I’m going to Senate for service to my people – Owunna

Clement Uchechukwu Owunna is the chairman/chief executive officer, Starline Group and the immediate past pro-chancellor/chairman, Governing Council of Imo State University. In this interview with GODFREY OFURUM, he gave details of his intention to represent the people of Okigwe zone in the Senate, the activities of his foundation(Sunday Peter Owunna Memorial Foundation) and what inspired him to invest N150million in the Lake Nwaebere campus of Imo State University. Excerpts:

As a successful entrepreneur and philanthropist, why do you want to venture into politics and what do you intend to achieve as a politician?

 My intention this time around is to contest for the seat of Okigwe Senatorial Zone in 2015, God being my helper.

Today’s Nigeria requires that people should get up, dust their butts and actually go to serve. There is a difference between service and going there with a financial plan.

You must understand that there is a curse to public wealth, because public wealth belongs to the public. So, when you go there and try to appropriate it to yourself, there is a curse attached to it. Whether you want to believe it or not. So, I believe that you get to a point in life, when you would live by example, to showcase that these things can be done, because the psyche of Nigeria electorates has been so bastadised. 

What everybody is telling you is that, oh, we’ve seen politicians, they’ve come, they’ve promised us so much and yet nothing is being done. But for how long are we going to continue to tolerate this degradation as a nation?

So for me, I felt that in my senatorial zone, which is very backward-I am not saying that the people before me have not tried, they have probably done their best, to the best of their abilities and based on the circumstances they met. But I want to be given an opportunity to go and try my own best and truly serve, because I’m offering service.

I want people to develop some kind of confidence that they can truly hold our political office holders accountable.

A situation whereby you have people that have been elected and after election, there is no constituency briefing on a normal basis and constituency projects are not felt, then there is a problem. Such people do not have plans for the people, because if you go into Government with a plan, you’ll hit the ground running.

Problems of my senatorial zone, include-unemployment, dearth of infrastructure and lack of economic empowerment and they have been itemised in my four-point plan. When I get into the red chamber, I’ll attract as much investment as I can, to my zone.

My plan is quite clear, I am not going there to do what is impossible, I’ll go there to do things that are possible. We need to improve agriculture and generate employment.

We need to work under a plan that is sustainable, and that can bear fruit, because the problems of Okigwe zone cannot be solved under ad-hoc. You must have a plan, systematically, because there must be an immediate, there must be medium and long term plans, to be able to solve the problems.

Government cannot do it alone. The Government in Owerri can do their bit, but the representatives of the people in government need to be able harness their potentials to be able to address those critical issues in Okigwe zone. 

 What inspired you to invest in Imo State University?

 The project was embarked upon by Peter Sunday Owunna Memorial Foundation, which I formed in 1993 in memory of my late father, who passed on in 1990. So, the foundation has been working to alleviate the suffering of the down-trodden in the society, but primarily trying to award bursaries and scholarships to indigent Nigerians, especially fatherless Nigerians to tertiary institutions.

In January, 2013, I was called to service, by Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha, as the pro-chancellor and chairman of the Governing Council of the Imo State University. And upon our inauguration, my colleagues and I took a tour of the university facilities and while getting into the institution, my heart bled at the sight of the institution, it was like a glorified secondary school.

And on approach into the university, the first thing you will see is what they used to call their love quadrangle. So, I felt that if nothing else, if one was able to get that quadrangle right, it will create a different impression about the university and that was how the project was conceptualised.

We discussed it at the council meeting, because I figured out that if I’m going to be the “chief beggar” for the university, a lot of people that I’ll go to for help, would ask me, what I have done for the institution. So, I figured that if I am able to convince the foundation to invest in the University, like they’ve done in other universities, it will leave a legacy and help attract more investments to the university. So, I sold the idea to the board of trustees of the foundation and they bought it. I went back to the University Council, discussed it at length and so, we came up with a plan of what to do there.

The love quadrangle has a problem of erosion and that was why it cost so much money, way above our original budget. I also figured out that to maintain that love quadrangle properly, we needed to have a multi-activity building, which the University could also rent out, as shops, may be as banking halls as well as fast food joints to create activity within that environment. So, from the resources being generated from rent, can also be used to maintain the facility. 

 And that’s what we did and to the Glory of God, we started and it took a lot of resources, because of the typography. The school also appointed a supervisory team from its school of environment to oversee the project and because of their taste for quality, the project tripled to N150 million, which took us about 18 months to complete.

Apart from improving the esthetics of the institution, what other benefits would the students and staff of the institution get from the project?

     Students and staff of the institution can go in there to browse, because it has a wireless internet facility. They can also do their shopping there. It is a place to socialise, away from the rigors of academics. Whether you want to believe it or not, in most civilised climes, there is always an activity centre in most universities, where people can socialise, just cool their brains, before going into the library or go home.

And if you are now driving into the campus, seeing that, alone, you’ll be happy. If you are in an environment that is clean, the tendency for you to be clean is higher, than when you are in an environment that is filthy.

And once you get into that university now, you’ll see that it is an environment of scholarship. It has also created additional jobs in the institution, because the garden needs to be maintained by people. Those that rent the facility would also employ hands to provide service to people.

 

Can you let us into other projects undertaken by the foundation?

 The foundation so far has graduated close to about 300 people since inception in 1993 in specific courses that we felt would be relevant to Nigeria’s socio-economic development. As a developing economy, we felt that the country needs professionals in medicine, engineering, law, econometrics and accounting. We try to encourage students to go into those areas of study, because their chances of getting employment are higher.

However, it is for indigent Nigerians, but more especially fatherless. So, if we have a brilliant student, who is fatherless and whose family can no longer sponsor him/her for tertiary education, such a person can apply for our scholarship.

We do advertise from time to time. The foundation has worked with churches and universities. We have prizes for best graduating students in medicine, pharmacy, law, engineering and accountancy.

The foundation has also done some medical expeditions, the recent being the eye expedition we carried out in Okigwe senatorial zone of Imo State, which cost us about N40 million.  We worked with the Eye Foundation, a Lagos based health firm. We carried out eye check on about 10,000 people from the six Local Government Areas of the zone, gave out eye glasses and medication to about 5,000 people and performed 300 successful cataract surgeries.

In 1998, we built a lecture theater for medical students of Abia State University, Uturu; we have also built churches and markets for communities that are deprived. The foundation has been empowering widows and youths for a long time, giving micro credit to women and widows and also trying to equip youths with skills to start the process of becoming entrepreneurial in their thinking rather than just looking for white-collar jobs or being idle.

We also invest a lot in education, through our quiz competitions among public and private schools in Imo State to ginger competition.   

 Is the scholarship open to all Nigerians?

 Yes, it is open to all Nigerians, but the criterion is that the beneficiary must be indigent and fatherless.

 What advice do you have for other privileged Nigerians, who are not giving back to the society?

 I believe that we owe it as a responsibility to ourselves and to our God, because nobody is wealthy, we only have privilege of use. That privilege is given to you by the person that owns the wealth, which is your maker. So, if you believe in that, as an ardent follower, who believes that there is a supreme being, which is the Almighty God, you must be accountable for whatever he has blessed you with.

God did not bless you for yourself alone. He blessed you so that you can extend the blessing to others. Remember that we cannot see God, but we can see God through people. And so, the blessings of God can come to individuals through people.

So, it behooves on us to try to give back to the society, not giving fish, but teach people how to fish. It is said that the idle mind is a terrible thing to waste. It is also said that an idle mind is the devils workshop. Until we start to look at things passionately, in terms of youth’s engagement, we won’t develop as a people, because the youths are our future.

So, we need to do our best to bring out the entrepreneurial capabilities in them. So my advice to people that are so endowed by the creature is that they should try as much as possible to search within themselves, because there is so much to be done in this country. And not for popularity, but looking at the real issues and try to address those issues as little as they can. I believe that if we all genuinely contribute a little quota back to the society, it will help in building a better society for us and for future generations.