My double chieftaincy titles is for me to do more for mankind, nation-building–Umenzekwe
Hon Chief Modestus Umenzekwe (Onwa Achina) is a Chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC); in this interview with the media in Lagos, he speaks on his double Chieftaincy titles conferred on him by two different communities in Aguata Local Government Area of Anambra State, he also discusses national issues. Excerpt:
December 30th, 2024 and January 2nd, 2025, were two epoch-making days in your life, wherein you were conferred with two different titles. One as Eyimba 1 of Achina, the second, as Ugo di Ebube 1 of Amesi, of course, this is the first of its kind in Anambra State, how do you feel?
Well I feel happy, I feel great, I adore God for singling me out to be conferred with double chieftaincy titles within three days, the first of its kind in Achina, the first of its kind in Amesi, my maternal home, if not in Anambra State in general. So I see these days as special days in my life which I must not take for granted. I see it as a challenge from the two communities to do more for mankind, to do more for the downtrodden, and to use those titles for nation building, to help the youths and work for Nigerian society. That is how I feel, that is how I see it.
Chief with your special permission, you know it is rare to see you due to your very tight schedule, I don’t know if you can oblige my request for you to talk on national issues.
Why not, go ahead.
Nigeria as it is, this is new year, how do you see the country, from the budget presented to the national assembly by the President, very soon the administration of APC Government under Tinubu will be two years, how do you see the state of the country?
What I can say now is that the renewed hope agenda of our great party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) is not academic but practical. Practical in the sense that it has brought a lot of reforms that will take us to the promise land. Let me first of all congratulate the Nigerian Governors Forum for standing behind the Tax Reform Bill. Let me also thank the national assembly for what they have done in making sure the budget is passed and being implemented the way it should be. I don’t want to dwell on the hardship that people have been complaining about, it is there, all of us know, the president, even the national assembly, the governors know, that there is hardship, everybody knows, it is accepted. But that hardship is not something that will go away in a day. The reforms are there to yield fruits that will clear the hardship because it didn’t start from today. So I believe and I think and I make bold to say that 2025 will be good for us. And by 2027, if the President, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu decides to run for second term, Nigerians will queue behind him, they are already singing his slogans. So APC is working and working harder.
Again I want to congratulate the opposition for throwing stones from all corners that has even made us to be on our toes. That has even brought a lot of information to us, from areas we don’t know we have not done well, we are doing well and I know by 2027 there will be no single opposition.
Chief as it is now, you said government recognises that there is hardship in the land, on the other hand, you said come 2027, Tinubu will have a smooth ride to second term, so what gave you hope, is it that these hard policies, at the end of the tunnel there will be light, or they just want to punish the people? There are two sides to it now. One there is hardship on ground, second, you are assuring the people, is there anything you know that we don’t know?
You see when you keep having headache, without treating the root cause of the headache you won’t get the treatment very well. For you to investigate the cause of the headache, you have to go through tight corners to experiment, to find out, to interrogate the system, but the Nigerian problem didn’t start today, even it started from the time we had independence, and each successive government comes in and do her best and go, now our government has come in, they interrogate certain things, to attack these problems from the root, hardship was there before Tinubu came in, even before the past administration of Buhari came in, but you know government is a continuum, there would be no vacuum, so what we are doing is to interrogate the cause of all this hardship and during this interrogation people are complaining, I am equally complaining, the president is complaining, the national and state assemblies are complaining, the minsters and governors are complaining, but one thing that is outstanding is there is unity of purpose, every sector is interrogating the problem in order to get it solved. So the answer to your question is that there would be light at the end of the tunnel, I assure you that, you can take it to the bank.
Another thing that is in the public domain which people cannot reconcile is a situation where workers are paid N70000 minimum wage while a member of the national assembly goes home with N21million a month, the gap is too wide. When you tell people to tighten their belt and you are loosening your own wider, they are irreconcilable. It appears the people that are leading us are not telling us the truth. Is it not better we suffer it together and make this sacrifice?
I am not a member of the national assembly, I have not been there, and I don’t want to go into the internal issues of the national assembly because, until I read the act that established the national assembly I will not be able to interrogate that, I will not be able to make certain statements. I don’t dabble into certain things I cannot substantiate. The only thing is that, is the national assembly doing what they are supposed to do, the commoners, if there is anything like the commoners, are they doing what they are supposed to do? You see when we talk about corruption here and there you find out that every sector is corrupt in a way. I was watching a video on social media the other day, where Police in Abuja in a swing operation, so to say, entered a market and were bringing out manholes that were used to cover some gadgets on the roads, people went and stole those things and sold it to people and people bought it, and they are turning around to cry blue murder.
So every sector needs to be interrogated, both the poor, both the rich, the ruling class, upper class and the lower class. And how do we do these things? Change will start with yourself whether you are in the National Assembly or not, let the change start with me. With that slogan, we get it right, whether there is jumbo pay or no jumbo pay; that is the way I look at it.
Soon the politicking for the Anambra Governorship election will take centre stage, His Excellency, Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo , the governor, is trying his best, in security, road, and he is winning laurels, I don’t know how your party, APC will be able to dislodge the governor at the poll.
I am coming up with a Dozier for that, and I will like you to hold your breath on that, by next week or so I will give you the hold package and how we will go about it.
Your New Year message, January is almost going, Nigerians would want to know what you have for them.
My message remains to be thankful to God. In every situation give thanks to God, then let us support the government of the day, the national government and criticize constructively, but above all let no Nigerian run down this country, in the name of trying to be a Council, a lawmaker, governor or president, because if you run down your country, how do you think outsiders will believe you. If Modestus has done something wrong as a governor or a president, tell him where he has got it wrong not saying the whole country, the whole family is rotten. I read a lot on social media where people, respected people run the country down.
Let me ask you, do you think all the members of your family are doing well? You see, if one person is not doing well, it is not right to say that the entire family is not doing well, but that is what we have in this country. And you begin to wonder if all Nigerians are useless and if everything has collapsed, where do you now want to stay, who do you want to rule, where do you want to go? And you are a Nigerian, and if such people are investigated, one way or the other, they benefitted from the system they say had collapsed and they did nothing. How can people come out and say there is nothing good at all? It is very very unfair. Nigeria is a very great country, and we will continue to market it, after all these other countries are not better than us in all these crimes, they are talking about, not because some of them are assumed to be advanced countries. they are not better than us in character. So we must be proud of our country, we must be able to market it very well; we must be able to protect the image of this country; then come down home and direct our criticism to a particular individual not the entire system.
Donald Trump has just been sworn in, and has swung into action, one of those areas is the area whereby if a woman divorced the man, half of his entire property are given to the woman, but Trump said such Practice is gone, your thoughts.
One is that I have never divorced, I never knew how divorcees behave, I don’t know the law, and besides I am not an American, I am talking about Nigerian problem, I want us to solve our own problem, I congratulate Donald Trump on his victory, but we have a lot of problems here to solve, so why should I start talking about a president that has not been up to 48 hours on seat like that? Let us watch and see, I am talking about Nigerian problem, how to solve our economic problem, social problem, security problem, environmental problem, infrastructural problem, that is what is facing us and that is what I want all of us to address. While congratulating Donald Trump on his victory, let’s allow the man to roll out his policies before we start talking. That is my take on that.
