Youth Empowerment is the
Key to Nigeria’s
Future — by Hon. Ndubuisi Ebiliekwe(Ebilikoko)
He has been in politics
right from undergraduate days as a student of Agricultural Engineering at University of Nigeria Nsukka. Toughened on the turf
working in the background as a grassroots man, this time Ndubuisi Ebiliekwe
wants to take the gauntlet fight for youth visibility in Imo State
politics. He wants to start as a member of the house of assembly representing
Ideato North constituency on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP
Can we meet you?
I am Hon. Ndubuisi Ebiliekwe, A graduate of University of Nigeria Nsukka, I studied Agricultural
Engineering.
What do you do now for a living?
Since I left the University, I have been into
business, I am into manufacturing and I trade on imported goods as well. I
started with the manufacturing of bottled water, and I expanded into
importation of drugs. I am the owner of June Industries and Company Limited and
koko Pharmaceuticals Limited. These companies run on quality. We try to
import and market pharmaceutical products of quality.
How did your foray into politics
start; is this a sudden move or have you been into politics silently over the
years?
I have been into politics as a member of the
People’s Democratic Party, (PDP) since 1999, even as an undergraduate. When I
left University in 2003, I tried to run for the Local Government Chairmanship
Election in Anambra
State but eventually
there were no elections, so most of us went back to our various businesses.
Today I have come to Imo
State politics and I am
aspiring for Imo State House of Assembly.
How did you get involved in Anambra State politics? One would assume that
since you came from Imo State, you would base your political ambitions in Imo State.
I was born and bred in Anambra
State, precisely in Onitsha. Onitsha is a commercial metropolis where
originally, there were no social boundaries based on indigenship. Everyone was
linked by business interests and all were perceived as citizens and all participated
equally in leadership of the area. But when Chris Ngige came into power, he
introduced what he called the Anambra People’s Forum, by which he spread the
attitude among Anambra Indigenes that ‘foreigners’ were no longer welcome
to participate in the politics of Anambra State. So those of us who were
not from Anambra State were left with no choice than to
seek our true roots and that led us back to our states of origin. At the long
run, politics in Nigeria
is the same everywhere, as far as I have seen. So I brought my years of
political experience back home to my roots in Imo State.
If one may ask, what really is your
mission in politics; what would you want to achieve when given an opportunity
to lead by being elected into political office?
My passion is for the youth, the young people of our
generation. I have struggled through obscurity, right from my university days
and among the myriad of people from my age bracket in demographic, I knew how
only few of us, by dint of pure hard work and God given grace, were able to
make it out of the struggle for survival and stay afloat today. I have seen
what needs to be done to help the youth, I have seen how the youth’s enormous
potentials can be turned into a great positive force in building the economy of
this country, rather than allowing them to lay waste and become social nuisance
as a result of lack of empowerment. It makes me restless every time I ponder on
it, I cannot sleep comfortably, I feel compelled to seek a pedestal upon which
to stand and rearrange the social system and give opportunities for the young
people of Nigeria
to be used as change agents in giving a good and prosperous existence to this
nation. For me that pedestal can only be gotten through a leadership position
in the policy of this nation. So that is my mission in politics. I strongly
believe in the transformation agenda of President Good luck Jonathan because it
is youth-driven and youth objectified. The time has come for Nigeria to
think in futuristic terms, and our vehicle into the future is the youth; what
we do with them determines the kind of future we will have here. I don’t know
whether any other person sees what I am seeing; I hope a lot of people are
thinking the way I do because failure to do so in this country is like walking
blindly towards a precipice!
What is it in your background that
makes you feel qualified to lead?
I have succeeded in areas where so many of my
peers have failed. I have swam in waters where others could not take a dip! I
succeeded in business as a manufacturer without anything but my God given
dogged abilities. I am one of those who have tried and found out that
persistence and consistency wins every battle in the end. I have never aimed
low, and I have never hit as low as average in my targets. I veered into
politics right from my undergraduate days in the University, when the
preoccupation of every responsible student was graduation. As early as then, I
saw the need for me to play a role in changing the scheme of things in society
from the leadership level. I was a full member of PDP, I participated in ward
and local government politics, and I still graduated with flying colours as an
Engineer. And seeing that the society had no ready employment for me, I quickly
created an enterprise for myself and grew it up to international level. I
contested for leadership at the Local government Level in Onitsha but was not given the opportunity to
play on a level ground. If things were not so, I would have proven that I have
the ability to “rally men and materials to a unified objective”, like General
Charles Montgomery would say, and that is my definition of leadership. I
strongly believe that participatory politics is what will lead this country out
of its political and economic quagmire. Until every man, every woman, every
youth in this country comes out to vote for leaders whom they know will
represent their interests, we will not move forward. But let’s hear your next
question.
In Imo State currently, your party,
the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, is in opposition and you are from the same
constituency as Rochas Okorocha, who is in the All Progressives Congress party,
APC, what gives you the confidence that you will be elected?
In Nigeria, if you understand our
politics very well, the electorates vote individuals and not political parties.
I know that my people know me and they will vote for me. Then again, if you
have been following the political trends in Imo State
for some time now, you will notice that the core political followership and
structure at the grass roots and other levels, rests on the PDP. The leadership
at the top may be allowed to come from another party, just as I said earlier,
Nigerians, when the need arises vote for the individual, not for the party.
Finally, my constituency is not even being represented by APC. The incumbent
member of the house of Assembly representing my constituency currently is an
APGA party member. So it’s not about the political party, it’s about the man
the electorate is looking at. I know that the PDP is still in control in Imo State.
I have confidence that if I am given the opportunity at the primaries, we will
make a victorious and positive difference in the lives of the people.
What have you done for the people in
your constituency so far that gives you the confidence that they will vote for
you?
I have on record over three thousand youth in my
area that I have in my own little way, enabled to have a better footing in life
by my economic empowerment efforts and also through sponsoring their education.
I have been on ground for years; I am a true village man. My manufacturing
business is sited in the village and apart from enabling people to create their
own enterprises, carving their own individual survival niches; I am also very
strong in employment creation. I make bold to say that I have one hundred
percent support of the people that I will represent them in the coming
election. If PDP fails to choose me to represent my constituency in the forth
coming election, the party may lose my constituency.
If one may ask, why did you choose
PDP as a platform in the first place?
Except you cannot see, PDP is the standard
setting party in Nigeria and
Africa as a whole. In terms of ideology, the
party believes in rallying the tremendous leadership potentials of this country
under one umbrella and harnessing their resources towards the socio-economic
engineering of this country for a higher per capita income and better standards
of living for the people and for stronger impacts on the civilization of Africa
and the world in General. I saw this as far back as 1999 and that was when I
joined the party. The transformation agenda of President Good Luck
Jonathan and the PDP governors and their achievements so far in that regards,
lends stark evidence to this. PDP has made tremendous contributions towards the
consolidation of Nigeria’s
newfound democracy. Infact, without PDP and the people that constituted the
party, Nigeria’s
democratic process would have been impossible. There is also strong youth
involvement in PDP, this is the only party in which young people are allowed to
aspire to all positions and given the platform to make meaningful
contributions. For me PDP is just the party for every discerning Nigerian.
To what then would you attribute the
fact that Governor Rochas Okorocha came from another party and wrested power
from PDP in Imo State?
Like I said earlier, Nigerians, when push comes
to shove, will vote for the individual and not the party. At the point of
Governor Rochas’ entry, PDP in Imo
State mismanaged its
successes. There were lots of miscalculations here and there we took the
people’s support for granted. Those mistakes have been made and learned from;
the PDP in Imo State
today and in Nigeria
generally is poised for more purposeful and well informed decision making.
There are no more chances for costly errors. Coming results will soon prove to
all that we are not joking. And Rochas Okorocha that you speak of was a super
star member of the PDP in the first place. It was in our party that he learned the
ropes, before he sought the ticket of another party because PDP mistakenly
denied him then. Since then he had moved from party to party seeking the proper
accommodation to carry out his good visions. I make bold to say here that if he
seeks to come back to PDP tomorrow, we will welcome him back as one of us. We
are one big family here and we are one. We are looking for those who have the
proper vision that will take this country to greater heights. We are not
contesting it with anybody, PDP is the largest party in Africa
and this time around, we are taking back all our states.
Talking about vision, if you are
given the opportunity by being elected as a member of the House of Assembly,
what do you have in mind for your constituency?
Having lived among my people and seen their
hearts desires, you can be sure that I have a vast retinue of issues I would
want to iron out when I get there. I do not think that this one page interview
will accommodate all my vision if I am to start stating them. There are issues
of health, Education, Employment and so many other issues bothering on the day
to day lives of the people. But one thing that is burning in my heart is the
fact that young people are not being properly represented in Nigeria’s
politics today. We are shying away and leaving the older people to make our
leadership decisions and this is affecting things. These people are not
computer age compliant, they are drawing us back from coming to par with the
speed of development elsewhere. It is my deep desire to make far reaching
efforts to integrate the youth into our polity at all levels and all
ramifications. Give the youth prominence and the chances to act as change
agents in our polity; you will see Nigerians thinking like the rest of the
world in terms of development, technologies and the economy. I intend to start
that movement in my constituency.
Are there mistakes that the current
administration has made that you would like to correct?
I am not seeking election into an executive
office I am only going to be a legislator. But if eventually I am given
the opportunity to be a lawmaker, one of my cardinal objectives will be to push
for legislature that will encourage the establishment of more industries to
create jobs. The level of youth unemployment in Imo state is indeed a strong
cause for concern for me. There are no industries in my constituency and what
is youth empowerment without job creation? The few that used to be there have
all broken and closed down. That is why I strongly concur with President Jonathan’s
efforts in improving power generation. If that is achieved, the face of
Industrialization in Nigeria
including my constituency will change entirely.
The Rochas Okorocha administration
is doing a lot in the area of education. But no one seems to be paying much
attention to helping the youth to be self employed. Globally today, the
paradigm shift is towards enabling young people to employ themselves, what are
your thoughts in this direction?
I have already said that in my own little
capacity I have funded small businesses for thousands of young people in my
area. One area that I have also seen a lot of potential is in encouraging the
youth to go into agriculture. I believe that if a good approach is employed,
such as setting up farm sheds which will teach them how to rear poultry and
supplying them with affordable inputs and also, like the American government
did some years back, the government can buy what these young farmers produce
and process it into packaged food in big factories. If young people know that
there is a ready market for their produce and that there is profit to be made
by going into agriculture, believe me they will troop into agriculture and Imo
state will become the food basket of Nigeria. I intend to start that
experiment with my constituency.
2015 is sure to be a kind of turning
point in Nigeria’s
political history. PDP is making efforts to regain states that they have lost
in previous elections, what assurances do you have that the PDP will regain Imo State
next year?
If PDP can regain states in the South West, Imo State
will be an easy job for us. APC as far as Imo indigenes are concerned is a
funny party. We do not know the party. There are other parties that have
been on ground but APC is not one of them. All the political structures in Imo
state belongs to PDP and none of them have collapsed, none of them can
collapse. No other party can defeat PDP in Imo State
in 2015.
Since you joined politics in 1999,
which people have you looked up to for encouragement and for motivation as role
models?
My big cousin, Chief Sir Tony Ezenna, has been a
great source of inspiration to me. He has been a very big PDP stakeholder in Imo State.
I have known him since I was born and I have followed his political history. I
know his great vision for Imo State PDP. He has never been faulted with any
anti-party affairs; he has been a perfect party faithful, a good visionary and
a great contributor for the stability of PDP in Imo State.
With his presence in Imo State, it will be impossible for anyone to take away Imo State
from PDP come 2015. Our Visionary state chairman, Barr. Nnmadi Anyaehie has
repositioned the party in the state thirdly is Senator Hope Uzodinma, who is
the distinguished Senator representing our senatorial zone. He has kept the structure
of PDP intact in Orlu Zone. He has left giant strides in his wake
and created a track record that will be hard to beat. His youth empowerment
achievements are second to none and his contributions towards President
Jonathan’s Transformation Agenda are great; these are the people I look up to.
What do you advice members of
your constituency to do during the next PDP primaries and in the coming general
elections?
Give me an opportunity and if in four years you
do not see my impact, opt for another person. Do not lose your focus on PDP; we
will not let you down, never! And please make sure you vote for our great party
PDP.
