I dropped out, 4 years into study of medicine, when dad died

-Hon Gabriel Igboko (Abia State Com. for Environment And Solid Minerals Dev)

Hon. Commissioner Gabe Igboko with wife

As a growing youth in the South Eastern part of Nigeria, some years before Nigeria attained Independence, life for young Gabe Igboko was rosy. He recalls pleasant memories of joyful moments and with twilight cherished recollections, he tells you, “I must say I was a privileged child, I was very highly privileged to have had my kind of parents.”

But with his father’s sudden death, Gabe Igboko who was already in a higher institution enjoying the joy of life and looking forward to becoming a young Medical Doctor, felt deeply touched. He was involved. The bond between him and his father was strong. He stopped school. But life did not end there for him. Like his father once was, today, Gabe Igbokwe is a Honourable Commissioner.

In this interview with Paul Ukpabio, Hon Gabe Igboko the Abia State Commissioner for Environment and Solid Minerals Development, shares his early life with us, his sojourn in America and the changes that he is bringing into the government ministry where he heads.

But what really can you say caused the turn around and made you abandon the study of Medicine?

I can’t say, I guess one thing led to another. I was studying medicine; I had been there for four years when my father died all of a sudden. Afterwards, I left the study of medicine. My father died in a sudden way that shook all of our family.

So what did you do after that?

I found myself reading law in the same university, all of a sudden too: From Enugu campus I went to Nigerian Law School, Victoria Island Lagos. In fact two of my lecturers, one is a Supreme Court justice now, Justice Amina Augie, the Presiding judge of court of appeal Lagos and then Justice Olanrewaju Adesola Onadeko was just made a Senior Advocate recently.

Tell us about your early life

I can re-call that my father all through the time he was with us, kept introducing himself as a teacher even when he was in government, even when he became a commissioner. And right from a very early age, he imbibed in us his children, altruistic virtue of seeing that  you will derive more joy and perhaps even blessing when you impact positively on the so called less privileged in the society.

And his teachings were not limited to the classroom. He used to say that, as a teacher, he is a role model, that even when one is acting one should be a role model. So by speech and mannerism, I have always seen myself in that stead. So that was the kind of atmosphere that I grew up. Whether it is these young children that are outside the door here, what I readily ask myself is what are the children going to learn from me? So, I always want to be a mentor to them.

Could that be what has been your motivating spirit?

That is what has driven me and luckily for me also, I was also privileged to go to very good schools: from the primary school to the university: the University of Nigeria where my father was a staff.

Tell us more about your father

My father was a Professor of Mathematics and attended Oxford University and University of Birmingham in Southampton. And I attended Government College, Umuahia before proceeding to University of Nigeria which at the time was like the Ivy League in Nigerian Universities. There was a time when there were just five universities in the whole country, before the University of Benin joined.

Can you compare our university then and now?

In those days, discipline in schools was generally highly placed in the institution and even then, when you pass through the institution, you ensured that the institution passed through you. So a lot of institutions passed through many of us that were trained in that period. Then I was also privileged, I went to John Hopkins University, Washington DC, where I had a Masters degree in two disciplines. I did political economy; I had a Master in Public Policy and then International Law.

How about family?

I am married to a very wonderful lady; she is a medical practitioner in the US and was here too at University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital. But she is based in the US now. I have two daughters, one in the College and the other one in the final year. I have four sisters.

 Social

 I can say that I am a social person, even my heavy work schedule cannot change that. Though my profession ensures that I wear suit regularly, I like to wear clothes that are free on my body. My style is casual when I am outside work environment.

Recently we heard that the governor separated the Ministry of Petroleum from the Ministry of Environment and Solid Minerals Development. What would you say necessitated this change?

I wouldn’t know, but I guess the Governor Dr Victor Ikpeazu just re-structured it to what it ought to be, and to where it was initially. I found out from the records that when this ministry was created in year 2000, it was known as Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, I think that's what it was named. But perhaps the governor himself, apart from being a very cerebral scientist, a person who has core competence in environmental sector, one who was a successful deputy general manager of the Abia State Sanitation Environmental Protection Agency, where he did very well in Aba and brought a lot of innovations. I believe from his insider knowledge and experience, when he assumed office as Abia State governor, knew which ministry ought to be what. Especially the environment ministry where he had pioneered some trail blazing activities. Of course he now needed to situate it where it rightly belongs and that is why he extracted that solid minerals aspect of it or section of it back to where it originally belongs.

Sometime ago i was in Kaduna for a national conference on solid minerals, on the adoption of the road map on solid minerals which the Federal Executive Council approved sometime ago, every other state had ‘environment and natural resource ministry, so it would have been an anathema if Abia state was different. So I am happy Dr Victor Ikpeazu saw the vision.

As it is now, in what ways do you see the new ministry, that is, the ministry of environment and solid minerals development being positioned to impact positively on the lives of people around the state?

When we came in, we created a formidable team which I am also very grateful to God about. We have very experienced technocrats in the ministry, some administrative gurus, right from my permanent secretary to my very knowledgeable and experienced directors and heads of departments. The first day I resumed office on Monday the 9th of November 2015, I told my team that my experience from the private sector and having lived in various places that I saw things done with public private partnership initiatives, that one intends to impact more on the public when the public is invited to buy into government agenda or initiative. And I specified that would be my vision.

Now that you have been in the saddle, what have you been doing differently?

We haven’t really done anything different from what we met but we are now fine tuning what we met, that didn’t seem to be meeting the optimal. And of course one of the things we did was to indentify a team of consultants that we need to use to turn things around. It is only someone who is very impervious to ideas or changes that would be doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result in the positive direction. So what we are doing is just to fine-tuning things and pulling in knowledge of experts that have come to help us. One of this is Dr Chuma Igbokwe, who came for a different thing and in the course of our interaction with him, he is now one of the people we have given concession an aspect that is going to make waves in this state to. So the government policies are there.

On the solid mineral aspect, in what ways do you see Dr Chuma Igbokwe that his company is also going to create impact in terms revenue in this state?

He came in to us with a total different idea of what he and his team could do for us. In the course of discussions, as passionate as he is, a consummate gentleman, astute professional, it didn’t take time for both parties to realize that we have a meeting point not far from where we would have imagined, hence we have him today. He and his Mummy and Mummy Company Nigeria, are highly very rated, respected and appreciated by this government, particularly by this ministry, because he has dovetailed with the ideas of our chief consultant. In the solid minerals aspect in the first place, our idea has been that government cannot keep piloting this affairs the way the government has been doing it all the years. And the results are quite obvious and glaring.

So our chief consultant came up with a template. In most of these things to achieve maximum result, we got concessioners in order to have competent outfit. Apart from being a consultant he helped us to even source and then brought the company today that is making waves in that aspect of solid minerals revenue generation aspect. This is just one of the solid minerals responsibilities; we haven’t even gone into the mining proper which primarily the mining licensing is the responsibility of the federal government. But from our last conference in Kaduna, we have fashioned out where the curator, that is the custodian are recognized, as those that will help the Federal government monitor the activities of the licenses.

How about challenges?

We have also come to meet with a lot of resistance and utmost rigidity. We came to meet both administrative and operational resistance. I have come to see Dr Igbokwe and his company as partners to us in the progressive road map as we chart out strategies in this sector. Of course those who had been there before are either seeing it as probably you are indicting them but unfortunately it has to be that because if for instance a ministry in one year generates N2m from this sector and I said look I have brought some experts that have better technological knowhow, comparative advantage to make that N2m turn to N20m then we are moving forward. Then unfortunately, the truth must be told, you found out that even that two naira that the government was making some people somewhere rather innocuously will be behind making another N2m or N3m, perhaps even richer than the state. So it is that their N3 that they are going to lose they are fighting more for than the money that the state is going to gain. Which is where I am much more against. So the challenges are multiphase.

Unfortunately, fraudulent challenges, for those who have been gaining from the bad system, that has impregnated the whole Nigerian system even at the federal level. You hear even the president talking that I am fighting corruption. Sometimes the people who are your agents in helping you in fighting corruption are not so willing because they have been benefiting from as it were that skewed situation that was before this mantra of trying to now challenge it. so more often than not even the soldiers that you have engaged, you also have to watch your back because if you don’t look properly they will shoot you from the back.

How do you want to solve this resistance?

First and foremost let me start by saying that our governor Dr Victor Ikpeazu is the chief commissioner in the first place, we are just his agents. And if he as the chief commissioner had a different instruction or notion or vision or perhaps even mission you will see it in us. He chose us, and I know the mandate he gave us, he has not deviated for one day, from that mandate. He is the number one change: he is the number one rejuvenation agent. He was a local government chairman; he was a general manager of a government parastatal: so he has seen it all and all. The last exco we had, without going into the detail of the exco the governor was livid that he is not seeing these changes in the direction that he envisaged as fast as it should be coming. And that it would either appear that we commissioners are comfortable with what we see or we are not seeing what he his seeing. And I smiled because he couldn’t have hit the nail any better on the head.

What other programmes do you have?

Like even our chief consultant that is helping us in the merger aspect, we have an agenda that involves four ministries: environment and solid minerals, agriculture, land and one other ministry and then departments. We also have a programme, the Nigerian Erosion Water Shed Management programme that will involve five other ministries. So we have such programmes that has clusters of ministries working together to achieve the same result or better result. But every now and then we have political issues.

Even in the ministry here, solid minerals is just about one of seven or eight programmes we are about to roll out and we are determined to roll. If you know what is happening in our forestry section, there is an Igbo parlance that says that it is the rat inside the house that invited the one from outside to come inside that there is fish around. So sometimes what you do most often if you indentify that rat, you now make the rat the chief security officer, so that when the fish misses, you will now know who to hold. Because we have in-house saboteurs as it were, people that are resisting the paradigm. Like I said there has to be a paradigm narrative. The narrative has to change but it has to change in a paradigm positive way. We have also come to understand that you don’t have to blame because that is what they are used to and that is the only way they know how things have been done.

What is on ground and what is the near future going to be like?

We had a public hearing some time ago, the tipper drivers, the quarry people; everybody participated in the public hearing. The figures were discussed, which is the essence of public hearing. What happens in government is that, you may have a law that said some years back, that you have to pay N1000, perhaps when dollar was exchanging at N85, so every now and again, laws are reviewed with respect to current dynamics in the industry. So everybody knew what to pay. On ground for instance in the solid minerals aspect which is the main thing we are talking about, we met all sorts of agents, all sorts of revenue collectors parading themselves, some have even gone ahead and printed authorization for themselves purported to have been issued by a government ministry. Some have had expired letters from past administrations that they are still revalidating and using to intimidate the public, sort of muscling them into compliance to pay illegal charges. We are resisting this; it is high time these things are channelled in a formal way. Now everyone in the industry knows where to pay to. They pay to only one concessionaire, only one purse.

How about waste management?

Waste management is another pivotal aspect of the mandate in the ministry and also an area that we want to take charge of. But in terms of operation particular in this government, the direct responsibility of waste management and everything about waste is ceded to a parastatal of government known as (ASEPA) Abia State Sanitation, which reports to government house. As a ministry, we create the policy that can drive our waste section to be better, more lucrative and creating a safer environment. We have a template on things we want to do in the year. In fact waste management was supposed to fall in within the first year of our operation. The government has also appointed a new board of ASEPA; we have sent our template to the government. The implementation belongs to that arm ASEPA but the only thing there is that we will keep looking in. Let ASEPA first of all handle the primary responsibility of even carting the refuse that is dotted everywhere before we even talk about managing it. Let them first of all do the physical collection which is manual because waste management involves a lot beyond just the manual collection. We are also doing a lot to encourage them to do and meet with their primary responsibility of physically carting away the refuse first.