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Dikko Nwachukwu, an entrepreneur with a rich heritage, is running
for the only senate seat for FCT. He explains how he intends to achieve his
goals to NEXT’s Emmanuel Ogala. Excerpts:

His inspiration to run
for senate

I have been very passionate about Nigeria, about making things
work, because when you go around the world and you meet friends from other
countries, especially friends from Ghana, they talk with such passion and pride
about their country.

If someone who has all the connections in the world, both locally
and internationally, cannot get a business up and running in Nigeria, then what
becomes of the average guy who has nothing? My passion is just to make this
country a better place really.

His special interest in
education

We need people who can hold elected officers accountable and
dissect the information that is coming out. I think for a long time we’ve been
looking at the wrong side of the solution. We’ve been looking at building more
schools, but that is not the answer. I think we need to look at a very
different set of approach, which is training of teachers.

I am aware we need more schools in FCT, especially primary and
secondary schools, but even if you build more schools and people teaching in
those schools don’t have the necessary skills, it is a waste of everyone’s
time.

My approach is one where we need to find money to train teachers
in the FCT so that they don’t run away to private schools with our
scholarships. Teachers need to be paid salaries on par with maybe managers, but
depending on the skills they have and the impact that they have on the
children.

His other plan for the
FCT

I think the FCT needs to find a way to reduce the cost of house
rent. Government needs to start encouraging and giving incentives to developers
who would focus on building low cost housing with cheap, but good quality
materials.

The process is actually tedious right now. We need to find a way
to make life more affordable in the FCT, and we have to figures a way to do
that because I am not sure legislation alone would force landlords to reduce
rent. We cannot tell somebody who probably borrowed money to build not to
charge so much.

Possibility of achieving
this through the senate

Abuja has a minister, which is the chief executive of the FCT.
Because Abuja has one senator, if that senator and the minister could work as a
team, the things that will happen in the FCT will be quite amazing. These
programmes I am talking about means getting more allocations from the federal
budget for the FCT, and we can work hand-in-hand to get the monies that we
need. I represent the people, he is appointed by the president. Therefore, the
minister needs me as a senator to get the monies he needs to execute projects.

Which platform will you
run on?

Peoples’ Democratic Party.

The PDP agreement that
only Gwari can represent Abuja in the senate

That’s an interesting one. Abuja was created to be ethnically
neutral area in the middle of the country; to be accessible to every Nigerian.
Abuja was created to be one place where every citizen in Nigeria can say: “I
have a home,” not just your state of origin. I have been here since 1991. I am
pretty much a native of Abuja.

Yes, I am not Gwari, or other indigenous tribe, but that was not
why Abuja was created. My heritage is one-quarter Igbo from Abia State (my
Dad); one-quarter Yoruba from Ogun State (my Mom); one-quarter Hausa from
Katsina (My father’s mother), and one-quarter Kalabari from Rivers (my mother’s
father).

So, I understand enough the issues facing a lot of people from my
interactions with my family.

No allowances as senator

I have been privileged in my life. I don’t need the money from
the senate to survive. I already own a house here in the FCT, my family is ok,
and we are doing fine.

I am also from a family that has a very humble lifestyle. We are
not ostentatious. The name that I carry is a very strong name, with a tradition
of doing the right thing and making people’s lives better.

I took a tour of the FCT and in my tour, I saw a level of poverty
that is very astonishing. There is no way I can see that and continue to take
millions of naira to stuff my pocket. Do I want to oppress more people or what?
For me, it is about service.

I am very cognisant of the fact that I want to affect people’s
lives and one thing I know I can do independently is control my allowances. So,
I have decided to take all my allowances and put them into a fund that will be
transparent, so that people will not say I am doing some gimmick or publicity
stunt.

It is something that is very personal to me. I am not criticising anybody
else for not doing it. I want to do that because of the woman who walks 20 km
to get water. If I can reduce that to 5km, then I have done something to
improve her life.