Chief Momoh Obaro who is seeking to represent Kogi Central Senatorial District is a chieftain of the ruling APC. In this interview, the former governorship aspirant and senatorial candidate speaks about his ambition, the challenges of poverty and hunger in his home state, inadequate representation of the Confluence State in the National Assembly, among others. Excerpts:
You are an aspirant seeking to represent the people of Kogi Central Senatorial District. Why do you think it is time for you to pursue this?
I have been involved in politics since 2001. When I tried in 2003 to be the Governor of Kogi State, I was unsuccessful. I have been in politics since then. One of the reasons I am in politics is to ensure that we have a very good representation for our people. To answer your question as to, why now? Unfortunately, the last three set of senators we had, did not give the necessary representation to our people. If I call Kogi State now, and I ask about the senators from the state, probably you will only know one. And that is Dino Melaye. But there are other senators representing the state. Why are they in the senate? What do they do or promote? We don’t know because they don’t do anything. As a result of that, I feel I know what to do and what the needs of our people are and I feel I am qualified to promote those issues. Those issues are what I have actually captured in my five-point-agenda.
Before now, we had no adequate representation. If nobody wants to do it, I want to do it.
You mentioned some agenda you want to pursue. What are those agenda that you think had not been addressed?
The most prominent issues right now in our senatorial district are poverty and unemployment. The first thing I need to do is to get people back to work. There is no way we can solve the problem of poverty and hunger by giving out handouts. I want to find a way of putting people back into economic activities. I am promising that through the senate. We want to mobilise N10bn during my tenure to be able to invest in direct industries within the senatorial district. The question of how we would raise the money has been asked. The seed of the money would come from the constituency allowances. We would now be able to use our contacts and friends within the government to see how we can put the money together and directly invest it in industries so that people can get back to work. Particularly, our people are farmers and traders. We want to see how we can improve on these skills so that they can be more productive. We want a situation where people would be able to farm their grains and then we put industries that would be able to work with those items. This is to ensure that people get back to work and earn a living for themselves. We would be able to reduce the social and economic problems plaguing that particular part of the country.
The other agenda I have, which is going to have a national outlook, is to initiate a legislation of what I call “community development fund”. The whole idea about this is that our communities have been neglected for too long. They need to be attended to as a matter of urgency. We want a situation where the federal, state and local governments would be able to put resources together to address the infrastructural needs of the communities. We would also be able to include some international donors so that they can put their money there. We want to provide infrastructure at the community level. They include rural roads, schools, water, electricity and others. If we could do that, we would be able to pull our people from the current idleness and lack of jobs into employment.
The third agenda is on the issue of Ajaokuta. This has become a very naughty issue that seems like it has no solution. There have been a lot of promises and politicians have used it to campaign. What I want to do is to be able to convince the Federal Government on the need to invest in Ajaokuta.
People have carried out some studies and are saying that Ajaokuta is not viable. Because of that, a lot of things have been stalled. There have been issues of corruption and mismanagement plaguing Ajaokuta. I want us to go beyond the issues of economic viability and look at other things because if Ajaokuta is working, it would create jobs and other industries. I think I would be able to carry out a good study and convince the stakeholders that we need to invest in Ajaokuta. If this fails, I would need to put in a case. Before Ajaokuta started in my senatorial district in 1978, our people had their own economic life. They were farmers and they were doing quite well. If you come to Okene today, the houses you would see are all effort of private enterprises. All that was killed as a result of Ajaokuta.
I want to put a case of economic reparation for the people. Ajaokuta is a federal project and you can’t force them. People’s lives have been destroyed and we need to pay compensation so that they can rebuild their lives. That is one of the solutions I am going to pursue in Ajaokuta.
I have also talked about the issue of infrastructure and the use of technology to propel development in the area. Particularly close to my heart are kids that are very brilliant. We intend to fetch out those ones and make sure that they don’t lack the resources to further their studies. Those are the ones we require to be able to give us the kind of progress we require for our economic development. These things I am bringing would be beneficial to not just Kogi, but the nation at large if I am elected.
In 2002, you contested in a PDP primary. You also once worked at the party secretariat as a director. In 2007, you contested for the senate and now you have worked under two political parties. So, which platform would you use now?
I am a member of the APC now. My story is a very interesting one. In 2001 when I started my political journey, I began using the PDP platform. I was appointed the National Director of Finance. The issue was that after 2003, there was this crisis between the then president and the vice president. This cut the party into two. Some of us were victims and I was tagged an “Atiku person”. As a result of this, I was not just thrown out, but was almost killed. I was attacked on my way from the May 29 celebration in 2005 in which I was almost killed at the airport road.
Many bullets were pumped into my car and I barely escaped. My police escort was even killed. While I was going through that agony and pain, I had to be flown abroad for treatment for so many years. While that crisis was ongoing, in addition to the personal hurt I had, the former president was also deregistering members of the PDP. We couldn’t continue our political activities in the party and we formed the Advanced Congress of Democrats (ACD) then, which Atiku was the pillar we relied on. Later, the ACD merged with the Action Congress (AC) and the AC was the party that came out of the Alliance for Democracy (AD). We merged and formed the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).
In 2007, the ACN gave me a ticket for the same zone. But unfortunately again, the vice president substituted my name at the very last minute. In hindsight now, I would have just waited.
You were actually deregistered from the party because of this same person?
Exactly! That was what happened. I was angry at what happened to me and I had to go to the ANPP and it was at the ANPP I actually contested the election and lost to the ACN candidate. My leaving the PDP wasn’t on my wish, we were pushed out, and since then, I have been involved with all the coming together and the position and all that. By the grace of God, we actually won the election in 2015. That has been my political journey.
Credit: Daily Trust
