of roads we are building here will last 50 years. When the Minister of Works came here, his comment was that the standard is higher than the standard set by the Federal Government. I brought the standard from Germany, where Mercedes Benz has its headquarters and I brought the specification here. If I have the fund, I will even bury underground all the poles for electricity distribution. That is why I have applied for distribution; I am not just going to generate electricity, rather I have applied to the Federal Government to give us license to do the distribution. Come back to Uyo in December; I assure you that will not recognise the place. I have given out contract for urban renewal of Uyo; if you were with us at Ikot Abasi and Eket, you will discover that all the roads we commissioned have landscape and walk ways. I am changing the entity of the state of the town and by December, the story will be totally different.

My humble background taught me a lesson that there are children who may be orphans or too poor to have the opportunity to have basic education. So, I declared free and compulsory education which I signed into law that it is mandatory that every child of school age must be allowed to go to school free. The president inaugurated 3.5 million brand new text books across different subjects to be distributed in all the primary and secondary schools. And the government is paying 100 naira per child per term to the school headmasters to ensure that children primary schools are functional and also pay 300 naira per term to secondary school principals to ensure that logistics are provided. I want to use education to change this country, to fight militancy and cultism. I have brought Ethics and Moral Education as a compulsory subject in schools to ensure that there is a balance in moral standard in the system. We are getting those children closer to God.

What is the driving philosophy behind the security village system you introduced?
A lot of local government chairmen prefer to live in the state capitals, where they have night clubs and shopping malls, but I see a leader as someone who can live among his people. I want to stop the idea of people who won election coming to capital city to live and yet claim to be the local government chairmen. They are just absentee chairmen.

I want to make sure that every local government chairman can be found in his council; that is why I am building security villages in the entire state. Also I want to ensure that the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) and the Divisional Crime Officer (DCO) who assist the DPO and the SSS officer all live in their various locations. So, I call it not just security villages, but also administrative residential villages where every personnel matters can be found there. So when I finish, nobody will have an excuse not to stay in their area and that will improve school system because their children will be attending schools where their parents are living. If you are living within a community, you will be forced to protect the area. You can call it mini-GRA.

But the opposition is saying you are just a propagandist without anything to show for it...
The problem lies with the inability of most past leaders to detach their mentality from office. If Nigerians do not learn to detach themselves from the offices they hold, then, we are wasting our time on the attainment of democracy because this power belong to the people and it is given to you by God on behalf of the people.

The reason former governors are mounting opposition against the incumbents is because they have not really detached themselves for the offices they used to occupy. Many of them are suffering from withdrawal syndrome. No matter how good you are, they must attack you until the day you pack out of the Government House.