By Humphrey Onyima
Oil and Gas Merchant – Amb. Chibuike Destiny Ukauwa aka SWAZ, who has been a part of the Nigerian students’ struggle to take their rightful place in the nation’s leadership, speaks with LEADERSHIP Scorecard on his governorship ambition for Abia State and the struggle for recognition by Nigeria’s young population.
You have been a successful businessman for many years. What motivated you to go into politics?
I was propelled into politics by the need to salvage my state from the strangle-hold and bondage of the dark. I have heard the cry of my people and how the state has become a laughing stock amongst its peers, because it is not on a progressive lane.
It is sad that all successive governors in the state have failed, continually, in doing the right thing. In their false bid to save the state, they have continued to make it sink deeper and be worse than it was in the past. Right now, Abia State is nothing to write home about.
The people of Abia are in captivity and anyone who sees their condition will be compelled to come to their rescue. If you want to stop the madness in Abia today, there is every need for its young people to stand up. Abia State needs a messiah and I have been chosen to be just that. This was what propelled me into politics.
Is this why you have decided to run for the office of the governor?
Yes.
What do you hope to bring to that seat if and when get elected?
A true leader does not need to borrow any mandate or programme from anywhere. Especially, in Abia State, is known on sight. True leaders talk less and act more. I will be a governor of action and fewer words.
If I emerge governor of Abia State, before my first 100 days in office, everything that is missing will be in place. I will begin with the airport and make it an international one. We do not have a world-class stadium like the one in Akwa Ibom. I will do things that will make Abia a true state. Why should we always drive to Owerri to board flights? Once Ebonyi State was not a state to reckon with in Nigeria but, today, it has been re-transformed and all things are different. That state is one of the best in the nation, thanks to great infrastructure and the ideas of governors who are born leaders. Abia needs to stand, move forward and take its place.
Right now, Abia State is at a stand-still and the people are quite unhappy. I want to change all that when I become governor and I believe that the people of Abia are tired of being unhappy. I want our pensioners, aged, civil servants, young, men, women and children to be happy.
When I become the governor, I will make the people of Abia proud. I will ensure that, in each of the 17 local government areas, factories are established. These local governments will become self-sufficient and not always run to the state government cap-in-hand. The development will begin from the grassroots. Look, I have been called to be governor and I am determined to be a true governor, because, before me, Abia has not been favoured in governorship.
We are two in Abia, Myself and Dr Samson Uche Ogah can govern this state as well as it should be, unless he changes his mind, one of us will emerge governor 2019.
I consider Dr. Ogah to be a man who has the vision, charisma and mien to be a governor. If, tomorrow, God permits, I can only step down for him if I see what he has in store for the people in Abia. I know that I am the messiah of the people of Abia State, the one called by God to set things straight, but Uche Ogah can still go, no problem.
Recently, you were recognised as an ‘Ambassador for Nigerian Students’ by the executive of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS)…
Before the recognition, I have always felt a sense of responsibility towards the association, so it is expected.
Before now, there are issues for which they contacted me to speak in their stead and call the attention of the government too. Some of these issues are not necessarily financial but are important, without gain-saying. You may not understand but the award was not presented amiss. I gave my time and resources to their causes before the award and, now, the award will only spur me to do more and dedicate more time and resources to the NANS’ cause. With this official recognition, the government will now understand that the cause of the Nigerian students is real, that the Nigerian students need more than they are getting from the government. I will lend my voice to everything which affects the Nigerian student, home or abroad. If any government fails to understand the strategic position of the Nigerian students, that government has failed and is not fit to lead the people of this nation. The same applies to the governors. The only time they remember Nigerian students is during elections when they want to use them as thugs. That is enough. Not anymore. The government has to find more useful and productive thing for the young people of this nation to do, if, truly, they are tomorrow’s leader.
If you want to help any young person, groom them and give them a chance to lead and not to sit in power and make them your stooges. No. You are destroying the future that way and you cannot let the future beg you for its portion, because the future will judge you.
I will help the NANS to be the conscience of government and the vehicle any governor or presidential candidate has to drive to fulfill his objectives in office. Nigerian students deserve more than the crumbs they get; they are being strangled. They need a life-line and the government is not giving them any. Many find their other options and, in most cases, they make wrong choices.
Most times, I wonder if the people in government today got any form of education. If they did, how can they not give Nigerians good education? If you went through school, you should know how it is for others who are struggling to go through it. If you don’t, something is fundamentally wrong with you.
The nation is where it is today because the ‘leaders’ we have do not display any form of understanding of the most basic things in life. They are deliberately ignorant. This is why they should not be in power.
I am saying all these to buttress the point that the award is not just recognition, but a task, because we are out to let our fathers in this country know that they need to get it right again, because they have lost the plot, the vision, the blue-print. They are busy doing other things, while this nation is going to hell. If they are making deliberate effort to save this nation, it would be visible, but they are not and they are so carried away that they forget we are taking note.
Sadly, irrespective of what they do, the young will take over and the old will leave – one day. That is an undeniable fact.
You have dwelt so much on how successive governments have failed the nation. Certainly, is there hope…?
As bleak as it looks, there is hope, if our leaders will begin to do the right thing. If the president will begin to understand the hand-writing on the wall, we can all have hope. But, if the leadership and the nation refuse to learn from these things, the nation is doomed.
What I perceive in our nation is that we are on auto-pilot. We have been abandoned by our leaders. God and us are all we have now, nothing else. What can you say about a nation where anything goes? What can you say about a nation where law and order are considered primitive? The things happening in this nation are enough to cause us to split, but the fact that we are together is a wonder only God can do. That said, I do not pray for a divided nation. I want a united nation with all my heart, because the students and the vulnerable will be the ones to pay for it.
There is hope if we do the right thing by giving the youths a chance to give their quota. We know the issues at stake in this nation, but we have refused – deliberately – to talk about them.
Do you see the nation’s young people making this correction in 2019?
Yes. You can count on that. The young people of this nation know the country’s problems and are ready to correct the wrongs, but there is every need for them to put their acts together and work on themselves, in order to effect any tangible change. Leadership is serious business.
