by Collins Ughalaa
Dr. Kelechi Okpaleke is the Special Adviser to Governor Rochas Okorocha on Public Enlightenment and Strategy. He is also the Principal Officer (Director General) of the Imo State Orientation Agency. He was first appointed the Chairman of the taskforce on Information and Public Enlightenment.
In this interview with some journalists in the state, he talks about Governor Rochas Okorocha’s policies since the rescue mission began in 2011. Excerpts:
Let us look at one of the cardinal policies of His Excellency Governor Rochas Okorocha since 2011 when he became the Governor of Imo State. The free education policy of the state government is five years old. How can you rate its success?
Well, over 95%. Why do I say over 95%? Take a look at Imo State, as far back as when Mbakwe was the Governor of the state. He said that education was a thriving industry in Imo State. If you take statistics of tribes or ethnic groups that value most educating their children today in Nigeria, it is the Igbos. Before Okorocha came, most indigent parents with a brood of children would rather send their kids to become house boys and girls in Lagos with the promise that they would get a semblance of education. But we know that the vile of trafficking started by parents making efforts to have their kids educated. Today in Imo State, because of free education, you can never find house helps to do the house chores for your wife. Because every parent’s dream is their child or children getting the highest level of education they can get. This is made possible by Governor Okorocha.
What of the multiplier effect of the government policy? The greatest multiplier effect of the free education policy of the government that nobody has taken time to study or provide the statistics is that the number of Imo children who have been trafficked since Okorocha's free education has reduced, because Imo people love education. No parent wants his child or children to be house helps anymore, even if he can ill afford to feed them. The parents are grateful that the Governor has provided free education for the children of the state. That is why I said I rate the free education policy of the government over 95%.
Let’s also look at the stipend the government was giving. We no longer have the stipend. What happened to it? Was it government’s deliberate action to stop it?
The government of Imo State never came out to announce that it has stopped the stipend. The government of Imo State never announced that it would do the stipend every month or quarter. The stipend was designed originally to attract the children to school. There are some parents who kept their kids in the school because they don’t know when the next stipend is coming.
(Cuts in) So the government kept the people in this suspense mood; shouldn’t the people be able to predict the actions of their government and be sure what the government was going to do at any point?
What the government does is to the benefit of the people. Free education, although is to the benefit of the parents because the parents that could not afford education before now can, but the ultimate beneficiary is the children. When the stipend was started, those parents who rather sent their children to go and sale pure-water now calculated the profit the children got in the business at the end of the day. If you remember, the stipend was started with N100 and later increased to N500, and more people came. Once they got addicted to it, it is the children that benefits. And over these years, an 8 year old boy who sold pure-water has learnt a thing or two, and has known the benefits of education. They now tell their parents they want to go to school. In Psychology it is called reward and punishment.
If a government puts the children in school and promises them stipend, and after sometime it stops the stipend, would you call that deceit or strategy?
No, you are assuming facts not in evidence. Listen to the premise of your question: did the government promise? The government delivered. Was there anywhere the Governor promised the parents to bring their kids to school and he would pay them stipend? No. The government woke up and thought of how to keep the children in school. They commenced the payment of the stipend and it became a lure. And once you are in school for a year, you are in for it and you are better off. The children now demand to go school, and that is the beauty of it all.
Could you clarify whether making unrealistic policy by the government has become a policy of the Okorocha government? Because you try to tell us that the Governor never made any promise of paying stipend, and you make it seem that the government made the pledge just to attract the children to school.
What you have to understand is that Okorocha said he is on a rescue mission. Don’t lose sight of the subject “rescue mission”. The second thing you have to do is to answer the question yourself: has Okorocha rescued Imo children that didn’t have the opportunity to go to school? What would your answer be? Once you have answered the question you will be in a position to know better.
You talked about unsustainable pledges. When the Governor was campaigning, could you cite me an instance where the Governor promised he would give stipend. Tell me anywhere he promised to give free education and the stipend. No. You see once you take any position on any issue and look at it objectively, you would ask the question: what was the Governor’s campaign promise? He promised free education and he has given free education. Then your question is bothering on the stipend: did Okorocha promise stipend?
I was at Orlu Township Stadium where the Governor said that in addition to the free education he would pay stipend every month, because there was too much money in the state.
That was after he was in office. That is not a contract. A contract is before performance. When he made the pledge of free education, I ask you again, did he promise to pay stipends in addition to the free education? No.
I could remember when we were small, Ike Nwachukwu used to be on the streets compelling childten to go to school. Now the Governor has used stipend to lure the children to school. Don’t you think the government could be better using taskforce instead of the stipend, and to also adopt enlightenment strategy? Continuing to use the stipend might not be possible again considering the economy of the state and it might also affect the free education programme.
When they talk of children hawking – you are a reporter – go to the streets and find out the children hawking, are they citizens or residents of Imo State? If you listened to Orient FM I had a jingle that was going on for a while. I limited it to the Bank Road because of the traffic hawking causes at that area. The point I am making is that most of the hawkers you see are from Ebonyi, Akwa Ibom and other states. But with regards to the enlightenment on the benefits of the free education, over 95 of the people have inculcated the benefits of the free education programme as a result of the sensitization campaign through my office, but before I was there, Imo Orientation Agency.
As for using stipend or taskforce, Okorocha used inducement because it is more effective, because it casts a wide net, and no matter where you are you will be in the net; then you achieve your goal. But if you do the taskforce, people would play hide and seek with the taskforce. My personal opinion is that the use of inducement is more effective and its effectiveness is being felt by the number of Imo children in the public schools, and in the five years Okorocha has been in power the school enrolment has quadrupled. Again, the quality in the public schools now has improved and is better than the private schools. People are even withdrawing their children from the private schools to the public schools because the standard in the public schools is going up. The private schools don’t even have play ground for the children, but most of our public schools are built in such a way that the children would get both mental and physical education. That is why it is now en vogue for the children to wear athlete gears to school, and when you see them in their athlete gears you know that it is for their physical education in their schools.
During the tail end of the first term of the Governor, he announced that he would include the non-indigenes in the state in the free education programme. But after his victory in 2015 he now withheld that. What do you have to say about that?
You didn’t understand him. Okorocha wanted to push the envelope so that his entire party could adopt free education. Now when he won the election, as the Chairman of the APC Governors Forum, he lobbied so that the governors could give free education to Imo students who got admission in their states, so that he would reciprocate. But there were no takers and buyers. So, your question at the premise is partially true; but the Governor was going somewhere with it. Because before he even thought about running for the governorship of Imo State as far back as 2003, he had set up the Rochas Foundation Colleges, and those schools gave free education. You don’t need to know anybody there. All you need to do is pass the entrance examination there and you are admitted. The Rochas Foundation College was not limited to Imo State. He had one in Kano and another in Ibadan and other places. It is nothing new to him. Okorocha believes that to educate a child is to give a society better standard of living, and he has committed everything he owns to this. The statistics are there. He has given over 13,000 people free education to the university level.
We used to hear about ICAPS and the Imo Young Scientist College. What’s going on with it?
Have you been there lately?
Yea. It’s a ghost of its former self. The beehive of activities we used to see there is no longer there.
No. If you go to ICAPS you would see that there is a kid that produced generator that runs without fuel. When you see a visioner, unless the drivers of the vision crystalize the vision the common man might not understand. When ICAPS was formed I was on the other side of the divide politically. When Okorocha set up ICAPS he was not thinking of another school that awards just certificates. He wanted to practicalize things; he wanted something more tangible.
There has been accusation that the Governor does not obey court judgements. Could a sitting government not be obeying court judgements in a democratic setting?
When I was the Chairman of the taskforce on Information and there was a press briefing with the Governor, Amby Uneze of Thisday asked the Governor the same question you just asked me. The Governor asked him to give him one court judgement he had not respected. And I am going to ask you the same question: “tell me one final court judgement the Governor did not obey.” You can take me to a high court and get a judgement against me and I have a given period of time to appeal the judgment. If that time has not elapsed and I filed an appeal, that judgement cannot be said to be the final judgement. But if the period of time elapses and I refuse to file an appeal, then it becomes a final judgement that I must obey. If a Supreme Court of the Federal Republic of Nigeria gives a judgement and Okorocha refuses to obey that judgement, point it out. What Okorocha has done as advised by his Attorney General was to appeal the judgements, but opposition would write in the papers that the Governor is not obeying court judgement.
Could you tell us what is going on between the Governor and the lecturers of IMSU? The lecturers are still on strike, but the Governor has threatened to concession the institution and employ new workers if they don’t resume work.
The IMSU lecturers are owed like one month or so. But the problem with the lecturers commenced when the government entered an agreement with the Labour in the state. If ASUU IMSU is annoyed because of that, it shouldn’t be with the government. But as the Chief Executive Officer of the state the bulk stops on the Governor’s table. However, we all should be very objective in making judgement. Once Labour reached that agreement there was happiness in the state that Labour won. Why did Labour do that? That was because Labour never believed that the recurrent expenditure of the state was N5.6bn then. I tried to explain this on radio, but I’m glad that people have seen things now. People have now put a searchlight and they have seen it. Now at the end of the month Labour takes 70% and gives the government 30%. Then ASUU IMSU said they were no longer part of the NLC. The VC even said she would pay the lecturers full salary from the school’s internally generated revenue. They refused and went on strike.
Let’s look at the controversial bailout fund. Some people are not comfortable with the explanation from the government. You had written an article to that effect explaining what happened. You said the money was a loan and not a bailout fund. When did the bailout money become a loan?
Let me ask you this: is the bailout fund free money?
No. it wasn’t free money as such.
If you look at the premise of your question: “when did the bailout fund become a loan”, you would see that it is all a mindset. That is, when your mind is set to oppose, to antagonize, you forget that you are a reporter. As a lawyer, there is something called legal brief; it is an advocacy brief. But there is also something called a legal memo. If I am your senior lawyer and I am supervising you and I ask you to research a case for me. Even if you knew the case you would still have to research it, and that memo is what is called a legal memo, to explain to me what I would tell the client. That is objectivity. But when I write a brief as a lawyer it means that I’m writing an advocacy brief. One of the problems we have in Nigeria today is that most of our journalists are politicians and they cannot give you objective reporting.
Coming back to your question, if you read my piece, it was actuated by the ICPC report which I called mischievous, diversion is not criminal. Why didn’t the ICPC use the word misappropriated? Misappropriated leads to criminal penalties. That was why I wrote that article, and I told you the origin of bailout – a sinking ship. Go and read the script again and see why I said the ICPC report was mischievous. The money was not a bailout fund, it was a loan.
Was the loan attached to any particular purpose, for example, the payment of workers’ salaries?
No. The loan was to settle the debts the states owe. And incidentally it was the Governor that raised the issue but the only thing the media talks about is salaries. What of contractors? Did you see that the Federal Government brought out more than N300bn to pay contractors? The states were drowning, and the reason they took the loan from the FG was because the loan was gotten at cheaper interest rate of about 7% or thereabouts. And when I read the ICPC report that the money was diverted, I asked whether the money was diverted to a private account?
Is the 70/30% government’s agreement with Labour reviewable?
Anything is reviewable. It was an agreement the government entered with the representatives of Labour. If the Imo workers wake up tomorrow and inform the Governor that they want a review of the agreement, the government could then invite them for discussion.
In 2011 we saw a boom in infrastructure development. Roads were opened up in the state. There was the street gate project. And of course we had the 27 general hospitals and the 305 school buildings. There were buildings rising over night. Considering the economy of the state now, can the government go on with these projects?
When a visioner has a vision, to crystalize his vision is dependent on the drivers of the vision. Now, when you see changes in staff or workers, it is not always wrong. It is the visioner in chief that after sometime considers that this person cannot deliver on the part of vision he has laid before him. If you look at the 27 general hospitals you would realize that it was a vision based on the economy of the state, and that vision is backed with some amount of resources. Before the ending of this year we will commission one in each of the ten Federal Constituencies in the state. And if you remember, each of the 27 general hospitals have their areas of specialization. And by the end of this year Okorocha would have commissioned ten of them and by the time he leaves office each of them would have been functional.
With the 305 schools in the 305 wards, Okorocha looked around and saw that there was no single school in the primary schools that was an upstair building. In his own mind and how he sees the world, a pupil in the village who attends a school that is upstair feels that his school is the best. And the Governor built one in each of the wards in the state. Some of the schools are ready and some are almost completed.
On the opening of roads, I had talked about 2014 when the economy was good. But do you know that the economy of the country could continue to dwindle and the economy of the state would continue to have a boom? That can happen via infrastructure. Opening of roads, especially the 15km road the Governor is talking about in the local governments is a vision tied towards alleviating the plights of the people of the state. This work is going on now. Okorocha may be anything to anybody, but having Imo people at the back of his mind in everything he does, no one can take that away from him.
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