Home/Interview/This Project Has K-Leg, I Will Not Touch It

This Project Has K-Leg, I Will Not Touch It

 -Governor Godswill Akpabio 

His focus at the birth of his administration was to build a new generation of Akwa Ibom state. He strongly believed that he would achieve this by the grace of God who by His will appointed him to the exalted seat. And today Governor Godswill Akpabio has achieved more than he planned. His efforts at giving the state a new face have put Akwa Ibom on the lead of most states of the Federation. In this interview with nigeriannewsonnet, the forceful, down- to- earth and affable governor speaks of how God has been leading him to make the mark and his plans for the next two years when he would be beating his chest that he has done more that he was elected by the people to do.

Your Excellency Let’s talk about the vision behind the Ibom International Airport Project with specific mention of the MRO project?

Governor Godswill Akpabio

My vision for the aviation industry is to make Akwa Ibom a major attractive private hub for Nigeria. This is because unless the Federal Government in interested in partnering with us in the maintenance hangar, otherwise it remains a private enterprise of the state government. And there are many countries you go to and they have a private airport. The only thing is that the country will naturally give the private airport certain licences, either a licence to be a cargo hub, or a license for private planes internationally to land or you are allowed to run commercial flights in and out of the airport. And so people have choices; they can choose to land at the private airport or they can choose to land at the public airport. But as a state, we believe we should partner with the Federal Government to develop the maintenance repair and overhaul facility; It will achieve a lot in terms of reduction of air accidents because some minor checks that we could carry out on an aircraft are sometimes delayed because the lead time-you have to fly six hours to Europe or go to South Africa to get your aircraft checked. Before you come back and go into commercial business. But if that MRO is made a national hangar and is operational, within 45 minutes you can quickly jump in and do your check and go back and continue your operations. Aircraft is all about maintenance. It is not so much the age, it all about maintenance. If the maintenance is scheduled, the aircraft will work well. So I think that is the major contribution my state is making. The idea was muted by the last administration that the state will have an MRO but I did the ground breaking, I started the foundation-just like I started the foundation of all the buildings in the airport. What I met on ground was 10 per cent, and the 10 per cent was because the land was acquired and they were clearing the runway. But they had not closed the whole of Oron road which the runway traversed. I was privileged to get an approval from the then present Umar Y’Adua through the Minister of Aviation, Felix Hyat.  I closed the runway and then constructed the full-blown runway for us to land the first plane in September 2009. But when we started full commercial operations, it was about November or thereabout.  And since then, it has been very okay. In 2011, my knowledge of it is that we have carried about 403,000 passengers. Last year, it was about a million passengers. You can see that from the passenger traffic, the airport is very viable. Therefore, we decided to expand. Instead of the interim terminal building, we decided to build a major international terminal hub, and then make a provision for an Airbus A380 (the largest commercial plane) plane to be able to land there. The model is in my lodge. One of the fingers will actually accommodate an Airbus A380 plane. I think It is good for Nigeria to have the right infrastructure just in case we need them. All we are doing is to complement the already existing airports we have in Port Harcourt and Calabar. I have gone to many countries; you go to London, you have an airport in Heathrow, it does not stop you from having an airport in Gatwick, it does not stop you from having an airport in Stansted, it does not stop you from having an airport in Luton, it does not stop you from having an airport in City (the one they called City Airport), and so many other ones. You can go and within five-five minutes of air shots you see various airports. And of course those things promote commercial activities-and they are all international. And that is the same way when you go to New York. It is the same thing everywhere. If you go to Germany, you land in Dusseldorf, you land Cologne- they are 25 minutes apart. And within some cities, there are about two or three airports or more. So I think airport development, creating access to the global community; the same thing with marine and ship, we should also create as many viable options as possible; that way Nigeria can boom economically.   I think this airport development is very key, and it remains a priority of my administration. Safety of the airspace is very important for all. Otherwise what we are working for will be very terrible. Otherwise, you cannot have a situation where your brother or sister or child or father or husband boards a plane and you stop work, and start reading the bible and praying and continuing in prayer until he calls you that he or she has landed. That level of anxiety is not good for the health of a nation. And I think we must put all hands on deck to ensure that we all contribute our quota towards air safety. A state of possibilities, Akwa Ibom, is what we are building.

 

You have achieved a lot; what should we expect in the next two years?

 

One of the newly constructed roads in Uyo

Majorly, you expect a lot of investors to come in terms of industrialisation. We want to attract industries into the state-fertiliser plant, ammonia plant etc. We want to work in collaboration with the Nigerian Ports Authority to develop Ibanga Deep Sea Port in the state. We have got an Export Free Trade Zone licence over Ibanga. So we expect major investments in the maritime industry.

Secondly, you will be expecting a lot of commissioning. We are commissioning the biggest hatchery in West Africa to produce day-old chicks for the whole of the South-South region in Oran.  We will be commissioning the Tropicana Entertainment Centre in the next few months with a second five-start hotel (15-storey building); where we will have a shopping mall with a wait-and-drive park and with an international conference centre. Then at the same time, we will be commissioning a state-of-the-art international hospital, which is modelled after any major hospital in the world.  And we hope that this will also be a major answer to capital flight occasioned by people rushing to India for health facility. We also look forward to a dualised thoroughfare from Uyo, all the way to Aba in Abia State in other to link the economies of the two states. And that work has already started.

Of course in the next few months, we should be commissioning the first private-public sector partnership in the gas sector. We have completed three gas processing plants. We will be processing gas from the gas reservoir of Akwa Ibom state. We are hoping that we can work closely with private companies to stop gas flaring on our shore lines. At the same time, we want to see whether we can have a revolution in agriculture. We empowered a lot of our women; 4500 women in the first instance with finances for improved seedling. And then we don’t want to have a clog in production. But my hope is that my state, from 2013 or 2014, can become self-sufficient in food production, and can feed the neighbouring states because no nation can boast of greatness unless they are self sufficient in agriculture.  And those are the things we are looking at.

The E-library located in Uyo

And the things I can not do while I am in office, I am already writing down my handing over notes, preparing for the next governor to come and do. I have a blueprint of where I think the state should be. We started something three years ago which a lot of people are not aware of. We started the Akwa Ibom State University, a state-owned university. We are now in the third year. Like they say, in the next one or two years what do you expect? I will expect to graduate my first set of students. With a free and compulsory education policy which is open to all Nigerian children in Akwa Ibom state, there was need for us to create an alternative university to the only Federal university we have in the state (the University of Uyo). So that we can improve on the student intake in the university because you know the available chances in the Nigerian universities to the yearly applicants is not up to 50 per cent; that is the simple truth. Thousands of Nigerians are still being denied the opportunity of tertiary education. That is why we had to set up the state university. I will be expecting that in the next one or two years, I will be graduating my students from the second Akwa Ibom University which was started under this administration.

At the end, you expect a small modest state, secure in every respect, where things work. Of course I have constructed a lot of roads and bridges and I am still building, I am not tired. I will be commissioning so many others. One of the longest bridges that we are doing in the state is 1.2km. I will expect that in the next one to two years, I will commission that bridge. And for the first time in history, people in that community will be able to take cars home since they were born, instead of paddling canoes.  So many things are going on. Akwa Ibom is work-in-progress. I am still not satisfied. I feel there are lots to be done. And I wish I had the money, I would have done that.

 

Why have you refused to complete the Science Park project started by the last administration since most of your projects are people-oriented?

The last administration conceived the idea of a science park. Two things are wrong with the project. The first one is the location; no matter the building you put there, such a building is threatened by erosion. It will cost you more to arrest this factor than the cost of the project itself. The second issue is that, that project is prone to the probing of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission because the total cost of that project was N5.6bn and the last administration paid N5.3bn upfront. And the work done is not up to N400m. So your guess is as good as mine. It is like you re going to buy litigation.  That was happened. If a project is N5.6bn and the government paid N5.3bn upfront, you would expect the contractor to move the project to a reasonable level. And this has been published from 2007 when I came in to 2013, and nobody has come to controvert it that the work done is N3bn or N4bn or N5bn. It has been investigated by the House of Assembly and the report is available. So for me, I think it is almost like taking your hand to buy litigation. I think I should take my people to the information age. And that was why I built a major information centre-the E-Learning Centre. It is the first of it in whole of West Africa. It competes favourably. And once we can run it professionally and give a programme that allows schools and children to come in there on periodic basis, we have an amphitheatre there, and the place is well utilised, we will still achieve the same purpose-which is taking our people to the information age and ensuring that we are ICT-compliant. So that E-Library is a place that I think we should thing of how to run in way that will impact positively on upcoming children. I don’t want to talk much of the science park because they will thing I am criticising the last governor and I am not. I drew my own line and I said I will come and do mine and leave. Here is a governor who even spent the first one to two years completing the projects of his predecessor. Like I met the Le Meridian Hotel, I went and completed it. The road to that hotel was started by the last administration, I went ahead to complete it. The Golf Course, I had to close it down for one year to complete it. The Independent Power Plant, they had not finished the installation of the turbines, I completed it. Even the airport that we did, I did not start it; it was started by the last administration- that was why I said they had gone in by 10 per cent. What I did was that I met the site, I saw only portacabins on site, and when the contractor ran away, I re-awarded the contract to ALCON Nigeria Limited. I finished the first phase and I am on the second phase. I have never been a governor who shies away from the conceived projects of the previous administration. But this particular science park project has K-leg. With N5.6bn project and N5.3bn paid upfront, I don’t think I should touch that project. You will not advice me to touch that project unless the contractor can give account of how he utilised the N5.3bn he collected from the Akwa Ibom state government, and why work done on ground is not up to N300bn. There can never be an end to government. By 2015, Godswill Akpabio’s own portion of the work is finished and another person’s own will start. So please leave the project to the next government.