Liyel Imoke, former Governor of Cross River State reviews the events of the past weeks and the journey so far, in an interview with journalists. MARTINS OLOJA, Abuja Bureau Chief was there.What are your thoughts on the Supreme Court judgment, which sacked you and four other governors'THE Supreme Court judgment, though, appearing to be a temporary setback has been taken by my family and I as the will of God. Indeed it is something we should always give thanks about. In all things we give thanks. That is the way we have approached it and we are glad that we are here today to talk about it.We have enjoyed tremendous support from people of Cross River, from various constituencies in the state. I will say not many people are blessed in this manner that we can appreciate the love of others especially in periods like this.You described the verdict as a setback, could you expatiate on that'From a personal point of view, I think anybody should not do more than two terms of four years. Having said that, I still query the annulment of my first election. That judgment is perplexing. I think that at the end of the day, what is most important is the will of the people. So the annulment of the first election and the next election, which came a couple of months later, saw people still responding in exactly the same manner.So I don't know what we achieved with the first annulment, especially when the judgment was based on irregularity in three or six polling units. So I think these are the constitutional issues that we need to look at because, everybody now understands, through Imoke's Judgment that based on technicality, you don't really need to campaign. Even though the judiciary had spoken, which is what democracy is all about, I don't need to do much. All I need to do is be on the ballot paper and I can go to the court.So, based on the technicality, we can circumvent the popular will of the majority of the people and these are the things we need to address to move forward.There is a need for us to accept the fact that democracy is about the people. It is important that where the will of the people has been expressed, we should be careful in drawing back the hand of the clock. I think we should pay special attention to the cost of the entire process to the public of any election ' the logistics, what INEC spends, security cost, not to talk of what the politicians will expend is hugely significant and the disruption in policies and programmes is also much more significant.I believe in four-year tenure and I don't think anybody should be in office for more than two terms of four years. I look forward to ending my tenure in 2015, if by the grace of God I win the election. I also don't think it is good for us as a state to be out of sync with the federation. Some people don't seem to understand.But for me, it is important that Cross River should be in sync with the rest of the federation. Now that the elections in Cross River have fallen out of sync with that of federation, it means wecannot participate in the selection of the leadership of the Senate for example at that particular time. So it is better if you are in sync.I think the constitution itself is a good constitution and I think it evolves like every other constitution. It is dynamic and that is what we are saying. It is being interpreted, amended but all in all, it is a good constitution. Although the judgment itself made a lot of the people worry about the failure of the judges to give consequential orders, yet I think the judgment clarifies issues about things like oath of office and tenure. This is quite critical and that was brought before the court and I think that those have helped to strengthen democracy and our constitution.What would you say were your achievements in office that could guarantee your return'I don't like to talk about myself; I think it is immodest to speak about what you are doing. Over the last 12 years, Cross River state has had the benefit of having a very holistic approach to governance and has enjoyed tremendous support. We focused in the last few years on people. The people are beginning to feel government in the sense that it is one thing to see government in the papers and other thing to feel the touch of government. The people are beginning to feel the touch of government in many ways ' women are getting free healthcare. We recorded, in one or two of our local governments, zero maternal mortality. We have taken government to those who need government; we are able to touch their lives and affect them positively. The same goes for education. Enrolment in public school will continue to decline because of poor standard. But, in Cross River State, enrolment has gone up over the last three years by nearly 20percent, because of our programmes in those areas and they are mostly in rural areas.Our percentage pass in the school certificate examination has gone up from five per cent to 33 per cent. There are number of things that are affecting our people's lives positively; people are getting more values for their goods and services and the reason is the access to infrastructure like roads to communities that don't have access.For example, muddy and footpaths are being tarred. So that is what government should be about in my own view. Rural areas that never believed they would have electricity supply have been electrified (about 167 communities) over the last two to three years. We have done a number of things in the social sector, too. We have a cash transfer programme that allows the poorest to benefit in every community; we have 15 beneficiaries in every ward ' people that are blind, people that have HIV/AIDS and for people that are so poor on a monthly basis. We teach a member of the family the skill so that they will be given the cash to start the business.There are things you do that affect the lives of the majority of the people and I tell people I have no apologies to make about that. Of course, we are also sustaining the effort in our urban renewal programme and Calabar still remains the place to visit in Nigeria, in terms of the environment, the cleanliness and the orderliness of the society and the hospitality of its people. At the same time, it is the safest place you can go to in terms of security; we host major international events without incidences and people just feel comfortable to be in Calabar.In short, the people are beginning to feel the impact of government so that, at the end of the day, there is no community that doesn't have health facility that is delivering services.There is virtually no opposition in Cross River state or so it seems. Is it that your government is intolerant of opposition'Oh, that is a new one. I am actually hearing that for the first time because Cross River State is the most democratic state in Nigeria and I say that with every sense of responsibility and without fear of contradiction.The fact that the government is doing well and that the people are supporting the government does not translate to high handedness at all. And I think that, in our country, we must understand that there are traditional beliefs of people in politics.In America, there are certain states that are traditionally democratic; it is unprecedented, they will always have a democratic governor and they will always vote for a democrat, no matter who is running. There are some that are traditionally Republican, just like there are some, in Nigeria, that are traditionally Action Congress of Nigeria and some that are traditionally Peoples Democratic Party and some that are middle of the road.The failure to accept that fact is also part of the problem. Is it quite possible that the people in Cross River are PDP by preference' Is it that we are so intolerant that we destroy the opposition' Half of the party now is made up of people who started in other political platforms, but because of our tolerance level and our acceptance and because they saw where we were heading, they came to join the party.The key people you see today in PDP in Cross River were not necessarily there. And at the same time, I don't think that you have ever heard that an opposition leader has been arrested, detained, beaten or molested in Cross River. It is unheard of. They go about their duties freely. Even during our recent primaries, the INEC commissioner in the state, Mr. Mike Igini, hailed my last primaries and said that Cross River State had set the benchmark for other states. We are talking of internal democracy, following due process in the conduct of our party primaries.So when you look at that, the opposition has not just enjoyed freedom but its leadership has also been part of the process. Like I said, I have never contested election without opposition and at the same time, I have never contested any election that has been violent.Still on the issue of constitutionalism, don't you think the Constitution can be amended to make states more independent instead of being tied to the apron strings of the Federal might'We can actually restructure the federation as it is now, without amending the constitution. So let us not use the constitution as a barrier to restructuring the federation. There are some things that are extremely unpopular, but which are true.For example, I used to tell people that in 1966 or 1967, there were four ministers of education running education in this country. In 2011, there were 36 commissioners doing the work that four people were doing and the four people did it better than the 36, why' Those who had Standard six then could write Queen's English articulately, while the same Standard six of 2011 can barely write a correct sentence.There is no society that I know where education gets worse 40 to 50 years later. Tell me; is it in U.K, U.S or even South Africa' It is not necessary that you must amend the constitution to address this parlous state of our education.Why do governors always keep mum on national issues, except when they want to hold elections or when they want to hold the President to ransom' Why did governors keep quiet when subsidy money rose from N300bn to N1.7 trillion'I will remind you of something that has never happened in the history of this country. I think it was in either September or October, if you recall, FAAC was not shared for two months. So, when you say that governors don't respond, that is not correct. Why did we reject it' We said you cannot account for the increase in the deduction to pay the subsidy, so since you can't account for it, let us stop the distribution until you can account for it and stop deducting state government's allocation to pay for subsidy; that was what happened.And for that to happen, it means we debated the matter, considered it at various levels long before the strike. So, for us, it has always been an issue, which we can discuss and we can actually reach agreement on.That was why FAAC was not shared for two months because we took a position against the continued huge deductions from the account to pay for subsidy. It became more and more difficult for us to understand, as governors, the details of the operation of the sector. Some of us made a strong case for the subsidy to be based on consumption. For instance, I can't understand why in Cross River State, between the state and the local governments we contributed N13Bn. Cross River is a very small state. Now if local governments in the state contributed to the subsidy, it means that the poor woman who doesn't even go on motorcycle to her farm in Bakassi Local Government and whose husband uses canoe to go fishing is contributing to subsidy. Do we consume N13bn worth of petrol in Cross River state in a year' Why is the subsidy not based on consumption' Why is it deducted from FAAC and local government funds on the basis of the revenue sharing formula' Very odd and strange subsidy!When we met for the first time, the 36 governors took a position that the deductions were unprecedented and as such the solution was to remove the subsidy and that the state governments will now use this fund meaningfully for the development of their states. There was no governor that will say he was not part of that unanimous decision. Some governors from other parties were even more vocal about the deduction. How we reacted to the protest was different but there was a unanimous decision and I think it is something we need todebate.After four years as governor, what are your principal regrets'I have regrets over the fact that we lost our oil wells; we lost our revenues, we had to redesign some of our programmes. We had to slow down on some of the things we had set out to achieve and also, the consequences of the loss of Bakassi was such a heavy burden.So there are things like that that occurred. Like I said, I wish my elections were not annulled, not because of me personally, but because of the interruption we create in government in terms of our policies and programmes, because we spent a lot of time planning.
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