By Adadareporters
Hon Dennis Nnamdi Agbo had a stint at the 10th House of Representatives where he represented Igbo-Eze North and Udenu Federal Constituency until the Court of Appeal ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission to conduct a rerun in about 176 out of 532 polling units of the constituency. The All Progressives Congress candidate in the election, Mrs Oby Arji, had contested the affected polling units following non-inclusion of her party’s results in the result sheets. Agbo, in this interview with selected journalists, expresses confidence that he would emerge victorious in the re-run, asserting that “what is written is written”. The excerpts.
Before joining politics, what was your occupation?
I was in the banking sector. I also worked for some organizations. I had a fulfilling banking career that lasted for approximately 15 years. Then I left banking and went into private businesses. I am a consultant. I own businesses. I am the chairman, Banking Group of Companies. I also have stakes in electricity distribution, manufacturing, and agriculture. I own Oriental Integrated Farm Limited. I also own Phanking Production Limited. I produce shoes.
What is your mission to politics?
It was by providence, I should say, because I was doing excellently well in my businesses. In consulting business, we serve state governments, ministries, departments, parastatals, among others. We help to make government function better. In particular, I used to gain access to state governments and help them access non-statutory revenues. This goes to help them know their involvements with federal government agencies, access to donor agencies through partnership and by doing all these, I earned my commissions. I was doing these in Abuja, and for my state government then under former Governor Sullivan Chime. He saw my performances and requested me to come and do similar things for the state. Initially, I thought it was on consultancy bases but he went further and hired me as a special adviser first on inter-governmental and multinational partnership. Then we started doing what were directed to do. Later on, I was made a commissioner. I combined the consultancy duties with that of commissionership. This lasted throughout the regime of Gov Chime.
I later returned to my private business. However, I was already set to run for the House of Representatives for my constituency. As a matter of fact, I was going to run in 2011 as the governor had cleared me to run, but he asked me after a while to delay my own running till 2015. In 2015, I returned to run for the House of Representatives knowing full well that one needed the platform of governance to impact more lives. No matter how well intended a private person is, it is still easier to impact more lives using the government platform. I also felt my people needed me to fill the gap. So I came in 2015, and by the grace of God, I won the election into the House of Representatives, under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party.
I changed the narrative of representing my people. It became very clear that what I preached as a consultant, I am also able to do as a holder of a political office. We demystify governance, as we performed beyond anybody’s imagination. I did things that no House of Representatives ever did before in the history of Igbo-Eze North and Udenu Federal Constituency in particular and Enugu State in general. That was between 2015 and 2019. Then again between 2019 and 2023, I took a break to my private business. Again in 2023, I ran again under the platform of the Labour Party, and won. All along I had been in the PDP.
What legacies did you leave behind?
In terms of educational structures, no one has done what I did. I constructed blocks of classrooms at Aji, fully furnished and functional. I did one examination hall at Aguibeje, with an examiner’s office and a store completed. I did a block of 15 classrooms at Uda, built a brand new technical college at Igugu in Udenu Local Government Area: 10 classrooms up and 10 down, with principal’s office, conveniences, and a store. This school never existed before I came in. The Government Technical College is my creation. This was the first time Igugu community had any form of school. There was nothing like primary school, secondary or private school etc then. I built that college in a virgin land.
On electricity, many communities benefited, including Uda, Ugbaike, and Inyi. Many scholarships were given to people. My scholarship scheme made people study medicine, about six of them in premedical courses have done their master’s degrees.
In business, those who wanted to do businesses were encouraged financially. We bought Keke, motorcycles, sewing machines, and we encouraged people to be involved in entrepreneurship. Employments were offered to people that were qualified and interested. Some of them are in the Federal Inland Revenue Services. Some are in Federal College of Agriculture in Isiagu, Ebonyi State etc. I helped people to enter the Nigeria Police, Civil Defence etc. All these things can be verified from people and communities mentioned.
Why did you quit PDP for LP?
I left PDP when things went wrong as primary elections were not done in a democratic way. At a stage, one cannot predict what is going to happen. Certain high ranking politicians, especially the governors hijacked the party. They were just doing whatever they wanted. Again, we couldn’t boldly say that we were the government Nigerians needed. There is the urgent need for a rescue mission: the government that will react to the needs of the people. Things were just going abnormally, and we knew that it was very clear to everybody that PDP needed to be rediscovered, re-invented or else, a new party should come.
APC came, but they were no better. They were worse. It was then very clear that something new needed to happen. I was not just in politics to while away time. I was not in politics looking for what to do. I was in politics to make an impact. People of like minds were thinking in the same way. I particularly knew my principal, His Excellency Peter Obi, when he too was looking at the situation, the same way. Then the moment he left PDP, I knew that the soul of that party was gone. There was no more hope for redemption. We had attempted to redeem the party in 2019 when Peter Obi paired with Alhaji Atiku Abubakar to run as vice president and president respectively but when that golden opportunity fumbled, it devastated the party. Then in 2023, when Peter Obi left, it was very clear to me that PDP was in okro soup. Then I also left, and joined Labour Party. Obi became our presidential candidate and I also contested the House of Representatives under LP, and to the glory of God, I won the election.
Peter Obi also won his election as president, but was denied, robbed. In Enugu State, we won the governorship and we were also denied and robbed. In House of Representatives, we won seven out of eight in Enugu State. Unfortunately some of them have been stolen again, but now we have five out of eight remaining. This was an excellent outing for a party the opponents said had no structure. In the state House of Assembly, we won 14 seats out of 24. It was not just a joke; it was not a child’s play. We came and made the serious impact within a very short period without money compared to the opposition who had been milking us financially. Enugu State became the headquarters of Labour Party in Nigeria. Enugu North senatorial zone became the pinpoint where we showcased what Labour Party is. It is still morning on the creation day. We still have a lot in our kits to showcase to our people.
Now that you went back to the Green Chambers on the platform of the Labour Party, what you have done to your people?
The kind of mandate that people gave us in 2023 is a committed mandate. They did the unthinkable when a sitting governor was unseated for the first time in Enugu state. We challenged them very successfully. We sold the message to our people, about non-performance, about abuse of office, and about inclusiveness. Our rotational arrangements were abandoned by PDP so we sold these messages. Our people saw it very clearly. They saw it and believed us. They voted and gave us an overwhelming mandate and that mandate was not a mandate that you waste any how when you get to the office.
When I got to the National Assembly, I kicked the ball rolling. Within a period of five months getting to six months now, I have been able to finish five projects: a four- classroom block at Umuogbo Agu, done and furnished. This was because there was a call for emergency as their school fell down and pupils were studying under trees in the peak of the rainy season. I had to intervene and started constructing a brand new four blocks. This has been tiled, plastered, painted and handed over to the community. I also did an examination hall that used to be a dormitory. It fell flat at Uda community. We did the foundation, and started over again, done and delivered. Also the electricity projects at Umuadonu Owa attracted our attention. The community through their own efforts provided poles, with wires but no transformer. I gave them and they have light now.
At Umuagbedo Agu, the same thing happened. The community, by their effort, provided poles, and wiring. We gave them a transformer, furnished and delivered, waiting for commissioning. At Obollo-Eke, we completed a solar streetlight from a distant of about 3 kilometres from Obollo-Eke, around Saint Patrick’s College and Saint Patrick’s Parish. It is finished and lit up the whole place. We have completed the solar streetlights at Obollo-Eke. These are five projects already done within this short period of five months.
Court recently ordered a rerun at some polling units of your constituency, meaning your election was upturned. What actually happened?
The Appeal Court ordered a re-run at 176 polling units out of 532 polling units which is just less than 30% of the polling units in the constituency. What happened was that one of the parties that contested the election, the APC, complained that in those polling units, that the results of their party were not recorded in the result sheet, not the ballot paper. The fact is that those places were where they got no votes. INEC just left it blank. They forgot to write zero for APC. They then complained that their votes were not recorded. Their votes were not recorded. The vote they got was zero, but it needed to be recorded. We are going back to do the re-run in those places.
In an election, if any party has participated, their votes are supposed to be counted, whether it is zero. Whether it is one or any number of votes they got, they are supposed to be recorded for them. How many votes did they get? Zero. Those zero votes needed to be recorded. That was the reason for the re-run. So far there are about 357 polling units that are intact and the votes there are intact. My votes there are about 22,600. The PDP candidate’s votes are 10,000. APC has just 961 votes, less than a thousand. It means I am ahead of the PDP candidate by about 12,500 votes.
This was before this re-run was ordered. The margin with which I went to the House of Representatives was a margin of over double the votes of the next person. I got 28,870, the next person got 14,300. So I passed the person by up to 14,500. This time around, I am only going to add to that margin as I am already passing them by 12,500. Let them also know and believe they have been given a fair hearing. This was what the court has done.
There are rumours that the election would be manipulated by the opposition. What is your take?
The truth is that many terrible things have happened in the Nigerian elections. People are believing and thinking the worst. They just believe people who came with all manner of speculations, but we are not leaving such speculations without being attended to. Our eyes are open to make sure nobody springs a surprise. This is because this election is just a mere formality to give some people a sense of belonging and yet they are parading all manner of stories here and there to intimidate the people. It is very laughable. This is because they couldn’t do it in the main election with 532 polling units. I am passing them by 12,500 votes, and they are still going around and saying they will win. We are watching and monitoring them. We already know the numbers of voters in each polling units and we shall see how they will present additional names in the polling registers. Our eyes and ears are open and we are very vigilant. We are not blinking an eye. We shall repeat what we have done before. There is no going back as what is written is written.
It appears PDP has not learnt a lesson that people don’t like them anymore, but we shall teach them once more. Their time for governance is over and they will never under my watch come back to government again, especially the person I am contesting with.
