A frontline technocrat, economist and the former Director-General of the National Directorate of Employment, NDE, Chief Chuku Wachukwu has revealed that vying for the Senatorial Seat of Abia Central in the National Assembly was to bring policies that will help in wealth creation while frowning deeply at tricycle empowerment.
The stalwart of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, who made this known in an exclusive chat with journalists on Friday in his country home at Nbawsi Isiala Ngwa Local Government Area of Abia State stated that his declaration for the Senatorial Seat was not a rumour as he has purchased the expression of interest and nomination form of his party which he duly filled and submitted.
“When you say it’s a rumour, that means you are not sure I’m contesting for public office. The process of contesting for election are well defined and expresses interest. A body like PDP has an expression of interest form with comes with monetary requirements and then the nomination form which also carries a well-defined rule. For both of them, I’ve bought the expression of interest and nomination form. So it’s not a rumour that I’m contesting for election.
Let me clear some things, I was abroad and time was closing in to purchase the form so I sent my son to purchase it for me. I bought the forms, duly filled the forms and returned them, again publicly. I shared the pictures online.
When you say you are Senator of the Federal Republic, it’s not a senator of your locality. So you have to be highly qualified and experienced in what you do. You have to look at people’s backgrounds, what are you going there to do. I’m an economist and I’ve been in several permanent positions. I’ve been the director of operations, I introduced the National Directorate of Employment in Nigeria as Director-General because at that time they were addressed as Deputy Minister. These are not elective positions but are appointed based on merit. When you talk about employment in Nigeria, I introduced empowerment in Nigeria. The empowerment I introduced was driven by the economic empowerment of families to grow the economy. We have to look at what propels the economy. Have people who are skilled to manage different sectors of the economy so we introduced skills acquisition. Skills acquisition could lead to self-employment. We also introduced graduate scheming in agriculture, and the concept of entrepreneurship development. I say this in seminars where I speak, that any developing economy must necessarily rely on its small and medium enterprises in the informal sector. If a person is given some development finance loan and establishes a business, the person employs about six people who earn wages since it’s not a structured organisation. Wages have a definitive tendency to trigger a demand which will trigger supply. That’s the economic system of creating jobs and wealth.
For Abia Central, we tend to empower the family to be able to feed themselves not give gifts. We are looking at creating jobs for all not receiving rice, family economic empowerment not keke empowerment.
I also insist that power must be transferred to the next generation of leaders. A political system with no political structure to replace it is a lost generation. The restiveness of youths is termed unproductivity. People graduate and there’s no work, they cluster around the government. Government cannot create jobs, jobs must be private-sector driven which are the SME, the biggest sector anywhere in the world.
For the Senate, I have the contact and connections, it’s easy to go to the Senate and achieve nothing. If you are in the Senate and you are comfortable with power and power structure, you might not achieve anything. There are so many financial benefits and opportunities already created for Nigerians.
For instance, when at the NDE, we introduced the Special Public Ward which has greater opportunities of employing N774, 000 unemployed Nigerians with each earning N20,000 which is N13.4bn monthly injected into the economy. This means that all your local governments should have received 1000 unemployed Nigerians earning N20,000 a month. I was interviewed by ChannelsTV and asked about inflation, what causes inflation is excess capital injected into the economy without the corresponding production or productivity. What you have is excess funds chasing very limited products. But when demand meets supply, that point is called equilibrium. I want to create wealth not gifts and I’m passionate about transferring power to the next generation. When somebody comes to you and says ‘I set out to run for governor but I’ve been asked to run for the senate’. That’s not a policy. When you come back and your Constituents ask you for dividends of democracy, you will ask them if they sent you to the Senate.
Now when you ask people to send you then you are ready. Chukwu Wachukwu is an experienced entrepreneur development expert who is going to create jobs. You don’t need my money, the money you need is there, CBN has N220bn for SME and N250bn for agriculture, all you have to do is make the people access those funds with the development finance interest rate. Bank of Industry is floating N500bn so you need a Senator who understands those things and who can bring you closer to accessing those opportunities. You don’t need to beg me for money, I want you to have pride of place and become men and women who create jobs. Some people will go to the Senate to speak and will be asked if they are truly Senators but not Chuku Wachukwu because I’m a national figure. I’m comfortable in power and can negotiate power. My driving policy is not that I was asked to run for Senate but I set out to run for the Senate. Let others who were asked to run sit down as they don’t owe their Constituency. I’m a man of policies.”
Sir, you said some time ago that it’s very rare to see someone in Umuahia buy airtime of 1500, is this true?
“Yes because there is no residual income. The basic amenities are food, shelter, health and clothing. Any excess income is called residual income. If you haven’t fed yourself, how are you going to buy cards? This boils down to supply and demand. If you are making N50,000 which you will use for food, shelter, health and clothing. Any other excess is residual. When you see a seller of 1000, 750, 500 cards, it sits down with them for months for a year because there’s no money to buy. That is why you have created wealth in the society, above and beyond to increase the residual income for people to have the luxury to buy those things and there’s none now as people are living from hand to mouth. People are going begging and begging is not our culture. It should not be encouraged. Imagine as a man waking up in the morning to go beg that you have not eaten for two days or your children have been sent out of school, it will be so traumatizing. Another is that the leaders who you sent out will become your leaders when they should owe you a responsibility to make sure you grow.”
When asked how each family in Abia Central will be represented and not duplicated, the former National President, Nigeria Association of Small and Media Scale Industrialists stressed the need for the creation of policies which gives people chances and don’t discriminate.
“When you create a policy, it becomes a mark on economic policy. Everybody has a chance and it doesn’t discriminate. When you stretch out a hand, it grabs it.
Poverty disappears when there is wealth creation. You don’t need to beg your neighbour and your neighbour does not need to beg you for anything. These are sound economic policies based on experience which I introduced to Nigeria.
If your only reason for running for Senate is because you were asked to run but you wanted to run for governorship, it’s not a policy because you will not owe any obligation to the Constituents. I’m no politician, I’m a technocrat. We want to clean up the system so young people can take over.
There are people in this country, State and zone who have held all offices and yet have failed woefully. It’s on record, my local government has won for the PDP. If anybody wants to run for Senate, check the voting pattern, In the last election Isiala Ngwa North produced 19,000 votes, and the other one produced 2,000 votes.
Is it possible for a local government to produce a governor and a Senator? It’s happening now. The governor and the Senator representing Abia South are from the same local government likewise the Senator representing Abia Central and the Speaker of Abia State House of Assembly. So why is it different from others contesting now?
The governor of Abia State is not the governor of a particular Constituency everyone has a stake in it. You don’t need to put all your eggs in one basket and this is to Ndi Isiala Ngwa who is myopic about power. The Senate for Abia Central rest squarely on Isiala Ngwa North and we will not keep quiet about it. We have that right by zonal coordination. I want to praise the former governor, Senator Theodore Orji, as a former governor and a senator for eight years, he can seek a third term but he did not but said it’s the turn of the Umunneato divide. In his wisdom, he did the right because the first representative came from Isiala Ngwa South, then Umuahia Soth and by the same political rotation, it came back to the Umunneato divide produced Senator Nwogu for eight years. It came back to Ikwuano/Umuahia which happens to be Senator T.A. Orji and now it is the turn of Isiala Ngwa North and then Ikwuano so let nobody destroy the peaceful equilibrium because of their ambition in Abia Central otherwise when it comes back here, our people will be agitating which will create problems so let’s do the right things as Senate position is different from the governorship. The only public offices that are shared are the governor, deputy governor and speaker.
When Ochendo was governor, it was the turn of Ibeku so let nobody deceive others and say to get the governor, we must sacrifice the senator, that it’s not true.”
The ex-National President, Agriculture and Industrial Entrepreneurs of Nigeria (AIEN) called on delegates to vote with their conscience in the primary election added that setting up an Abia Central economic zone requires integrity and revealed that he is capable of doing so as he is a man who keeps his words.
“Firstly, when you have Wachukwu as a Senator then you know you have a man of integrity. There will be experts. For some of us, names mean more than money. A man who keeps words. A man of experience who can make things happen” he concluded.
