Eze Monday Ugbor is the traditional ruler of Aba- Ukwu Kingdom of Abia State. In this Interview with EMMANUEL IFEANYI, he speaks on the security situation in the country and what he thinks monarchs can do to help the situation as well as the deplorable condition of Aba, the commercial nerve centre of Abia State and expectations from Alex Otti’s administration
Ao far what is your assessment of the Alex Otti-led administration in Abia State?
There’s a saying that nothing is as good as change because it has a way of making everybody feel good, especially when it’s on a positive note. I can’t sit here to condemn the former administration of Governor Okezie Ikpeazu, but from what the incumbent governor has said and from what we’re seeing, he wants to make a positive change in the story of Abia, which is what every citizen of state wants because we want our state to move from good to better.
As a traditional ruler, I will advise that we support him 100 per cent to see what he has for us. Aba-Ukwu is one of the foremost communities in this city and the location of my community, is mainly around the Port Harcourt road axis of the city and we have our own share of bad roads that have made Aba something else for several decades.
So, I was happy when the new governor brought the construction giant, Julius Berger, to look at the situation of Port Harcourt road, which covers many parts of my community. I’m happy because if Port Harcourt road is reconstructed, my community will bounce back to life. I pray God helps him to accomplish what he has in mind for us.
How has the several decades of decay of Aba affected your people and what kind of Aba do you want to see henceforth?
It’s good that you are aware that the decay of Aba has been there, while several administrations have come and gone. The decay didn’t just start in 2015 or even a year or two before it. I was born in Aba; I went to school in Aba and I know what Aba used to be. From 1999 and even beyond, the decay has been enormous. Our businessmen and women have relocated to places like Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.
The Ariaria International Market has been abandoned by people from neighbouring states like Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Cross River, who always saw Aba as the centre for commerce. But they didn’t abandon Aba by will or voluntarily. They abandoned Aba because there was no road to access Aba from the main entrance via the Enugu-Aba-Port Harcourt highway to other adjoining rooms.
It’s indisputable that a majority of Nigeria’s top importers reside here in Aba. What the decay of Aba’s infrastructure has done to their businesses is unprecedented. Whenever I see these things, I remember the glory days of Aba, when I was not even a king. These importers will clear their goods from Port Harcourt or Lagos but on getting to Abia State, the goods will perish after the vehicle must have fallen.
The decay of Aba affected all of us – indigenous people, settlers, traders and importers. When business people were leaving Aba in their droves, nobody blamed them because that Aba where somebody will come with nothing and go with many things is no longer what they’re seeing. Several decades of mass exodus of business people from Aba have affected the economy of this great city. However, it seems that the prayers of Aba populace have been answered.
So, I want to see a progressive Aba; an Aba that made all Nigerians proud in the economic community of Africa; an Aba, where the ingenuity of the people pushes everybody into creative modes that makes us who we are. I want to see the Aba, where hard work pays; that old Aba where people come and wonder if we’re super-humans because of what we can create.
I want an Aba where the importers will bring their goods safely and our neighbours will still come in and buy. You can see what our brothers from Abia North have been able to do with the clothing and textile business. Today, people from outside Nigeria are now coming to Aba to buy their clothing materials. What I’m saying is that we can improve this already achieved success and make it better. That’s the Aba I want.
The clothing and textile business has improved the economy of this city and I expect all sectors to improve. I will also plead with the Abia governor to intervene in the activities of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), which seems to be out to make life uncomfortable for business people and importers in my community and Aba in general.
I will advise that these Customs personnel remain at the borders, seaport or airport or wherever the law has stipulated they should stay and not go about harassing our traders in the markets and streets. I call for this intimidation and harassment to end and I urge the Abia State government to look into it seriously because such extortionist activities affect our traders and have huge negative impacts on prices.
They are adding insult to injury here. Again, I want to see Port Harcourt road, Ikot-Ekpene road, Obohia road, Omuma road and Ohanku road bounce back to life, so that Aba can reclaim its old name as the Japan of Africa.
Does the security situation worry you and what do you think you and your fellow royal fathers can do to help?
It is very clear to everybody that without security, there’s nothing anybody is planning that will be successful. Security gives investors and anybody confidence and a sense of safety at all times. Thank God I’ve been hearing police talk more about community policing.
I am advocating that community policing be institutionalised in Abia State and implemented through the traditional rulers. If all necessary materials meant to fight against these criminals are made available to us, I believe we know our communities better and we can help put an end to some of the security challenges we have today.
I have an outfit myself put in place in my community where I monitor them. I call on all traditional rulers to equally checkmate what’s happening in their respective areas, especially the boys working for them to curb crimes that need to be continuously checked.
Do you think granting of autonomy to local governments will help in the fight against insecurity?
Certainly, there’s a need for local government to have some autonomy because it’ll seriously reduce the gap in government from the state capital to the wards and villages. If you check some states that have done well, their local governments must have functioned properly.
It is good to publish what is given to the local governments, so that even the communities through their traditional rulers can ask questions about what impacts the funds are making in their areas. How can one ask questions when he knows absolutely nothing about what’s coming into the local governments? If the local governments are functional, we as traditional rulers will demand for support in the area of security in our various communities.
But when the local governments go cap in hand before they can pay their staff, how can we now go to ask them to support security? Honestly, we need a healthy local government system to tackle insecurity because everybody knows his community well. Thank God our incumbent governor has promised to ensure that the traditional rulers in Abia are paid their statutory five percent allocation of the local government fund.
If it will be given to the traditional rulers, which I believe would be done, we’ll use part of that money to fund security in our domains. I also want to call on traditional rulers, who have not formed neighbourhood security watch outfits to do so because it is bad that one community will chase away criminals only for them to go to another community and regroup. Before now in my community, going out around 6.am was difficult but when we gave them a chase, such nonsense does not happen in Aba-Ukwu again.
However, they’ve relocated to other communities without security. So, let them give the local councils their funds and then supervise how they spend such funds. There’s no way the local government will have funds and we can’t monitor it. Let them introduce transparency in the system and when that’s done, I know that all communities in Aba will rise again and there’ll be no insecurity.
How are the vulnerable in your community coping, following the removal of subsidy on fuel?
Everybody in my community is predominantly a trader or farmer, so we need complete decentralization of authorities, especially during these Federal Government aides. They can work with the states, then states with local government, while the local governments through the wards will take it straight down to the community and village and kindred level. We know our people well, and we know the vulnerable ones better.
It’s disheartening that whenever such things come, our people will keep asking us questions while the politicians and their cronies smile home with what’s meant for the vulnerable people who are in the lower base of our society. I was happy when I read that the Nigeria Governors’ Forum rejected to use National Social Register that was put together by the National Social Safety Nets Coordinating Office (NASSCO) because it’s funny how people expect that somebody in Abuja or even Umuahia here can produce an accurate register of those who are poor in our country.
Who compiled such a register? Who did they work with? The political appointees will always use their surrogates and family members to fill up the poverty register and what was meant to bring succour to our vulnerable people will now become another channel of syphoning money by politicians. That was why throughout Former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, we didn’t feel the impacts of his palliative measures which we keep reading and hearing about.
If they decide to use politicians again, they’ll conner it to their supporters and it’ll become an issue of who was loyal to who. This is why I feel good about the system of the current Governor in some of his appointments where he uses technocrats instead of pure politicians in some important positions and offices. I’m sure such will bear good fruits despite whatever anybody thinks.
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