Governor Liyel Imoke of Cross River State recently marked two years of his rerun election victory. He fielded questions from a select group of journalists on the strides of his administration, the 2011 elections, and the strength behind the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF), among other issues. Group Politics Editor, Taiwo Adisa, was there. Excerpts:

THIS week marks the second anniversary of your rerun election victory. We would like to know, sir, how things have been in terms of delivery of the democracy dividends in the state?
There is a tendency for the government to arrogate to itself total knowledge of what is going on. But we didn’t consider any approach. When we came in as an administration, we consulted the people and the communities to determine what their priorities and needs were. This is very important in developmental planning processes.

Before we came in,we had a transition team which worked on the transition documents. When we now came in and had access to all the information we required, we developed an economic blueprint and the Cross River SEED document. I believe that we are one of the two states that are still building on the SEED; you will recall that the SEED was started when Professor Chukwuma Soludo was the economic adviser to the president, during the Obasanjo administration. Those documents now carry enough information about what the economic challenges of a state like Cross River truly are, and it allows us from our own perspective to address that, but addressing it in a manner where we were able to consult extensively with those whom we serve.

So, in trying to reach the people, we set up a rural development agency, which is n agency that has the governor as the chairman and the 18 Local government chairmen as members. The rural development agency is funded by the state government and local governments jointly. The agency focuses on rural infrastructure. Right now, their first priority is rural roads. But the rural development agency is not building roads linking only the homes of big politicians in the state. It was mandated to go and meet with the people and the communities. The local governments called a stakeholders’ meeting and identified these roads and we did those roads. So, we are constructing the roads that they themselves identified as priorities and we gave them criteria for identifying those roads. We said we were looking for roads that led to high agriculture-producing communities in the first instance, to create economic value for the people. So, if you look at any project that is ongoing and you try and relate it with the economy of the people, you will understand the impact of that project on the lives of the people. We recently inaugurated the first of 29 rural roads. They are actually more than 29, but about four of them are embarked upon by the Ministry of Works. There are about 34 of such rural projects. But the rural development agency has about 29 roads of 420 kilometres in the first phase. he second phase is 475 kilometres and we are completing them for asphalt dressing.

Without a doubt, you are one of the few governors who had an idea of what they wanted to achieve before coming into office. But what did you find when you came to government? Again, how are you handling the issue of whether you are going to contest in 2011 or not?
In terms of preparation, I think it’s a very important thing. Even as I speak to you, I’m agitated about succession. In Cross River, we’ve been a bit fortunate because I’ve been part of the system. I always say to people: thank God for realizing my vision. My vision was never to become Governor of Cross River. It was to put together a team that would do away with the ways that Cross River was previously perceived and governed. When I reflect on it now, to my mind, it was probably youthful exuberance, when you have some thirty-something years old men in Lagos sitting down and saying you can change Cross River and when I started convening a meeting in this regard, that was when I met Donald Duke.

I didn’t know him well before that. It was when I invited Cross Riverians in Lagos to a meeting in my house that we now started talking about Cross River. Donald had been Commissioner for Finance in Cross River. So, he had a lot of information as to the economy of the state. So, I was very excited about him and together, with their support, we developed an economic document. Why my meeting was successful was that it was never convened to discuss power. We first talked about the economy.

To that extent, it provided me with the opportunity to have a first insight into the challenges of our people and our economy. But you are right also that until you come into the office, you cannot really understand what those challenges represent and the limitations in your capacity to address those challenges.

So, it was somewhat of a shock, but I think I’m better than some of my other colleagues. I also refused to do first 100 days’ celebration. So, you never heard of first 100 days in Cross River because I banned it. I told my people that your tenure is four years. What is the 100 days? We did all the planning in the first hundred days and if you had come in those first 100 days, I don’t think we had done anything significant. But the support that I had politically did not put me under the type of pressure that some people in other states have. I still had a lot of challenges though. A lot of people told me that Duke did Tinapa. Which one is your own? But I said I have to make Tinapa work first.

There are challenges in getting it to work to full capacity. So, all those were real challenges as you come into government. Let me say that I didn’t appreciate the extent of the lack of access of our people and how their economies were so adversely affected. Our people were poor and I also didn’t like the fact that Cross River was classified as educationally disadvantaged and healthcare disadvantaged. There was a gap which needed to be filled and I didn’t appreciate the extent of that gap.

Luckily for me, I’m an old-time politician and I know all the political terrain. You know there are some people that campaign these days in two or three locations and run an election. In those days, you needed to go to the village chiefs, sit down with them, drink palm wine and tell them why they need to  support you because elections were not rigged. At least, when I ran my Senate election, this issue of rigging wasn’t there. You worked hard. So, I knew the terrain of my people and that was what led to me putting that team together in Lagos. I felt there were two big issues in Cross River. The first one is ethnicity, which is a Nigerian problem. That was the first challenge and I felt we must overcome that. But as power brokers and politicians, we thrive on it and it gives us relevance. I wanted to break that myth.

The second one was the challenges of development that I saw when I campaigned for the Senate. Those were the two things that put these whole thing together that led us to where we are today.

Yes, we have tourism as a key component of the agenda as well as human development and I’m focussing particularly on human development because we would not have succeeded, unless we addressed the challenge of human development.

The second question that you raised is the question of mid term or no mid term. There has been no judgment that was delivered to my knowledge that says I have an election in 2011. So, we can only rely on the provisions of the Constitution and previous pronouncement by the Supreme Court. Based on those two things, this will be my second anniversary.

But I must confess to you that when I came in as governor, I was very reluctant because I wasn’t the candidate that was planning to run Cross River. I just wanted to be able to find young men and women that could make a difference. My own ambition in life was to be a diplomat in the United Nations. That’s what I studied in the university. I did International Relations and Politics, I did Economics as a minor and I did law. Everything I wanted was to become a top flight diplomat. I haven’t realised my ambition because I’m here serving my people. But I still have hopes that I will realise my ambition. For me, whether there is a pronouncement that my election is next year and I can only do another term of four years, it doesn’t really bother me in anyway. I try to get my people to understand that government has to continue and you don’t plan it on four year terms. When you plan government on four-year term, you find breakages and distortions of programmes. So, whether it is second or third anniversary makes no difference to my mind. But the law is very clear on this matter as we speak.

We understand that there is a succession arrangement between you and the former governor, Donald Duke; what is the true situation?
The beauty about what we’ve done is that it is not dependent on any of us because this is what our vision was. When I pull out, have we groomed our young men, do we have people in capacity to continue to serve our people and take us to where we need to get to? My friend and brother, Donald Duke, served for eight years. It was my duty to make sure that his tenure was as peaceful and as successful as possible. So, as leader of the party then, I made sure that it happened. Donald was from the Southern Senatorial District. Donald Duke is an Efik man and I used to hear that an Efik man could never be governor of Cross River. I said why? An Efik man has the qualifications, has the capacity and the will to serve, but because he is Efik, he can never be governor of Cross River—that was the myth and my duty was to make sure that that myth was broken and I worked hard to break it because I wasn’t Efik.

Some people saw me as working against the interest of my people to make sure that Duke became governor. If you check the records, the APP won the majority of the votes in Efikland. The result that delivered Duke came from the Northern Cross River, which is not Efik. I’m hoping that one day, somebody will look at this political history of Cross River and use it as a model for the rest of the country. I was in Ogoja last week and I made a public pronouncement that if we must be fair, by the time my tenure is over, the next governor should come from Northern Cross River.

So, all three senatorial districts would have produced governors of Cross River State and not governors of their senatorial districts. I’m at the end of what I will call my own period of service. By the time I finish my gubernatorial, I would have served my people and as I said, I would like to realise  my ambition.

So, the answer to your question is simple. In terms of decision, we are still collective. I still refer to my friend. Politically, he is withdrawn from my party. Personally, we are still in touch and many people think that our only relationship is political. We were friends before we joined the PDP. Now that he is no longer in PDP, it doesn’t mean that we are no longer friends. People were calling me that they saw me and Donald last week in Lagos and I said what did you expect?

The fear now in the PDP is that the governors may likely spring up a candidate for the presidency among themselves. Do you still stand by your earlier declaration that you are with President Jonathan 100 per cent and if so, don’t you think it contradicts the party’s policy of zoning?
The party has been very clear on the issue of zoning and Jonathan presidency and I think I will stand by that. On the issue of the powers of the governors, I don’t know whether these powers are new or different because in 2003, I was in the Villa as Special Adviser to the president. There were lots of issues about the second term of Obasanjo. If you recall, it was the governors that came together to say ‘’we support this second tenure’’ and it happened.

In 2007, through all the speculation on succession, a governor emerged as president of and a governor emerged as the vice-president. Were those governors weak or was there no Governors’ Forum then? I was there and one of the key things that were discussed was the role of governors in Nigeria, way back in 2003 and 2007. So, if that perception of it being weak is correct, I’m not sure that we would have a governor as president. I’m not at liberty to say things that transpired but I don’t think that if the governors were weak, we would have had the president and vice- president in 2007. In politics, there are hardly accidents.

Because, again, there are persons who are very interested in the office and they see that the governors have been playing this role in the past; there is an attempt to find a way to limit the roles which the governors play. But that has nothing to do with a particular candidate or even the president. The governors meet regularly. Where there was crisis in the nation, they came together and the issue of acting president was resolved. We went to the National Assembly and we played a critical role as the Governors’ Forum and I don’t think that we should lose sight of that role in stabilising our democracy.

There is a difference between the Governors’ Forum and the PDP governors and it appears that a lot of people are not making that distinction. We do a lot of peer review;we look at international best practises in the Governors’ Forum. We looked at the model of the US Governors’. Forum and have adopted some of the guidelines. In the US Governors Forum, you have strong Democrats and strong Republicans. But because PDP is the majority here, there is a perception that the Governors’ Forum is PDP Forum.

But I think we have a critical role to play in times like this. We have 100 per cent support for Goodluck Jonathan as President of Nigeria as we speak. We are duty- bound to give him support to succeed in this challenging period. Should he declare, we believe also that he has the legitimate right to declare and contest as provided by the Constitution and as endorsed by the various arms of the party and we should not deny him that right to contest. As one who chairs the meetings of governors of the South-South, I have a duty and responsibility to ensure that a candidate from the South-South who has been cleared to contest is given a fair chance and he has made it very clear that he wants a transparent election, which is very important. So, we should give him a fair chance to contest. But we should do it in a manner that guarantees credible elections, which are acceptable globally.

You met at the South-South stakeholders’ forum where you made some profound pronouncements, one of which was that the president should not delay in declaring his intention to run for 2011. I don’t know to what level you have raised that point to him so that he won’t delay any longer. Secondly, there is a very serious debate in this country now which some fear may even truncate the 2011 general elections, which is the issue of the presidential assent to the amended constitution. I don’t know which side of the divide you are leaning?.
Let me start with the first one, which is his declaration. I think declaration of intention, which was something that I had to do, was really personal to me. We can coerce and we can appeal, but I think it is really for the president in his own time to decide.

Talking about the assent of the president, I think this is the first constitutional amendment in the history of this country and that is the toughest question, whether the president’s assent is required or not. But I don’t think it will truncate our democracy. In spite of the fact that constitutional amendment may not have been as far-reaching as some of us had hoped, I think that it’s a step in the right direction and we need to celebrate some of these things.

The constitution amendment which received the support of the majority of our people is something we should celebrate, rather than focus on the president’s assent. I think that is technicality and it should not be something that will truncate our democracy. What we saw with the constitution amendment is that the majority of the people through their representatives have come together and endorsed the constitution amendment. It’s a great thing in any country of the world.

Is Cameroon laying claim to the Obudu cattle racnh?
Cameroon is not laying claim to Obudu and they’ve never laid claim to the land. That was a statement that was misconstrued in the media but it was a good story. The second issue is that we are not borrowing money to pay salaries because we were able to plan, and because of our ability to plan, we were able to cushion some of the effects of the loss of oil wealth.

The challenge for us is that we have scaled down ou our budget. I talked about 60 schools and our programme was that we should be starting the second phase now. But because of the loss of revenue, the second phase is delayed. It’s not that the second phase won’t happen. But we’ve had to spread resources towards completing the first phase over a longer period of time. This is having an adverse effect on the lives of the people of Cross River and we are hoping that this matter will be resolved. A number of presentations have been made and I think that there is a very positive disposition now.

There is also a drive that has seen our internally generated revenue go up by 80 per cent. Sometime, when you have these challenges, you are forced to do a little more. So, people are more sensitive to paying their taxes for a combination of reasons, one them being that they are beginning to see more of government presence and because of that, they are more responsive. We believe that we will continue to have challenges but we will try not to use them as an excuse.

Someone described Cross River State some days ago as an atomistic society. How are you coping with the opposition in the state?
That was what I said earlier about ethnicity. We have strong ethnicity. I don’t like the phrase ethnic nationalities because when we use that phrase, we create nations in the minds of the people and our own and it makes it difficult for us to build Nigeria. It is extremely divisive when we use the word nations. It is wrong. Nobody talks of the Oklahoma nation, the Alabama nation. But we come here and talk about ethnic nationalities. I don’t talk about ethnic nationalities in Cross River. We talk about ethnic groups. That atomistic society perpetually at war with itself, you can imagine that definition of Cross River and compare it with the Cross River that you see today that is at peace, acknowledged everywhere that it is a peaceful environment. For the elections, we are inviting NGOs and civil societies. We are inviting everybody because we want them to witness what we have here.

When we talk about credible elections, we don’t want it to be just lip service and that is why even within my party, we conducted primaries that were different from the previous primaries. We tried very much to make sure that we kept a very open field and we achieved that in 90 per cent of our wards and local governments.