I Will Grow Rivers’ Investment Capacity, Diversify Economy - APC Guber Candidate, Tonye Cole

His name is Tonye Cole. He is the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State. The billionaire entrepreneur was the founder and former Chief Executive Officer of Sahara Group, a consortium of businesses across the globe. Cole, a member of the World Economic Forum’s Partnering Against Corruption Initiative (PACI) and the Private Sector Advisory Group of the United Nations Sustainable Development Fund (UN SDG-F), in 2017, won a Lifetime Achievement Award from the United Kingdom Oil and Gas Council. 

In this interview with Kristina Reports Publisher/Editor-in-Chief, Godswill Jumbo, at Bonny Island, the APC gubernatorial hopeful x-rayed the issues stunting development and good governance in Rivers State, giving refreshingly new perspectives to jumpstart the state economy, while highlighting the strategic role youths will play in his administration should he emerge Governor of Rivers State. It promises to be an exciting read, enjoy.  

Recently, you toured the 12 wards in Bonny LGA where you met with the electorates. Looking back at the things you said about development, about the economy and about retooling the processes of empowering the people of Rivers State. These are very laudable objectives. Currently, Rivers State is challenged with funds and then the challenges of development, especially, in the delta. How do you intend to bring about the realization of these objectives when you become Governor? 

First of all, the one thing we always have to remember about money is that if you take cash and just apply cash for cash sake it is never going to be enough. What you have to do is that you will be able to create an environment where your cash can become revenue, where your cash can become part of the economy and so what you would do then is to look at what we call catalyst areas, where you know that with just an investment in that area you can totally increase it. And then you can begin to earn revenue from other areas. That it’s not just the federation account and allocation that comes from the federal government. And that is what we are going to do. So, we don’t look at the cash that Rivers State has when it comes from federation account as the only way because we will never be able to have enough. But when you can learn and create ideas so that other people can exacerbate what you do in the state then you will see that you are increasing the investment capacity of that state.  

So, in essence, you are saying that the paradigm of states going cap in hand at the end of every month to Abuja for federal allocation, when you become Governor you are going to change that?

Essentially, anything that is cap in hand is already a problem. So, if you have to go begging for your money then you have a problem. What you want to see is that you have to be able to diversify your economy so much so that what comes from the federal government is just a small part of what your economy can do. That is definitely where we are going to go.

You talked about Bonny and you talked about some five star hotels and that you are looking at those kind of economic projects located here. How do you intend to address the challenges that would naturally emanate such as legal issues, land issues, community stakeholding, and all of that?

You see, when you don’t have anything and you hold on to the one you have as if it becomes like life and death. A lot of the issues that you are talking about is because people believe that that is all they have. What they need to realize is that they have a lot more than that and when you have a lot more than that, a lot of these things don’t really matter to you because you can see that you can create a lot more. We look at land here and you take land and you think that…of course, you are an island. Land is such an important issue that you cannot do anything else. But you forget that there are economies like Singapore that have no land. And what did they do? They created an economy that has had so much to do that the land there, in itself, is now so small. If they wanted to look at only land capacity and they are fighting for every square inch of land; nobody can do this, nobody can do that, and Singapore will not be where it is now. And so, when you start thinking about these things and areas of investment where it is not about the square kilometre of land that you have but what you can do with the value there. Bonny has water. Bonny has tributaries. Bonny has all other things of value. It is not only the oil and gas in Bonny that are of value. We should be able to create other economies within the Bonny axis that provide jobs for the unemployed, that provides for the future, that provides food for them. That is what we have to be thinking about, we just have to think differently from the way we have always thought.

For the past three, four years, Rivers State has been traumatized by political turbulence that has deepened the hatred, misgivings, the ill feelings, even among brothers. Recently, you said you are the reconciliation. How are you going to bridge all the divides, PDP, APC, even within APC, and all of that?

The essential part of it is that you have to be the example. If you begin to exhibit the same kind of behaviour, when you don’t talk to people on the other side, you cut them off, you fight them, you refuse to reach out across the divide; then what you are doing is that you are perpetuating the same thing. That is number one. Number two is that if you are unable to show people and open their eyes to the fact that all of these have not developed them; in fact, that it has proved to leave the state worse off than where it is. Then you have a problem. So, our responsibility is very simple. The first is that by example, you need to show that we have to draw the line. You have to create that reconciliation between friends and families. It is okay to compete. I come from the business world where competition was okay. My classmate in school was one of my strongest competitors. We were school mates, we were classmates; he set up his company, I set up my own, the two companies competed back to back. But guess what? We both became two of the biggest companies in Nigeria. We competed, we were not enemies. We didn’t go about abusing each other. We were not killing ourselves. But we competed. Sometimes, I will win, other times, he will win. But the competition was healthy and that is what we need to do. That even though the stakes for power might be so high it should not be that I must kill you for me to get power. It shouldn’t be. At the end of the day, you have your ideologies, I have my ideologies. I may not agree with you on all issues. By you believing in your ideology and competing against me, it keeps me accountable and I keep you accountable. I don’t think that we should hate each other. So, that is what we need to do. We need to be able to show that we can run clean politics and it is not that only the winner takes all.

Rivers State, since its creation, has been a one-city state and economic experts think this is an anomaly. You have Bori, you have Omoku, you have Ahoada, Bonny, and others. Are you thinking of reconfiguring the state in such a way that the economy is diversified, spread out?

I think by your question, you already know that it is a problem but just for your question you know that you cannot have a one city state and expect that that state is going to grow. And think that that state is going to progress. It is not possible. And so you must diversify. You must look at other areas that you must develop. Bonny should not be where it is. Bonny should be a major city in Rivers State. By virtue of what it is, by virtue of its position, it shouldn’t be where it is. So, most definitely, we need to be able to create cities within Rivers State that would grow and become great cities. And it is not hard. Yes, we would be looking to doing that.

Looking at the politics of Rivers State, we find that shade of gerontocracy, where the elders and old men are still in charge. When you become Governor, are you looking at bringing in the youths, especially, with the recent Not Too Young To Run Act that has been enacted, for youths to take up leadership positions?

Absolutely. I think everybody has a part to play. The elders have a part to play. So, I will not push them out and say that the elders have no part to play. What you have to do is that you find people playing at different levels of the government and different levels of the economy because each one has something to contribute. What the young person has to contribute the elder will not have to contribute. What the elders have to contribute the young persons will not have to contribute. But if you have a government that is made up only of young people, you have a problem. If you have a government that is made up of only old people, you have a problem. So, you need to be able to merge. And as the leader of the people, one of the things that I have always done is to be able to look at the people, see their strength and fit them where their strength is. So, I believe that young people have a part to play and I love young people and I know that they have that energy but you have to harness that energy and push it in the right place. But I also know that you have wisdom that comes from experience that old people have. You won’t just throw that away. So, you need to capture that so that the young people don’t have to make the mistakes that the elders have made in the past. But that the elders are also able to guide and direct the young people on how the future should be. You can sit down with the old man and he will tell you that this is the way that things should have been in the future but because of this, this, this things have deteriorated. Now, as a young person who did not see it then and thinks that where they are is the best that it ever was, they should be able to hear so that they know that ‘if I continue the way the older generation has continued I will be going down. So, why don’t I change the way I am working so that I can go up?’ The only they can know how to go up is to hear how it was and why they went down. So, history is important. So, everybody has a part to play. Youths would have a part to play in this government.

Without prejudice to what you are going to say during the campaigns, what do you have to say to Bonny people?     

I think Bonny needs to diversify and I want the people of Bonny to just be ready for that; to be ready to think differently. To stop thinking it is LNG. It is not just all about LNG. LNG is not the only thing that Bonny should be known for. Bonny has the capacity to create wealth but for it to create it people have to think differently. In my visit to different wards in Bonny I came across people who were coming with different thinking. Diversification is Bonny’s future.