In this interview with Excel Magazine International, the Senatorial election candidate of Okigwe federal constituency, Imo state, Barrister Charles Onyirimba who is also a Lawyer by profession speaks about his decision to contest as a member of the Nigerian Senate under the All Progressives Grand Alliance, why he deserves to be elected and lots more.
Excerpts below.
Excel Magazine: Nigerians need more proactive leadership, what motivated your decision to contest?
Barr Onyirimba: I must thank the Excel Magazine International for organizing this interview.
The need to have a proactive legislature or any individual in governance must be properly rooted in the individual’s historical background, where and how they started and what motivated them to participate in the electioneering process.
Many persons begin to run for office once they think they have gathered the money, they seek power, they seek influence and as a result they are only interested in running for office. But certain people are grounded because they’ve been involved in public service, community service, community activism through many years and that is what has engendered me to run for office at this time given that for the past 35 years, I have deeply involved myself in community service, in public service on voluntary bases and I understand fully well, the problem inherent in my community and inherent in the zone that I intend to represent which is Imo North Okigwe Zone.
Because I am averse with it problems, it is important that an individual who is quite exposed internationally in both leadership and advocacy is right positioned to address the issues concerning Okigwe at this time.
Excel Magazine: Senatorial elections are quite important, in fact who ever emerges senator for a constituency goes a long way to mould representation and development, because you’ve spoken about problems and other solutions for the problems, what difference do you bring?
Barr Onyirimba: At this time in our political history, Okigwe zone which is Imo North has experienced tremendous degradation both economically and politically. The advancement of this zone is so far behind the rest of the other two zones, Owerri zone and Okigwe zone and because we are backward, it’s leadership must take aggressive approach in addressing the issues involving unemployment to our youths most importantly, but then the dividends that come from Abuja to is not sufficient to address the issues.
The things is as a senator, the allocation that come both in federal allocation and community appropriation for the zone is not sufficient, there is nothing sufficient that can address the issues except individuals that have appropriate networks and connections overseas that can attract foreign investment into Okigwe Zone.
As a Lawyer that has practiced Law more than 35 years in the US, as an individual who has been involved in so many international agencies, donor agencies, with my network of connections in America and across the world, I stand best positioned because I have built alliances and friendships that I can use to attract foreign investments into Okigwe Zone. So, what set me apart from other candidates is one, I am involved in the international community. Secondly, I know the donor agencies, not donor agencies that come in to donate money but to invest in Okigwe Zone, in Imo state and Nigeria at large.
Leveraging on my position as a senator, it will then enhance the ability of these individuals because they now know they have a trusted hand
. They would have come; I have been attracting them in the past when I was not running for office. I approached Tyson Chicken, a company that produces chicken in America long time ago to come and invest in Imo State, they came, they were here to invest in the reopening the Avotu Poultry Farm.
I also attracted the company that has built the shoe industry that was in Owerri. They also came and attempt to revitalize and reenergize that company so that our youth can have employment. If I could do this when I was an individual not running for any office, with political power behind me, I definitely can attract much more in to Imo state, into Okigwe Zone, to help reduce the unemployment of our youths.
Excel Magazine International: You spoke about your practice as a lawyer for 35 years, do you think your knowledge of the law will help you perform better in the senate?
Barr Onyirimba: The senate is the highest law making body of the nation. It is not a position for contract awarding or contract execution, it is legislative. Anyone who needs to be in that senate, must be an individual who understands the mechanics of law, who understands how to read law, how to write law and how to interpret law. In having practice and educated and performed lecture series to lawyers, I stand very well positioned to represent Okigwe Zone in the senate.
I am a lawyer for many years, I am not just a lawyer, I am a lawyer who understands the problems of the society I intend to represent. So with law and understanding, there are two things, one you could be a lawyer but you don’t understand and so purely you are an academic lawyer which different from a practical lawyer, one who understand the issues that affect the people.
I very well understand the problems affecting my zone and having practiced for many years, having mentored numerous lawyers, having participated in lecture series where I was also an instructor to many jurists that come to the US for training, having been of the lecturers that thought them, I do very well understand that to be a senator in Nigeria at this time, where many intricacies are involved, you have to understand how to write the law, read the law and interpret the law and effect practicalize the law because reading without practicalizing it doesn’t make any sense so, you have to be book smart and street smart.
Excel Magazine International: Talking about the fact that you understand the law. Over the time it has been proven that understanding the law and been able to bring in good laws are not enough to develop a society, Okigwe is third largest Zone in Imo state apart from Owerri and Orlu.
What is your key plan in the manifesto that will make Okigwe people vote for you and also how do you want to levy with the fact that Okigwe is one of the largest zones in Imo state? How will that translate to development if you emerge?
Barr Onyirimba: Once I emerge as Senator representing Okigwe zone, i will attract foreign investment into Okigwe zone. I have friends and companies that are willing to come.
The only way you can change Okigwe zone is not through the legislation alone, it is through practical industries. There is no single industry in Okigwe zone. When you go to the capital city, Okigwe itself, the degradation there is horrible. There is no single industry of repute and understanding. Our youths are totally unemployed; there is nothing they can leverage on, nothing they can put their hand on.
So any senator coming in at this time of our history must be able to attract those investors that are willing to take the bull by the horn and open industries because teaching and speaking big grammars is not all it takes, there must be practical phase where these people can get employed. An empty stomach breeds corruption and crime, when these young men are unemployed, all educated and I can tell you, Okigwe has the highest number of educated people in this state also but unfortunately, there are no places where our students and graduates be employed, so what must we do. One, we will introduce an enabling legislature in the senate that will focus primarily on Okigwe zone.
Two, we will get our foreign friends who have indicated interest to open establishments in Okigwe zone. These individuals and I can guarantee will establish industries in Okigwe zone.
These are not governmental but individual businesses that will hire thousands of Okigwe young people. My focus for running for office this time, is to focus on the youths of Okigwe zone. I am troubled each time I return home, and see thousands of graduates roaming the street, many of them riding Okada because they cannot find employment, you have people who studied bio-chemistry, engineering yet the only job that they can get is to be security guard in all these new entities and governmental security jobs.
It does not all go well for the development of the society or group, when you have people who are medical doctors and cannot get jobs, nurses who cannot find jobs, Okigwe zone is deprived.
We are the most deprived in Imo state, deprived by the fact that there are a lot of environment that proves this opportunity for our youth. Charles Chibuike Onyirimba as a senator of Okigwe zone will change the history of our zone. Charles Chibuike Onyirimba as a senator will make sure that my friends, friends that I have gathered and helped that owe me services they intend to produce, they will come to open industries in Okigwe zone.
Excel Magazine International: Setting up something is one step to it and then being productive is another step to it. In regards to Agriculture, how would you ensure products that will help Agriculture in the region brought up?
Barr Onyirimba: I already have entered in an agreement with a school, a former school in the US, one of the best and biggest agricultural universities who is willing to partner with Okigwe zone to one, open a trading institute for Okigwe Students.
This training will be given to them free, they will also enhance the production like in Okigwe where we have the cashew nuts, we will expand the cashew nut and bring in new breed of cashew that can grow quickly and harvested will help in exportation of these cashew nuts. We have various greased lands for cassava production, we will now bring machinery for our women so that this cassava production can be enhance, processed and marketed appropriately. We have some friends that are already embarking in rice production in Okigwe zone.
We will also enhance the rice production, rice marketing and services been sure that the rice that is produce in Okigwe can also be sold in Imo state and across the nation for our people to have cheaper rice but most importantly, provide employment opportunities for sons and daughter of Okigwe zone. So, we have three things we want to do.
First, training, we have an institution that is willing to come from overseas and as a matter of fact, we will take some of our students from Okigwe zone to the United State to train them hoping that they will come back also to retrain others.
That is the one that is already agreed upon patiently waiting for execution. Not only training, they would also embark on mechanize agricultural productivity. Example, we have a group of people who are willing to come and establish a major cattle farm in Okigwe, a different breed, the same breed they have in south Africa, it a breed that has grown and grown so big, it different from the cattle that we know here, it is called the Igbo cattle that’s what they call Iheigbo, we are bringing that Iheigbo back to Imo state into the Okigwe zone and that is a guarantee because all that is already in the works.
So from agriculture, from cassava to cow, to cashew to all other areas that Okigwe zone is well rooted for, and rice. We have programme already in place that will go into immediate execution, from day one I become senator things will change
Excel Magazine International: Speaking of politics, you are actually based out of the country and the way politics is practiced here and over there are different. Now, you are coming from outside the country which seems to be saner according to what people say. How do you see politicking, what have you been doing, how have you been playing your politics that makes you unique?
Barr Onyirimba:. Politics and act of human management, yes it is different here as it is overseas. However, everybody read the same political books so we understand fully well how it is meant to be. Since I started my campaign in 2018, in all my campaign structures, I have embarked upon decent campaign, not condemning people for what they have done.
Every politician or any one asked to rule or lead operates from the confine of their own exposure and reach.
People cannot give what they don’t have. If you don’t know that there is a way to get above the sky, you will think it ends with just what you see but above it there is more. So many people within the political process only operate with what they know. Charles Chibuike Onyirimba as apolitical activist in the US, having led so many ethnic and non-ethnic organizations, having ked non-governmental entities, I understand the workings of international political process.
But in Nigeria also, I am involved and being involved means grass-root approach. I went straight to the grass-root when I started my campaign instead going to the elites first as it is practice here.
I sought the approval of the grass-root, I sought the approval of downtrodden, I sought the approval of the teachers, the market women, I sought the approval of the students, the youth group before I sought the approval of the elites because the elites have a way to limit what you can do and cannot do but the populace sees a better future for themselves and they see that there is a man coming who is not quite rooted in the corrupt system that we all know about and when you talk about Nigeria political culture, yes, it is a culture of corruption and that culture must change, it must begin from somewhere.
Everybody is willing to change, the youths are willing to see a new Nigeria but how will it come about. That new Nigeria can come about when men and women step up and say let the right thing be done.
Answering your question directly, one, I have embarked on a politics of a decent politics, politics of converangence of ideas where everybody idea irrespective of your party, it doesn’t matter whether you are APC, PDP, APGA, SDP or Accord. The key thing is who are best suited at this time in our political history to transform Okigwe zone and I think that I, Charles Chibuike Onyirimba among all the candidate that are running now, I am best positioned to help transform story of Okigwe zone and that is what set me apart.
Excel Magazine International: You have spoken a lot about the political system of Nigeria, do you think the political terrain here will help you push all the ideas you have mentioned in this interview?
Barr Onyirimba: The people are waiting for proper leadership. A nation is good or bad base on the people in it. A community, state or zone is good or bad depending on the people that led it. Our people are willing to follow when there is appropriate leadership.
The key is the youths are looking up to the leaders, if the leaders can do the right thing, the youth will do the right thing. So why is Charles Onyirimba running for senate. Charles has left the comfort of his office, I’m a practicing lawyer, trained so many lawyers in the US. I have led Igbo organizations, Nigeria organizations, Africa organizations international organizations in the United State.
Having led all these entities then coming home, doing it the right way if I don’t do it the right way, from the secondary school, university level and upward, they would not have allowed me to rise in the political process overseas. Now, I believe that when you have a senator who can now sit down with the members of the house of the representatives, as a senator, Charles Onyirimba will meet with members of the house of reps in Okigwe zone. We will also meet with the chairmen of the local governments because collectively when the Senator, House of representative and local government chairmen come together to chat a course in developing the zone, then we would have a synergy on how things are done.
But now what we see is every chairman of the local government does what he thinks, what he wants, whether good or bad nobody questions.
Every legislature member, house of assembly member go to the house of assembly and they decide on what to do, they vote for themselves and do not care about what the people say because nobody questions them. The members of the house of rep do the same and the senator basically sits there because he is not aligning himself with other members of the legislative body of the zone or the state.
When I get to the senate, Charles Onyirimba will unify these entities in the zone so we can have a uniform developmental agenda for Okigwe zone. There will be something different, when you lead by example, when the people experience and know that the leaders are doing the right thing, they will follow.
Bad followership comes from bad leadership when you have adequate and proper leadership the people follow. They say our people are ungovernable, it is not true, our people are very governable. Our people are willing to do the right thing only when leadership does the right thing, Charles Onyirimba as a senator of Okigwe zone will do the right thing for Okigwe people.
Most importantly, not only just unifying all these governmental entities, we periodically educate Okigwe zone, what happen in Abuja. In my history and knowing fully well what happens here, I don’t remember when I have been in any sitting where our people are informed.
Take for example, there have been issues concerning the restructuring that have been spoken about everywhere.
No Okigwe son or daughter would have sat in any room where a legislature, be it a chairman of a local government, house of assembly or house of representative educate the Okigwe people what restructuring means when I get to the senate I will educate Okigwe zone and Okigwe zone with it leaders tell me what to vote, that’s how it is practice in the US, vote made by the senate is the people’s vote, so if it is the people’s vote, you must seek the consent of the people . from the RUGA, from every aspects of legislature that happens both in Owerri or in Abuja, our people need to know what is going on.
Not that when we get to the Senate or House of rep or house of assembly, we become lords, we cannot be lords to the people, we are servants, we were elected to serve the people, not run over them. Charles Onyirimba has a good steward protecting the rights of the people of Okigwe zone and they will do the right thing. I have come home as a missionary worker in the political process, a missionary comes to transform and that is the driving force with me.
Excel Magazine International: It is usually a thing, someone who stays abroad comesback home to contest because he believes he has the advantage to run.
Tell us something rare about yourself and don’t you think that you are coming home to contest because you believe that you are abroad and when you come home people will respect you because you based out of the country,. Secondly, don’t you think also that you will force the ideas of US on a cultural region like here?
Barrister Onyirimba: In the past 25 years, I Charles Chibuike Onyirimba has made it a duty to come home at least 3 times a year. I am home in my village, more than those of us that lives in Lagos and Abuja, there are my brothers and sisters that live in Lagos and Abuja but comes home once a year.
In the past 25 years, I have not spent a Christmas in America, so, I’m involved in the activities of my local government, local church and community. So, I know I live in America but I live here also, so the fact, I’m running for office don’t make me a nonresident, I am fully blooded resident because I come home sometimes 4 times a year and when I mean I come home, I don’t go to Lagos or Abuja, I come to my village, Umuezetu Ehie Mbano.
So, I’m fully grained in the activities of my village and community. In the past 28 years, I’m fully involved in the process and processes of not only government but issues affecting my people.
Excel Magazine International: Can you tell us something rare about you?
Barr Onyirimba: What people don’t know is I’m a married man, I have 5 children, they are all grown, graduate of various universities. I don’t have a child in school, so I have come home, this is the appropriate time.
When most people run for office when their families are young, they deprive those children of their parental love. Most people involved in political processes especially the young ones in their 30s and 40s, they deprive their children of direct parental love. Now, my kids are grown, I don’t have a child in school.
There have been a call for me to run for office in the past 20 years but I felt the best thing first is to give my children appropriate training, fatherly love and be with them as they go to school. Now, they are out of school, I can dedicate myself totally fully to development of my community and society that’s why I’m here now.
I am a free man, a free man because my kids are out of the house. I’m married to a beautiful woman who has been fully involved in this process, it is a partnership, she makes all the calls and contacts. She is fully involved in this process. So, it not just Charles Onyirimba running for senate but Charles Onyirimba, his wife and the community of friend and neighbor around me that we are doing this project. it is a project fully ordained by God not because people say it is ordained.
This is fully ordained to transform Okigwe zone as a partnership with my wife and with my brother and sister, friends and well wishers and those who mean well who are tired of the way things are done.
The youths are tired of the way things are because you are tired, because we are all tired, someone must bail the cat but there are dangers in bailing the cat, in spite of the dangers, one is willing to give up I’m self, sacrificially to make sure transformation come about. It can only come about when one, two three individuals who understands that it takes the calling and the willingness of the soul and spirit to make this change come about. Charles Chibuike Onyirimba is committed to transformation.
Charles Chibuike Onyirimba is committed to enhancing the economic position of our various families.
Charles Chibuike Onyirimba is committed in changing the course where young girls beautiful girls before they get a job, they must open their skirts to sleep with men before they can get a job. Charles is also tired of all young men before they can get a N5000 naira job, they have to pay bribe to apply for a job. Is it fair? It is not fair. Men must speak up, there must be individuals who can speak of the ills in the society, when these ills are spoken about, when people begin to talk about it, conscience hear this though little by little and people begins to make an imprint in them and gradually begins to change.
That is why I’m here.
I’m here to be a voice, not just a voice for Okigwe zone, a voice in Nigeria that will hear the course of the people, what affect Okigwe zone affects Imo state affects all the regions and affect Nigeria as a nation.
When Nigeria as a nation rises up to men and women, who are willing and able to speak truth to the nation that they may hear it the we will rise above our self and rise for the betterment of the people that’s why I’m running.
The youths of our nation needs to rise up, they must do the right thing, not to take money before they vote.
When they sell their conscience with N5, N2, N2000 or N5000, they sell their destiny. It is the duty of the media to educate our youths, that our youths ought to know, they should vote for individuals who can transform them, not being thugs or use as thugs, not being used as agents of destruction because when you destroy the electoral process, you destroy your future, you mortgage your future and in mortgaging your future, you tarnish the entire process.
I am asking and calling on Nigerian youths, I’m calling on Okigwe youths, do the right thing, listen to your conscience, forget the little hand out they may give you. Vote for the man who is committed in jeliping you get yo the next level. The next level is not just a level, economic independence. A man who is economic independent tends to have a stable home, when a man is unstable, his home is unstable, he raises unstable children and that is how the society continue to go but when a man is employed, he is happy, his parents are happy, the society us happy, you are building community of active involved people. Youths of Okigwe zone, I call upon you, Vote Charles Onyirimba. Vote the man with a conscience.
Vote the man that cares for you. Empathy, knowledge and ability to relent, I have all 3 qualities. Thank you.
APGA is my party, APGA is the vehicle. APGA is the party of conscience, it is a party that represents the downtrodden. APGA as a party is different, we have a philosophical idea that set us apart from other parties. We are a party that relates to one another. APGA is a family. I am running under the party, APGA.
