Ebonyi State has enacted Anti-Grazing Law — Uchenna Orji

Barr. Uchenna Orji is a former lawmaker and currently the Ebonyi State Commissioner for Information and Public Orientation, In this Interview with Joshua Elekwachi, he speaks on the development strides of the Governor and his efforts to contain communal-herdsmen clashes in the State. Excerpts:

How do you rate and react to the level of governance in the State since inception and now?

I will say that it is very amazing having such a performance in Ebonyi state in our history. Ebonyi state that was said to be a dumping ground for bad governance and underdevelopment, where we had dearth of infrastructure and all of a sudden a man came from Africa most populous community ‘uburu.’  He came as a man who has traversed parts of Ebonyi State as a party Chairman, deputy Governor and he contested in 2015 to become governor when people thought that no deputy Governor has ever made it to be governor without the support of his boss. God saw him through and he became the first deputy Governor in the history of the world to become Governor at the stiffest opposition and establishment that brought him and this is just the story to tell you that he is a man of history, he became governor the time we had the worst economic recession index. At the time which the party he became a governor failed woefully at the centre, at the time so many things and economic situation were extremely low. These were the issues when he came onboard but without minding this discouraging circumstances he took the bull by the horn and considered five areas of identifications such as Education, Security, Human Capital Development, and of course, Infrastructure. He began to aggressively tackle all of them and is very mindful of equality and equity of the thirteen local government areas and he began to site projects virtually in all the local government areas on the equality basis. I will give you an instance — road construction which he saw as the cardinal, every local government has a fair share of it with at less 10km road done in concrete pavements, street lights which is novel that he brought to the metropolis, the Headquarters of the local government areas. The Governor made sure that Ebonyi state is counted among the states that has the lights you can view from anywhere in the world. The Governor began to face squarely those things that will bring about employment, job creation and what did he do? He first of all started building shopping mall. This shopping mall is what we call the microcosom of the macrocosm of the Dubai mall because if you have been to Dubai you will see what I am talking about. Mr Bruce of Silverbird said that it is the biggest shopping mall ever built in Africa and this is to the credit of our dear Governor. He built the most beautiful international market in southeast and one of the contending largest international market in the world. I don’t want to exaggerate, today it is being used by market men and women with very wonderful facilities and makes life comfortable and I can say that Ebonyi State has a wonderful trade infrastructure. Let me tell you that the governor in 2015 inaugural address said he is going to give Ebonyi people a befitting place of worship to demonstrate that he is David because in all he believes in God, so today we have the biggest African Ecumenical Centre, bigger than the National Ecumenical Centre in Abuja here with wonderful facilities. The Ecumenical centre has state-of-the-art facilities including thousand sitting capacity hall, that is, the main hall with a smaller hall of about five thousand sitting capacity hall with conference houses, lodges and so many offices; and about four water fountains inside the complex. The governor is the governor with the highest number off flyovers in recent goveranance, anywhere in the whole country built by state and federal government, he has the highest level of flyovers built by the same government, and is now having a record as state with highest flyover after Abuja and Lagos. This is historic and we need to appreciate this. He is looking at most crucial infrastructure that will attract investment, industrialization and private sector participation through agricultural development, solid minerals development through citing of factories and industries in Ebonyi state and as I speak to you, we have the IBETO cement that is in Ebonyi state to take off, we have the CRANO production company in Ebonyi state that will provide granite that will be used for the production of fertilizers and all of that. We also have the pharmecutical company that is going to invest not less than $50,000 in getting pharmecutical companies to Ebonyi state. So these are things we are beginning to see under Governor Umahi.

Are these things achieved achieved within six years?

I tell you, it is marvelous, it is magical, it is miraculous and all of these things were achieved by the governor, he is such a man that accomplishes what he talks about. He has done the biggest water fountains, he has biggest light tunnel, I am not sure you have been to Ebonyi state in a recent time. People go there to relax. We have about twelve water fountains that decorate the major junctions of Ebonyi State and have become avenues that attract investors, entertainment, and of course, tourism. Apart from this, the empowerement of our youths and women has been so wonderful, and I can tell you as the former commissioner of Human Capital Development that the governor sometime  ago rolled out a grant of N750 million and empowered 250 people ( he went to Lagos and  empowered Ebonyians under what we call street to scheme, they were given N250,000 each. The Governor procured four hundred tricycles and gave to women and the poorest of the populace because he thinks constantly of enhancing their means of livelihood. The Governor went to the clergy and aggregated them into five hundred and eight and gave them N100,000  each. The ideal is to go into a  business other than laying hands in the offertory, because anyone that has nothing doing will have the temptation of stealing from it.  We called it the second address scheme, and it is applicable to the civil servants, he rolled out over N4 billion and put it in a basket  from which people have been drawing, both state and local government civil servants. This  increased the living standards of the civil servants. The ENDSARS empowerment programme is also on course. The governor rolled out N3 billion and is looking at the first phase of empowering 200 people from each local government area, and has started by giving five (5) million naira to each of the 20 former office holders and other business men from Ebonyi state for a start. He is also thinking that of the N5million, the victims of the ENDSARS protest should be a part of it. The agitation is germane in a democratic setting but when you go outside the law it becomes an issue, and this is why the governor is empowering our people so that you don’t have an excuse to give.

Honourable Commissioner, I was almost going to ask because there were talks that the Governor has not done well in area of Human Capital Development. How true is this?

The reason is simple because people are branding something out of nothing. They have seen that you can’t tell anybody that the governor is not working in terms of development, they have seen you cannot say he is not giving good leadership and goveranance, so they are looking for an abstract to make and accidentally, they have failed themselves because as the first commissioner of Human Capital Development, I can give you statistics without looking at our records of things done over the years. The governor was the first to create Ministry of Human Capital Development, and I am sure that it is only Ebonyi state that has the Human Capital Development as a full-fledged ministry. It was called Ministry of Human Development before the forum of governors went for a conference. A conference anchored by the world Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), and they looked at the bane of development and said, we have got the wealth capable of creating infrastructure and also the infrastructure like Abuja and other places, but why is there no development? The answer is that the human capital development has not been fully addressed which is the bane of development in Africa. The Governor, coming back from the forum, then changed that ministry to Ministry of Human Capital Development and began to do things differently. He now created what we know as Ebonyi state stimulus project that is aimed at capturing men and women especially at employable stage, people that are vibrant by virtue of their vocations and earnings. The Governor is looking at getting people from different walks of life to be empowered. If somebody is saying that Human Capital Development is low in Ebonyi state, the question I will now ask is why is it that the World Bank in 2018 made what they called State Health Index and Ebonyi is said to be above average. Ebonyi built the biggest virology centre, built for each local government a general hospital what we call the secondary health care centres. Ebonyi built biggest Africa universities of medical sciences handed over to Catholic bishops to own and to manage. The NBS report said in areas of human empowerment, job creation iniaitive that Ebonyi is above average.

Ebonyi lately has experienced a lot of hostilities and communal clashes, what could you say is responsible for these clashes, and what is the response of the government?

First of all, before the governor came on board, we had these clashes around the state like in Ishielu, Izzi, Ezza and Ohaozara but when the governor came onboard, he came on the platform of peace and he continued to engage the stakeholders on the need for restoration of peace. You would also appreciate being an agricultural state where people are interested in farming, from time to time they must be clashes over ownership of land and for the fact that the governor has opened up the local government areas, Ebonyi stands as a global village and the governor is using his ingenuity and engagement process to see that there is peace in the rural area.

Should we be expecting normalcy to return soon in those worrying places?

Not anytime soon, it has actually returned. The last time was the ezza-effium crisis, whose panel of inquiry has submitted its reports and I can tell you that despite provocation that later started, that place is peaceful. We had crisis in Enyibichiri, Ukawu-Abaomege, Iyienu-Ezilo, and problems are all resolved and in some cases, the governor will go to the extreme of damacating the boundaries in the contending areas which usually brings permanent peace.

The Governor was alleged to have collected N6 billion for the purpose of Grazing Reserves which he has denied but citizens of the State are yet to come to terms with the government’s explanations. What is the true position and is the government going to promulgate the Anti-Grazing Law ?

Let me first of all address the issue of misrepresentation by our dear brother, the senior Special assistant on media and Publicity to the president, Garba shehu even though he has retracted, but it must be placed on record that the federal government has not given the Ebonyi State Government any N6 billion to go into livestock. What happened is that the governor in his ingenuity and style of goveranance  approached the federal government to develop the solid minerals, to which the federal government indicated interest and said it must be done by the private sector. Thus, a particular amount of money in that neighborhood was rolled out and given to Federal Ministry of Solid Minerals and individual persons interested can now access, and that will trigger development in Ebonyi state, a direct result of the ingenuity of the governor. We are not having herdsmen again in Ebonyi state, but  we had a very cordial relationship with the traditional herdsmen before the clashes were recorded. However, the governor being foresighted, had introduced a lot of ways of ensuring the protection of lives and properties, one of which is the enactment of laws and executive orders that will make it impossible for grazers to move around the state. Initially we had regulations that prevented cattle reserves from moving around the state capital but will be confined in a particular area. When the issue of grazing reserve was resolved by the Southeast governors in owerri, the southern Governors also adopted that and I can tell you that the state is one of the first states to enact a law against open grazing. The ideal of the governor is that if you must graze in any part of Ebonyi state, you must get yourself confined, you must follow the rules but importantly the governor believes we should have to exploit our areas of comparative advantages going to animal husbandry, so we can have meat to eat whether the herdsmen are in the state or not and let me say we have all it takes to enforce these laws.

Are you saying that there is an Anti-Grazing Law which is enforceable Ebonyi State?

Yes, even before the anti-grazing law was promulgated, we have had two executive orders guiding against cattle rearing openly or moving around the street in Ebonyi state but now that we have enhanced the law by the anti-grazing law, I can assure you that we have got no issue and if in the near future that is going to come, it must be done by the rules ensuring they are confined in a place and for now, we have no herdsmen in Ebonyi state because of the recent clashes that led to death of persons in Ebonyi state.

There is controversy trailing the King David Medical School which borders on laws of its establishment and ownership, Can you clerify this?

The problem is that people are going into voyage of discovery of what they are not too sure of. The university of medical sciences also known as the King David Medical Science is a creation of the law, the law created the management system and revenue generation model and the governor really needs to be commended for building Africa’s most respectable universities of medical science recently approved for accreditation by the NUC. However, the governor in his bid to sustain stability and continuity in all the legacy projects that he did, the governor after  consultations gave it for ownership and management to the Nigeria Conference of Bishops.

Has the Conference of  Bishops taken full operation over the medical school?

Process of signing the memorandum of understanding and benefits of government is ongoing. The medical school has capacity to generate 10,000 direct and indirect jobs and provide medical tourism which instead of going to the USA to get yourself treated of diseases, such as liver problem, blood problem and very soon it will take off.

There are rumours that the Governor is interested in running for the number office in the land. Can you confirm this?

I don’t know what you mean, does the governor mean a political party? Workings of Political party is that the party has to go through their conventions and select whoever they like or want. It is not about a question of intention, moreover the Governor’s concentration is how to deliver on the right years mandate given to him and already you know his track record. From when he became party Chairman, he never wanted, but they told him come and hold it for few months. When he came they insisted he must do one tenure, and thereafter, he became the first Chairman to become a deputy governor. So he rose consecutively from being a party Chairman to Deputy Governor, and from Deputy Governor became a Governor. If the governor comes out to say let’s join our hands to make a difference in this country, we will smile because even world leaders will be asking who is that man that is the president of Nigeria because he is a man that can make the desert to be a paradise.