Barr. Kingsley Wenenda Wali is a top shot stakeholder of the All Progressive Congress, APC and an astute mobilizer in Ikwerre. He is known for his eloquence and assertiveness. He states positions and expresses reservations whenever and wherever he so deemed, and he is fearless.
He is a blunt and highly intelligent fellow who cannot be caught unaware when being interviewed.
City People’s Port Harcourt Business Development Manager, BUNMI DUROJAIYE spoke with him on the state of the party, the insecurity crisis on a national scale, the COVID-19 pandemic among many other issues.
Read excerpts.
Good morning The Godfather
Good morning sister. What’s up?
The insecurity in the nation and the killings of security officers is becoming unbearable, who will protect us? What are your take and the way forward?
Yes, quite frankly l think we have insecurity challenges no doubt about that just like we have in other countries of the world. There is hardly any day that you don’t hear about people getting into a shopping mall or one school and killing people in their large numbers in the United States, knife offences in the UK and other places.
But you see society is alert to its responsibilities and everybody knows it is a problem facing the entire community, there is the will to jointly make an effort at resolving the issue but the only problem I have with us here is that we always want to shift the blame to the other person.
We create situations that will lead to insecurity and then we begin to scream blue murder after the consequences of our actions would have manifested, but my worry is that it looks orchestrated to cause problems. But can we be that wicked to the extent to become the proverbial you cut the nose to spite the face type of situation?
This whole thing started shortly before the last elections when we had the Fulani Herdsmen versus Farmers and it happened in a belt that l considered a buffer between north and south which is the Christian Middle belt. The Fulani Herdsmen in quote, were in a race to destroy Christians in the Middle belt and we acted as if whatever problems Fulani Herdsmen had with the Farmers was novel that was new as if it has not been there with us.
To me it was an exaggeration of the happenings in the Middle belt. I may be wrong.
Now elections came and APC retains power especially in the Middle belt. They lost one or two states and the Fulani Herdsmen went down and we now have banditry, and the banditry began in the North West. I’m asking myself why is it that the problems have a geographical connotation in Nigeria?
The Fulani Herdsmen and Farmers were in the Middle Belt, the Herdsmen is in the North West, then every robbery and kidnapping in the West became Fulani Herdsmen and am asking myself, what happened to the criminals who are from Yoruba regions and origins. Are we now saying Fulani Herdsmen drove away all the criminal’s elements in the West and took over the enterprise?
And suddenly criminality is now taking the gap of a region and a religion.
In summary, yes we have security challenges, is it just happening because of the inadequacy in the system? Or they are orchestrated, don’t forget that wrongly or rightly a lot of people feel Jonathan lost the elections because of the insecurity situation in the North East. When Boko haram was close to shutting down communities close to Abuja or somebody feels that insecurity helped APC into Office, insecurity might be used to chase APC out of office.
I’m just thinking while you are here now and not that l have fact to that I am just worried, not to rule out the fact that a lot is happening in the society that will encourage criminality for example the high rate of unemployment. They say the idle mind is the playground for the devil, those that went to schools have no jobs even those that didn’t go to school but want menial jobs can’t find, technical hands and all of that.
The mechanic can’t get customers because people cannot afford to buy cars and build houses that can keep people busy, so you have an army of people who is ready for the devil. What is the government doing about this? We should stop seeing government from the federal level. What is the state government doing?
Not too long, Ekiti State Government went into partnership with foreign investors to start farming with imported Cows. If Ekiti State can do that, what is stopping the other states from doing what is productive that we engage the people? Do you know how many people will be employed with what the Ekiti State government is trying to establish? Can’t they stop this idea of going to Abuja every month to go and collect tithes? Those are the area the government should look into.
Yes, if the federal government is not doing all it is supposed to be doing, l wouldn’t know because l am not a member of the federal executive council, but what will draw my conclusions is what l see from outside. What l see to me seems that people are not taking responsibilities and more importantly, everyone wants to take a portion of the pie and where no one is taking responsibilities, there will be chaos. People should not be left to guessing like “who is in charge of this country?”
We should know who is in charge of this country. Yes, l know that our President has challenges, some conflicts which he has to manage because he is trying to walk a path which is a bit difficult for him. He doesn’t want to be seen as a dictator, but he has to come out and bite at times. A strong presidency sends a strong message to the people. We are now in a society of anything goes. You talked about the hunter now being hunted. Many strange things are now happening. I’m sorry if l sound a bit insensitive but l don’t intend to be.
If you don’t place a premium on your life, it is not my responsibility to do that. I’m a bit worry about the premium we placed on the lives of our security personnel especially the Police. What kind of value do they place on their own lives Those that were killed largely were because they were not at alert!. If you go outside this country and you have seen where Police mount barricade, you can’t even go there to ask for directions unless you see a regular Policeman walking but not the one that is mounting a sentry, they order to go back but here you get to a checkpoint with 8 Policemen. 6 of them are just sitting down playing draft eating or maybe 2 standing and checking particulars and 1 standing with club or stick. If anyone shows up in that circumstances they will be caught unaware.
If they are alert, the level of damage will be minimal even if the criminals don’t want to die. Why they succeed is because the people they are going to meet are not always at alert. I pray the Police will start placing a premium on their lives by paying less attention to taxi drivers and their particulars. If there is a report of a missing 504 vehicle, they should be stopping only 504 cars and not every car that passes you stop to ask of their particulars or search for something that will make them part with something out of frustration. That is not their primary duty. Nobody has a right to stop me on the highway to ask for my particulars unless am driving in a kind of car that has been declared missing or am driving in a suspicious way not every taxi or bus driver. I have seen Policeman give change, they negotiate if the driver says he doesn’t have a change, they give change.
What kind of country is that? Why won’t we be insecure when those who supposed to protect us don’t want to protect themselves? Take, for instance, Rivers State where the governor in his own judgment declared curfew because of the killings. What do you now see, the Police now imposed a curfew on themselves, blocked every road leading to a Police Station, getting into that Station and locked up.
Total anarchy in the system, am sure the governor must have heard the cries of Rivers people even if you cannot come out and protect us, free our roads you have no right to shut down our roads. That shows you the level of irresponsibility on the part of some of our security officers. I was passing G.R.A and l saw the Civil Defence Officers controlling traffic that was what you expect being on alert and protecting their office. Police people went into their Stations and locked up and left us to our faith. Someone joked to the other that it even better you can drive without anyone harassing you. The Government has to wake up to its responsibilities to enable an environment where people can get what to do and reduce idle hands that can easily be converted to criminal elements.
Does APC have a structure in Rivers State for 2023 and as a chieftain of APC can APC win in 2023?
I am a member of APC, why do people always say chieftain. First and foremost Politics is dynamic. Today the PDP is in power and enjoying all the benefits of incumbency so it is expected that they are going to dominate the space. Fortunately for us as a party, the PDP has not done much that they can hold on to, to campaign what you will see as a party trying to profile the other party. In terms of performance and service delivery, PDP has nothing to show to Rivers people.
What is left now is for the APC to put themselves together and try to have a political party that can win an election by creating a political machine that can win elections, that is not going to be a walk in the park but it’s not impossible either. All we need to do is to be able to accept facts that are intended with political activities and what are those facts that a political party is not a cult where every member of the party is a Zombie.
The party is a gathering of people with different tendencies and different interests. What makes party A different from party B is how the leadership is able to marry together the interests to provide a canopy, an umbrella, a roof for everybody, giving everybody to ventilate their interest but guarding them to understand that what is supreme is the interest that benefits the people. Nobody gets into politics for the heck of it. People get into politics to be able to acquire the power to render service, so if that is a reason, you must do everything reasonable to ensure you get into power because if you don’t acquire that power you cannot render services so a political party is not a social club where people sit down and merry, drink and eat.
The word party doesn’t mean you sit down and groove, it is an organisation where you work very hard in a strategical way to have access to power to be able to get things done the way they feel is best for society. Therefore, the challenge for APC is to be able to accept the fact that people have various reasons and not demonise anybody for not agreeing.
We should agree to disagree with the disagreeable which has always been the challenge so to think that anybody that does not agree with you cannot work with you at the party simply means you don’t know what a political party means in the first place. In Rivers State, some people think is an offence to have a faction, there is no political party that does not have a faction and why some hit the streets is because maybe the leadership was unable to manage internal crises. For God’s sake, we accept that if democracy must strife, we must have a vibrant opposition to check those in power so what do we have against internal opposition?
You can’t love opposition outside and hate opposition inside, what you need to do is to outsmart the opposition by performing better. You see people are so lazy as to interpret opposition as disloyalty, for me, l look at the party and my principal responsibility is to be loyal to the ideals of the party, those who represent those ideals and that is what we don’t do in APC. The PDP is in the worst mess than APC, the only thing keeping them going is that the person that is in power is in a position to dispense favours for example the leader of APC in Rivers State is Rotimi Amaechi that is not in doubt but he doesn’t have the capacity to dispense the kinds of favours the leader of PDP in Rivers State can.
The leader of PDP in Rivers State is the governor of Rivers State and for God sake, he can dispense favours, Rotimi is just somebody’s aide. Wike on his own side, is in charge, he decides where he should do road, and he decides whether he turns your house to a roundabout but Rotimi has to go to the executive council to get the approval of the president before he does anything. So his powers of cohesion are limited. I think he is doing wonderfully well. We as a party must try our best to institutionalise our strategic emblems make it a part of party organisation where people are recognised and rewarded for what they can do and not how much gossip they can trade-in.
In summary, the APC has a bright chance, whether you like it or not. In politics globally, you have rulers in APC Rivers State, come rain and come shine than you’ll ever have in PDP. There are people in PDP that, if you like bring all the powers in the federal government and Africa and give to them, they can never leave PDP.
There are some floating in between, the business people, the political entrepreneurs looking for where the grass is greener and just jump over, then there is an army of undecided voters who actually, make the difference. For example in Rivers State l think the indigenous votes are fewer. Let me deal with 2 metropolia, OBIAPKOR and PHLGA.
The Rivers people in OBIAKOR AND PHLGA cannot decide who wins do you understand? You need to do things that will appeal to those undecided voters and that’s where APC will need to work harder, what to do to attract the undecided voters or voters who don’t have any traditional obligations to any party.
A Yoruba man who is in Obiakpor doesn’t care about Ikwerre candidate or Ogoni candidate, the concern is what he came to Port Harcourt to do, how much is the present government affecting it negatively or positively. That is what will form his decision when he comes in contact with the ballot paper. Same things with the Igbos and Hausas, the stranger elements in quote.
APC needs to organise itself and accept the fact that people are bound to disagree, being in opposition and being weakened, not having enough resources the way PDP will and now invest in human beings who can make things happen for them. Whether you like it or not, people do not like the PDP government, but you must give them a reason why they have to abandon PDP.
Recently there were 5 top PDP members that decamped to APC.
I don’t know what you mean by top PDP members…
Like commissioners and stakeholders like Dr Reason Onya and 4 others.
He was sacked, I am sorry if l talk like this but that is me.
But they have moved to APC.
Did they resign from Governor Wike’s cabinet?
What happens to them now?
They are APC members, they will add value one way or the other, what l don’t like is thinking that will make a lot of difference. What will make a lot of difference is an organization, not people jumping from one party to another?
What is the guarantee that the people that jump will not jump out before the elections? l don’t take people that hop around serious. For example one of the people is a staunch PDP member that wanted an appointment from APC and didn’t get it, what stops him from going back?
One of the officials of NDDC came to APC and was celebrated, he is gone back to PDP apparently he didn’t get what he wanted. I don’t take those decampees seriously I am sorry but that’s me. That’s who l am, I am not going to celebrate politically lazy people. I am not saying APC should not welcome those that want to decamp but we should not place too much premium on them. Let’s place a premium on the nation and recognise the dynamics and capabilities of those inside the party, not these journeymen.
What is your take on the third wave of COVID-19 and the vaccination?
One, I am not a medical doctor, l never thought about it because l am horrible with Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry so l don’t know what influences medical decisions but one thing l can say for certain is that God in His infinity wisdom understands us more than we understand ourselves.
I realised that if He does not find a way to defend His people as far as COVID–19 is concerned, we may wake up one morning and there will be no Nigerian alive because of the way we live. The closest to us is India in terms of numbers, so am surprised India is now hard hit.
It should be a lesson and we shouldn’t take things for granted and believe that it won’t happen to us. We are quick to always question certain things, there are people who believed that there is nothing like COVID. There are people who believe there is COVID but sees it as Whiteman’s sickness. How do we treat these legions of people who doesn’t want to believe?
We were all praying for the vaccine, the vaccines have come and the Health managers are literally begging Nigerians to come and take the vaccines People are coming up with all sorts of conspiracy theories. I have done mine and can’t wait for the 19th of June to take my full dose so that l can work around wherever l want to go.
Nigerians always say something will kill a man. It is that attitude that I am worried about. Is the government doing enough about public awareness? I am not too sure.
You know how our communities work, go to a community, go to the Baale, take him into the project, and understand this has to be done. Trust me in 48 hours the community will be vaccinated in his domain not yet talking at the level of the Obas.
As for the Obis, though some don’t attach importance to such hierarchy, but some do. They should involve the Traditional rulers. Everybody in the US has been vaccinated but not everybody in Europe but the day the government says without your vaccination card no school, no salary, everyone will. l think that is what the government has to do. If you are a civil servant, if you don’t show your card, there is no salary, it might not work because they are not been paid regularly. Maybe Schools will help when you are asked to show your parents’ immunization cards.
Government should be proactive and not wait for the 3rd wave, what they do to us to go and register to vote, they should do to us now. Let it shows your immunization cards at all levels to access all government facilities that is my take.
Congratulations on your appointment to the Board. Are you comfortable with that or are you still contesting in 2023?
Thank you, I am not contesting and I am not comfortable but l have accepted because it is for service, nobody will be harassing me for money. Everybody knows l can’t be a council member and be making money. I am at peace with that. It’s a clear case of service. l already accepted it and thank God for Rotimi Amaechi for giving me the opportunity to serve my country at that level.
People should stop disturbing me to run for election they should save their money, or they should bring the money let’s chop it, they won’t need to waste it because am not interested.
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