In this interview, IKECHI ENWEREJI, takes on the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) gubernatorial aspirant in Anambra State, Barr. (Dr.) Winston Ndubueze Udeh; a calm, well calculated, intelligent lawyer, career professional, and successful businessman as he explains why he joined the political race in the state to make Anambra smile again. Excerpts:
Can we meet you Sir?
My name is Winston Ndubueze Udeh. I am just an ordinary, lucky, simple, straight-forward human being. There is no complication in finding out who Winston Udeh is. What you see is what you get. There is no drama associated with my person or name. I am just who I am Winston Udeh. I am from Ndiowu in Orumba North Local Government Area.
I did part of my elementary school in Kano State, down to Enugu State where I finished and then went to High School in Ndike Grammar School in Enugu too. Thereafter, I travelled to the United States of America where I studied Architecture and subsequently Law because over there you are required to have a first degree in any discipline before you go to Law School; the same thing with Medical School. So, you are not limited to be an art or science student for you to aspire to be a lawyer or a doctor. After that, I started practicing in the United States and I concentrated on criminal/family law. I did that for about six years and then went to work in Wall Street and after the crash of 2000, I went back to Law practice until 2013 when I decided to come back to Nigeria and form my own personal business which I run up till today.
You are certainly an accomplished career professional; what would you say motivated you into politics?
The tendency is that you come to a point in life when you stop complaining about the state of affairs in your State of origin, in your locality, and in your country. At that point you do not want to complain any more but have to do something and that is what motivated me to be in the race for Anambra State governorship.
I have stopped complaining about the state of affairs and I want to make that change so that people will understand that there is more to life than what is obtainable right now. May I say that we are not living, but just existing. People ought to live and enjoy staying alive. It is not just trying to survive on daily basis because that is what the majority of the people are doing and I do not think it is fair. So, coming to bring those changes in Anambra State is the reason I am running for the governorship of the state.
Anambra is unarguably one of the oldest states in the South-East, and looking at the current state of things one might believe that there is not enough development in the state. What is your take on this?
Definitely, there is not enough development in the state because most of the citizens are not living in the state. Most people tend to care for where they live. To them, Anambra State is like a vacation home where they come on Christmas, New Year, and Easter. Most of them spend few days in the State and these are the people expected to develop the state. Most of them live in Abuja, Lagos, Enugu, Port Harcourt and these are very accomplished human beings. What we are trying to do is to sensitize and appeal to their conscience to start investing in Anambra State.
Without that, we will still have high unemployment because if they do not bring their resources back to the state and create all those industries that we all hear about that they have and run, how will our youths be employed. Everybody does not have to be employed by the State government.
And when you are talking about infrastructure because the internally generated revenue (IGR) is small, the state does not have taxes to develop infrastructure. Naturally, the more we develop our industries, the more people are employed and they pay taxes and the government is held accountable. It is that simple.
So, the lack of all these things contributes to the high rate of unemployment and increase in crime. We have to find a solution to all these things. Like now in Onitsha, people will tell you that there is so much thuggery today than before. Why? Because these youths are unemployed; the government has to come in to create the enabling environment for these men to come into the state and develop the state. If they do not do it nobody is going to do it for them. And irrespective of how wealthy you are outside, if you do not use it for your people it does not mean anything. We have a saying in Ibo that “aku rue ulo amara ka esi eli ya (when wealth reaches home then we know how to spend it).
There are so many formidable aspirants especially in PDP in the governorship race. What are your unique qualities that give you a sense of possible victory?
Experience counts for me. I am a problem solver. When we identify issues, we look for solutions to solve the problems. I believe that being a lawyer prepared me than most of the aspirants. I have travelled far and wide and over time gained so much experience from working on the mainstream as a lawyer, Wall Street. I have interacted with every grade of human beings. I am not saying that I have related with the elites or poor alone but people in various social strata. My mother was a petty trader and my father was a railway driver in Nigeria. So you cannot say I grew up with a silver spoon in my mouth but what they thought me is discipline and that is what carries me on. I knew right from an early age that I can always find solutions to all problems without trying to blame anybody for what happens.
There is so much insecurity in the country currently ranging from banditry, kidnapping, and insurgency, and herdsmen killings. How will your government tackle the menace if elected into office as governor of Anambra State?
Anambra has been lucky so far, that the level of insecurity is minimized but that does not mean that we will take it for granted. The reason why there is so much insecurity in Nigeria is because there is no political will to tackle it. How can you live in a country where you do not know the citizens? For instance, I can claim today to be Winston Udeh and tomorrow claim to be Okeke Okafor. Then the security forces do not even work hand in hand with each other because everybody is trying to conserve his own intelligence.
The same thing happened in the United States a very long time ago; that was the reason why they created Homeland Security to now bring all these security agents together so that they share information. Now, when a crime is committed within a couple of hours it is solved. Do we have forensic in most of our Police departments? Do they know how to do fingerprints? Do they have fingerprint machines? So what we shall do is to start somewhere, at least to get to know everybody that lives in the State. Wherever you come from, we must make sure we know who you are; we must have an address system to identify where you live, even if we have to create State Identity Card and if you want to live here and do business we must know who you are. If we know who you are, we have your biometrics, forensics data if anything happens it will be easier for us to track it down and proffer the necessary solutions.
What is your take on the creation of state police in Nigeria in view of the increasing spate of crime and the inability of the Federal Government to adequately protect the citizenry?
Certainly; there is no way somebody in Abuja will be controlling what is going on in our villages. We are not even talking about State Police, we are talking about Local Government, City Police which is community-based. Federal Police supposed to be for federal, State Police supposed to be for State, Local Government Police supposed to be for the Local Government and City Police supposed to be for the Towns. So, what are they afraid of; you can even go through the whole towns without seeing a single Policeman there. Who is the law enforcement officer in that town? If a crime takes place there who will solve them; who is protecting the citizens; is it about mounting road blocks? No, it is ridiculous; what kind of crime can we solve if we do not have intelligence? Are you going to wait for crime to happen before you get into action? You have to pre-empt most of these things so that the incidence does not happen. So, I understand the federal government, maybe because of the proliferation of arms may just want to limit it; a time has come when individuals have the right to defend themselves. We cannot just wait here and depend on the federal government to come and tell us how it is going to work.
Anambra State will have its own database of all the citizens living in the State. We will establish a forensic lab where we test all these things. It is no longer business as usual whereby arrests happen in most of these towns in a manner that, police men will just go and break your door and arrest you because someone wrote a petition against you without investigation. What kind of rubbish is that? Is that what the law authorizes them to do? Do they have a warrant signed by a Judge with the four corners of the warrant specifying the crime committed and investigation thereof?
You see, enough is enough; if we have to start it in Anambra State we will start it. If you commit a crime we will process the crime; we cannot afford our citizens to be harassed or jailed for no cause. Like it is said in law, “It is better for you to free 99 criminals than for you to jail one innocent citizen.” Because that is the worst thing you can do to an innocent man.
In a few months from now the parties would be having their primaries to elect their candidate; what message do you have to the delegates to the primaries especially that of your party, PDP?
One thing I will tell the delegates is to be mindful of their votes. If they choose to continue on the same trend that has been in existence since 1999; well let them vote for the old politicians but if they want a change in Anambra State and they want solutions to their problems, let them vote for Winston Udeh.
I solve problems like I told you earlier, I do not complain any more. If there is something that is not right, find a solution to it. It is about time and now is the time. We can no longer tolerate all these laxities for the sake and in the name of Nigeria because any time there is a problem you put Nigeria in front and at the back of it and say this is Nigeria now, do you not know. It is not business as usual. It is becoming like a trend that most Nigerians do not believe in finding solutions to things; they either leave it to fate or to other Nigerians.
You see some people will tell you that we do not want people that have schooled abroad to come and manage the affairs of the state. The car you drive, your cycle, your washer and dryer, the furniture, and everything you use comes from abroad. Everything, your life is dependent on foreign things. You go on vacation abroad; if those people are that bad why go to them. What you need to do is to employ the brains that will help us to develop the way they are so that the vacation will be here and all those products you import will be produced here. We are as smart as they are even smarter. We went to school with them, so why is it that our country is not developing; and will always seek their approval for everything we need?
Now we have Coronavirus, has there been any scientific solution from Africans in terms of creating a vaccine? It is some people creating concoctions just to make money; I have vaccines, I have the cure for these things. Believe me, if you have a cure the white man wants it because you see the devastations it is causing in their country. So we have to get ourselves together and start looking for solutions to things and solving those problems that confront us daily.
As a potential governor, how will you bring the needed immediate development in Anambra State?
Like I said, the people of Anambra are capable of developing the state. As it is often said, Ndi igbo nwere ego ma na nke ndi Anambra di iche. You see wealthy billionaires; they are looking for things to do. How much money can you actually live up with in your life time? The much money one can actually enjoy is the one he gives away for humanity. The more you give the happier you are in life. Have you realized that? One should be praying for God to put him in that position to be able to give. Bill Gates, what does he do with his money and life; Warren Buffet, what is he doing with his now, charity? Just name them. Warren Buffet gives more than a billionaire dollars; he said 10 per cent of his income goes to charity every year. Which means more than a billion dollars goes to charity every year. His junior sister is just there to distribute this money. His junior sister was not doing a good job and that is why he said, Bill Gates takes the rest of them since you know how to distribute monies. We do not have these kinds of things here because our people do not know how to give. They give for returns and that is not giving. There is no reason a single Anambra kid will not be able to feed. There is no reason why Anambra children cannot go to school from elementary to secondary for free.
Why is it that when you go to our public schools there are no functioning libraries, no laboratories, no computer labs for the children to learn with. So what are we telling ourselves? Because you are rich, you send your children to Canada, UK, and the USA to study, and what happens? Most of them have realized now that their decisions were wrong because their children do not want to come back to Nigeria and they started panicking. Most of these people will also want to spend huge money to make sure their children come back to this country; otherwise without them your dynasty will surely collapse. All these big houses are gone, your companies and everything.
Anambra State has wealthy citizens to take care of the state; all they need is a government that can bring them together for development. And I know when elected as a governor that I can do it. We will do it because the people want it. It will no longer be business as usual like giving a community N20 million every year to do your own project. What kind of rubbish is that? Like one analysis they were talking about and the whole thing amounted to N3.6 billion every year out of one hundred and thirty-something billion naira budget. So what happens to the rest of the money?
But the fact still remains that most of these people merely collect these monies and at the same time failed to deliver on the projects. What is your take?
We need to have checks and balances. If we have a good and strong judiciary and people know that if one commits a crime, he will get the prize; everybody will sit up. The worst you can do to a human being is to deny them of their freedom; lock them up, jail them. When we travel overseas we do not drive against traffic lights, because we know the consequences; but why is it that over here we just ignore it. Because we know there is no policeman around and if there is one, we end up giving them N100 to N200 bribe to let go.
Such a situation is encouraged by the fact that the welfare issues of the police are not being taken care of; the welfare of the Judiciary is not being taken care of. I mean, who is happy in this country over what they are doing, working for the government, working for the people? Who is happy? I mean, I have had the experience of going to the market especially in Anambra State where the prices of goods are almost doubled as what is obtainable in Lagos and Abuja. Things are quite expensive here; I do not even know how people live in this state. Is it tomatoes that we cannot produce; is it rice or yam? Why is it that things are quite expensive in Anambra State? I do not know whether it is obtainable in other South-East states but in Anambra State that I know.
(Cuts in) It is a peculiar problem in the South-East generally.
Ok. When do you start? That is why I am asking and pleading to the delegates to deliver me in this primary election because Anambra State must smile again.
https://any.peopleandpowermag.com/i-solve-problems-says-winston-udeh/
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