Dr Fidelis Ugbo from Obanliku Local Government Area in the Northern Senatorial District of Cross River State is the Executive Secretary of the National Planning Commission. In this interview with reporters, Ugbo, who is widely believed to be Governor Liyel Imoke’s candidate for 2015, offered advice on how the state can manage its financial handicap. NICHOLAS KALU was there.
Are you interested in Cross River State governorship in 2015?
In 2006, I aspired to the position of governorship of the state and by 2007 after we realigned forces I had to step aside for Liyel Imoke. I worked with him. Since then we have been working together. Then it was between north and central. But central has already taken it and good enough through the wisdom of the party PDP, they have also formally agreed to zone the position to the northern part of the state since the southern had already taken theirs, therefore paving a way for the northern candidates to begin to show their interest as to who wants to run or not want to run. For me that it is natural for people to say yes this man had aspired in 2006, now it is going to his side, the natural thing is that he must show interest whether I have showed interest or not. I believe that there is still time. INEC has a programme of action leading to the 2015 elections and sometime in February this year, they are coming out with a programme. I work under a principal who is Mr President. When they come out with a programme and Mr President makes a statement as our boss, then those of us who are working under him would begin to follow suit. So I do not want to appear to be jumping the gun. The only thing I can say is that I have a voter’s card and I am sure you all do too. You can vote for somebody and if you can vote then you are also qualified to be voted for. So I would like to leave it at that. Until when we have the clearance we would know the next step. If the president says he is not running, that is a statement. So you take it as a statement. So if he has others can make, either for or against.
Even though party has taken a decision, some persons in the south within the PDP are still interested in contesting and their argument is that when others contested in the past, the people from the north entered the race. So by right they are equally free to contest? What do you have to say to this?
What I would say is that we are operating a democracy and what you are seeing is democracy in action. Everybody is free to aspire but if your aspirations go contrary to the party that took the position of course I am not within the party hierarchy to know how they would react to such things but they are in a better position to address such issues. What I can say is that people are free to aspire. It is left for Cross Riverians to take a decision on what they think is the proper thing to be done. So I would not say why this or that should be. That is not my own because we are in a democratic world and we should allow people to express their personal desires and aspirations if it come to matters of governance.
Some people are arguing for the Ogoja-Calabar accord which would mean power returning to the southern senatorial district. Do you agree with this as things stand today?
Talking about Calabar Ogoja accord, those who are good students of history can trace history and be able to define whether what they are talking about exactly falls within the category that they can say this accord is still in existence or no longer exists. When was the accord made, it was made when Cross River State was South Eastern State. The entire Ogoja province started from Akpet to the north and Calabar Senatorial District started from Akamkpa down. And then you had mainland. That was when that accord came about and the reason was that we had overwhelming domination of people from the mainland part of the state and if we are to be able to take power from them, Calabar and Ogoja must unite to be able to take power so they entered into the agreement. Soon after that happened, the mainland became a state called Akwa Ibom today. So that entity which necessitated the coming together of persons to create a Calabar-Ogoja accord, no longer existed. So the substratum upon which the accord was placed was no longer standing and if it is no longer standing, naturally the accord itself would crumble. So I am surprised that people would not read back into history to educate people who may not understand. The Calabar-Ogoja accord no longer holds water because the basis for which it was created no longer exists. So I think it is wrong for anyone to rely on that and begin to make an argument. If you make an argument based on that, it is like making stale arguments.
Cross River has been in a state of financial trouble since it lost its oil revenue. Do you see a way out of the present economic situation?
It is true Cross River suffered some setback with respect to the oil revenue we used to get. And to that extent our finances has dropped and that has put more pressure on us. But if we want to think outside the box, the question we should begin to ask is that are they states in Nigeria that do not have oil and are progressing? And the answer I would give to that is yes, there are. If we don’t have oil to make up for the loss in oil revenue, what is it that we can use as a substitute? I would say we have a good substitute. We are endowed in agriculture. Tourism is also our flagship. We are yet to develop our tourism to the maximum where all Cross Riverians from every home both those in government and outside, those participating in the carnival and those watching in the side-lines would begin to feel tourism. We are yet to take our state to that level. If we can emphasize on those two things and promote our tourism. Encourage small and medium scale enterprises because government alone employ people. Gone are the days when you used to have very few universities, when you graduate, you have many employment letters waiting for you. Now we have too many universities and the public service is not expanding and it is still what it used to be. So you must create and opportunity for self-entrepreneurship.
We should take a critical look at our economy in the state and identify the growth drivers. Once we identify them, let us concentrate on that and leave others. If we do that they would be a better multiplier effect and it would give us the necessary revenue we look forward to and we can development our state.
Take agriculture. In Cross River you can grow maize three times in a year. That in itself is something you can create a big market out of. Cross River is the second largest producer of cocoa in Nigeria but the cocoa we produce in Ikom, we carry the cocoa beans to Lagos. We take it to the west to process it there and export the beans but I think the time has come for us to think of converting our cocoa beans to some semi-processed product that we can now add. In doing that, you create jobs for people. So, we have a lot that we can do to turn things around for our economy. Talking about our tourism what do we need to develop it? Good roads. You cannot drive tourism if your roads are not good. We must pay attention to our infrastructural development. Once we do that, we encourage people to come in. And when they come in think of a way to make them spend the money they have in their pockets. We should develop a sense of making people spend. Once we do that you will discover that everybody begins to benefit from our tourism and the economy is better for it.
