Dr. Ben Nwoye is an American-trained lawyer and a well-known personality in Nigeria’s political space, particularly within the circles of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). He has served the party in various capacities, including as elected and appointed state chairman of the APC in the coal city state of Enugu, South East Nigeria. The Lawyer turned politician is also a former Secretary of the APC Chairmen’s forum. Recently, he declared his intention to run for the office of the National Deputy Chairman of the APC (South) in the upcoming national convention of the party scheduled to take place in Abuja on the 28th of March 2026. In this interview with some journalists in Enugu over the weekend, Nwoye opened up on the motive behind his ambition to occupy the office. Tony Adibe was there.
Excerpts:
You recently declared your intention to contest for the position of the Deputy National Chairman (South), of the APC. What are those things or innovations you think you want to bring on board? Or things you feel the party is not doing right in the Southern Region of Nigeria that you would want to correct if elected?
I want to first of all thank God Almighty for the opportunity to be alive today and to still aspire to serve my people. It is not about what they are not doing right. It is about what we will add to what is already there.
You see, the 2027 general election is going to be an election like none other. In my own view, 2023 would be child’s play if we are not ready. And part of the readiness will come from preparing the party for the struggle ahead. The progressives need to come out. They need to own up to the system. It’s not just all about singing on your mandate; we stand at political rallies. The progressives need to do what I will call a purposefully and progressively driven revolution, where we move from city to city, town to town, village to village, state to state, door to door, explaining to the Nigerian people what the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is all about and has done since assumption of office.
Explaining to the people the promises that our dear president has put together for the betterment of the nation. As a party, we have not really done that. I give you an example. Today, we have a president who has put together a policy where finance will not be a reason for anyone not to go to school, including the university. You can go to school by accessing a government loan.
But if you check the number, you will find out that more people in the North are accessing that loan than those in the South. The question becomes why?
It’s simply because we have not preached that to our people in Southern Nigeria, and we’ve not institutionalized those policies; hence, many people from this part of the country do not know about it. So, if elected DNC (South), I am going to look into such an area, because education remains the bedrock for the advancement of any society. I’m going to get our students to know about this federal government intervention. There is supposed to be a desk in every government institution sensitizing the people, especially the youth, about the loan. Young people being admitted into universities need to go through the financial aid process, as is done in the United States of America (US). I think that’s what prompted Mr. President to do what he’s doing in that regard. So that you can’t begin to blame your parents for not going to school because they don’t have money, you can take a loan.
As I said, it’s unfortunate that a loan is available and people don’t know it exists because, at the institutions, we are not promoting it. The party, with a small effort, can put a desk in every public institution, higher institution, and have a young person manning it, giving ideas, giving the information to those who need it. If you go into the area of job employment, it shouldn’t be about people getting appointed into parastatals or ministries, and fixing their families and relations, as well as those they recommended for available spaces, including those who never worked for the party.
There must be a clearing house where we need to know what is going on. It is not just the job of a federal character system; it’s also the job of the party because the civil servants also help in implementing the policy of the government of the day. Not when the government of the day is elected by different people, the progressives, people who did not contribute anything, will be the ones taking up the jobs, even selling them out. Appointments are being sold out to people who never participated in the process.
All over the world, when you elect people, you bring people who can push that government policy into the system. You bring people who understand what the policy makers are doing, those who can drive the policy. We don’t have that now. That’s in the area of employment. I give you one good example, we have this Renewed Hope World Bank-assisted program, where approximately at least 1,000 Nigerians are supposed to be empowered through the Renewed Hope Agenda. They’re supposed to be given about 100,000 or 120,000 every month to help them with their businesses, but I don’t see people in the South pushing for it, probably because they don’t know about it, but it is ongoing. These are some of the things the party needs to let the people know about in the region. They are supposed to be filling in their data in the system. So that in a very short time, recipients will start getting their money, but we’re not doing it. I know here in Enugu, we are struggling. I’m part of the system; we are struggling to get people enter their data into the system. It is through that means that we now find out that before our e-registration in Enugu, we had under 1.5 million people with National Identification Number (NIN).
So, under such a situation, how can you get the social welfare you need, the social investment? How can you push it to the people if those people are not in the system? We are thinking that the population of Enugu people should be somewhere around between 6 and 8 million people, and yet you have under 1.5 million persons with NIN numbers. So, the people who are pushing this through the party system are not aware of these things. I’m aware because I care. So, gentlemen, the election of 2027 is beyond mounting podiums and shouting, “on your mandate we stand.” We have to go deep down and go step by step approach and let Nigerians know about the federal government’s human-oriented programmes and policies.
I give you another example, when the food prices started going down, you saw me on TV defending it because it was a result of a deliberate policy of President Tinubu, yet nobody is talking about it. It was not magical. There are policies that are put in place that ensure that we have a higher yield in our farms from beans, not just rice. But how about Garri? Even your fish product, even the egg, the poultry products are going down, all of them. It’s not just that it happened by chance.
But as a party, I think we have not done so well in the South. We have not done well in taking the message of the renewed hope agenda of the President to the people. We are busy, sitting on the periphery and waiting for a mega rally where the leadership shows up and joins the chorus of “on your mandate we shall stand”. So, a Ben Nwoye’s candidacy for DNC South is taking the message of the Renewed Hope Agenda to the people and telling them that, yes, the reform has brought some hardship. But it is on record that every other nation that has gone through reforms went through hardship until they got better, and we’ll be able to explain it. We are going to let our people look at where we were. If these things were not done, these improvements wouldn’t have been recorded or wouldn’t have happened.
Again, take a look at Enugu. I mean, I’m talking about Enugu because this is my home state. What we are enjoying, the type of development we are enjoying in Enugu, is only possible because of the amount of money we are receiving from the federal government, which has never happened before. And how is that possible? Because of both the fiscal policy and energy policy that are being put together, that is why you have in Enugu a N1.63 trillion budget. This is almost unimaginable. But are we explaining this as a party? Are we owning it? Are we taking charge of it? So far, they’re not doing so.
What you ask yourself, how many times has the person sitting on that seat for four years been on TV to explain a policy or face the media, the press to explain government policy, the effect on the people, and how we get this thing better? These are the questions to ask. How come we don’t even know that this office existed until now, that I am running for it? I bet you most people don’t know that this is a system. I mean, people say, ‘Oh, we heard you are running for National Vice Chairman Southeast’. I said, “No, it’s not Southeast. And people are asking me, ” Oh, ‘what do you mean?’. I said it’s Deputy National Chairman South. Some are still asking me to explain what I mean. This means if you have someone who is there and you don’t know that the person is there, then there’s an issue.
And that’s not to say that he hasn’t served, done well in the other areas. But you know, sometimes people sit in a place for too long, and before you know it, they become very comfortable, and I think that’s what has just happened. He may have done well when he was the Southeast Chairman or National Vice Chairman Southeast. But when you sit in a place, and you’ve been there for 12, 13 years, before you know it, fatigue will set in. I think what has happened in the office is leadership fatigue. It’s not that the gentleman, you know, is a bad guy. But when the leadership fatigue sets in, then idea fatigue also sets in. And then you get the absence of leadership. That is what you go through when you have a crisis.
For example, there was a crisis here in Enugu, and there was a crisis in Anambra. There was also a crisis in Imo. Very recently, there was crisis in Abia where they cancelled and stopped the ongoing congresses. Who took charge? Did you hear anybody say this is a solution? Do you see anybody going there in terms of crisis management? Did you see any committee going there? The answer is no. If you push back, even in Lagos, there was a crisis in Lagos. There was also a crisis in the Delta. Even Bayelsa and Rivers, of course, had been the home of crisis for a while. Leadership has the responsibility of facing these difficult challenges, making difficult decisions for the interest of all. You can’t always be on the fence or on the side of political correctness. As a leader, you must always make difficult decisions, no matter whose ox is gored.
How come we have not had an endorsement rally, a South endorsement rally for our dear president? How come no one has thought about it? We should have a major rally. So, a Ben Nwoye coming in as a DNC will pull everybody together. We will resolve disputes where they exist. We mend fences where they have been broken, and we build bridges where there are gaps.
And also, a Ben Nwoye deputy national chairmanship will, of course, ensure that the entire South is rallying behind President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. That hasn’t happened. The biggest opposition is coming from the South. And the leadership of the party at the apex level, being the DNC South, is folding its hands and waiting. You don’t do that. They are gathering in different political parties, PDP, ADC, LP; they are gathering, and we are busy celebrating the defection of governors. It makes no sense. We have to go beyond that.
We are busy celebrating that we are going to receive governors when we are not rallying those who we have. We are allowing old members to disappear. We are allowing old members to become like old rags. You no longer need them. You’re not asking where this or that leader is. These are the top questions. The founding fathers of this party in the South, both in the South-south, Southwest, Southeast, those who are aggrieved for one reason or another, this is a time to ask questions, rally them around for the re-election of our dear president. You can’t do that just by sitting in the office in Abuja. You have to make moves. You have to meet people. I’ve demonstrated that ability with the small assignment that was given to me. When the party said go back to Enugu and unite the party, and I did. We reached out to people. Before the party, I said that I had also reached out to people. I reached out to our dear Governor Peter Mbah. And I asked him, and told him that whatever it takes for him to come in, I will assist him to come in. And what will happen to Enugu if he joins the centre? And he agreed, and look at what has happened. We are better off being in the centre than playing opposition.
You have pledged to mobilise support for Mr. President ahead of 2027, and you have mentioned NELFUND as one of the most significant achievements of the Tinubu administration. What are other achievements that you can point to that people can say this president is actually doing well, especially within the southern part of Nigeria?
I don’t know how often you travel. Two days ago, I came back from Port Harcourt. I will say for more than eight years, probably close to 10 years, I’ve not driven from Port Harcourt straight through Aba Road, Umahia, Okigwe, down to Enugu. But I did it two days ago. I used to go through Eche to bypass the Aba Road. About 10 years ago, I had not driven through Aba. But two days ago, it was a straight road, no detour, no stoppage. That’s one. The security situation has improved greatly. The same thing. A few years ago, coming from Port Harcourt, you would have many security checkpoints. That’s reduced drastically. Reduced in such a way that it affects my travel time positively.
Okay, if you come back to what I told you about the food part, how exorbitant food prices were, and how it has become very affordable over the past year now. People will begin to compare back and front. If you look at infrastructure, state by state, again, let’s take Enugu for example, our dear governor will tell you that the Smart Green Schools you see him building, the Enugu Air you hear of, the Smart Green Farm and of course, the Type2 Health Care wouldn’t be possible if not for the policy that our dear president put together that resulted in them receiving way more money than they received before. Okay, look at the concessioning of the Enugu international airport. You see what is happening there now. We can go on and on, whether it’s in the area of security or in the area of education, which I talked about, and the reason I keep talking about that is that education is the greatest equalizer.
You hear Governor Peter Mbah saying that putting 260 smart schools, one in every ward, is not just the building, but it’s the contents of the building, the equipment with which the children are learning. Teachers are being retrained there; in fact, it’s a tech hub. You see, now we’re not talking about just the issue of oil. The Tinubu administration has a policy to decentralise power generation and distribution. I think either this month or next month, we will be talking about generating and distributing our own power in Enugu State.
The Enugu State government signed a contract with a South African company to that effect. I think it’s by the end of this month or the beginning of next month that they will break ground. This was made possible as a result of the human-oriented policies of the APC-led federal government under President Tinubu’s watch. And they will be able to mine coal, which was not done before, and using the same coal to generate power, in the end, we will not only be consuming our own power, but the entire Enugu will be powered, and we’ll be selling power to the other states.
These things wouldn’t just be possible if you didn’t have a government that is looking at every area, allowing states to do things they didn’t do before, like being able to generate their own power. It wasn’t there before. It’s a new policy, that’s why we have the policy.
The Tinubu administration has undertaken major economic reforms like fuel subsidy removal and others, and before he was elected, he told Nigerians that if he didn’t give them stable power, then he should not be re-elected, and from every indication, he has failed in that regard and in other sectors. So, how would you convince Nigerians that somebody who has made such promises, which appear unfulfilled, should get their votes again in 2027?
I think it’s a very harsh and unreasonable conclusion to use the word someone has failed. You know, government is continuity. You build where the next person stops. Policy is put in place with the information the person had at hand. In the area of power, what you have seen is improvement. Nigeria is not Ghana or some other small nation. Nigeria is a very large nation. What they have done is to decentralise power and allow different states, different region to regulate their own power, which never happened before.
Now, different states are using their own economic advantage and economic scale to power generation and regulation. It is not just the federal government. But there’s a policy that, if all those other sub-nationals begin to pick from, you will see improvement. I use Enugu as an example again; they’ve gone into private PPP to improve power generation and distribution. By the time they are done, I think it’s projected to be up and running by next year. Enugu will not only be able to give itself full 24-hour power, but it will begin to supply others. These things don’t happen overnight. This kind of policy, when you put it in place, you have to implement it. I quite understand the rhetoric of what Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu said, don’t re-elect me. I understand all that. But what you have to look at is improvement. Even you will agree that there has been improvement. You will agree with me that before the collapse of the national grid resulting from some form of vandalism and all that, we were having almost 24-hour electricity. The ordinary man that you mentioned. They knew there was an improvement in the area of electricity. Even in my village. I’m sure even if you go to your village, power will become regular. So, you can’t call it a failure. What you look at is what he has built on top of what was there before. On the issue of fuel subsidy removal, if only one were fair. He said, ” This was not there. We may have been busy eating what we will use to feed our nation and our generations to come. And he stopped that. He said, ” Let’s save some and use some to improve our economy. Go to Abuja. I don’t know when you last went there.
Each time I go to Abuja. I see new infrastructure. It’s not a small deal. Tinubu is building a modern nation, a modern city, a modern federal capital territory. You won’t be able to do that if there were no funding for it. So, what the ordinary man is thinking is that there should be a handout. The government should just subsidise fuel so that we will be able to drive a car, that is okay, but how about your health care? How about your education? How about improving the city and making it more modern? How about the security? So, you need to look at what they have done with that money. However, people should also begin to ask their local government chairmen questions. Let’s start with that. Not just governors or the president, always. They should ask them how much they are receiving now. You hear the story that almost every local government chairman is receiving billions from the monthly allocation. They are building roads. It didn’t happen before. They are helping to furnish and build schools, healthcare institutions, and construct bridges. It didn’t happen before. Before now, the local governments were barely able to pay salaries for primary healthcare workers and primary schools. How are they able to get that money?
The problem we have is that we still have this concept of centralisation of governance. Everything that goes wrong, even in our own community, we skip the councillor. We skip the council chairman. We skip the governor. Even the House of Assembly, House of Representatives members, and the Senate, those who should be doing your constituency projects. We skip all of them. We don’t hold them accountable. We go straight to abusing the president as the culprit. So, there is also a need to streamline all these things. We have 774 local government areas in Nigeria, and you see the amount of money coming to your own local government. You can track it and see whether the effect is happening. Tinubu will not be everywhere to make sure that you apply it in the power delivery. But some smart governors, like what we have here in Governor Peter Mbah, have taken advantage of that to put their states back on track in terms of power generation and distribution. These things would not have happened if we had just had a few people during the era of subsidy. And they are there milking the system, collecting money, moving fuel, moving gasoline to other parts of the world. On the issue of the present high cost of fuel, let’s not skip what caused it. You see, the war is going on everywhere on earth. The prices have gone up because the movement of trade has changed. You can’t blame it on Tinubu. In fact, oil was coming down. We were buying at N800. before these wars set in. Under his regime, Dangote refinery was launched. More modular refineries are coming up. So, you must applaud the administration for these initiatives. In agriculture, the cost of rice, the cost of Garri, and the cost of vegetable oil are no longer what people are complaining about. All these things were coming down drastically to the point where Nigerian people are beginning to feel relief from the effects of petrol fuel subsidy removal.
Do you think APC has done well in terms of infrastructure, security, and economic inclusion in the Southeast?
The answer is a straight one, yes. You know, in terms of economic inclusion, of course. I just told you about the concessioning of the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu, to a private investor, which would position the state as a major aviation hub. It means our sons and daughters can take flights from here to other parts of the world. Thanks to Mr. President. Also, approval has been secured to extend the Eastern rail line from Aba to Enugu, thereby advancing the dream of a multi-modern transport system. Are you aware that within the next 18 months, a high-pressure gas pipeline will run through Enugu under the SouthEast Development Commission initiative, unlocking over $2 billion in economic activities in the energy and petrochemical sectors. This development will accelerate Enugu’s target of building a $30 billion economy. The SEDC has given us hope. The things they’ve lined up to do will unlock the economic fortune of the entire nation. So, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is the only man in modern times who has the idea and the courage to release each region to go and develop at its own pace. That now each region has its own development commission.
We are not telling the story the way we’re supposed to tell the story from the party angle. Because remember, it is the party that elects the president, those who govern, those who take those positions. When we elect them, we’re not supposed to just leave them. When their policies are going well, we’re supposed to explain them. If it’s not doing well, we’re supposed to also explain it. We’re supposed to continuously engage the people. It is not just good enough that a party officer has been elected, and you just go up to Abuja, and you sit down. When we have the commission event here, we should be able to use such a gathering as a forum to explain some of these policies to our people. We should be able to use the platforms of South South, South East, and SouthWest Commissions to explain to our people government programmes and policies. The women’s group who supported the president should be able to be carried along. The youth group should know that these things are there. So that when we do scholarship for smart people that we send overseas, it shouldn’t be on the basis of who you know. It should be on the basis of your effort, on your academic effort, your ability.
And we should make it open. Open up the party, open up the system. Explain things in a way that those who support the progressive agenda, the progressive ideology, those who elected President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will not be without information to defend the system. Many people don’t know these things. You shouldn’t allow the opposition element to create stories that are not there. We have not activated our youths to respond and to be very responsive to counter some of these stories that are out there. If we tell our own stories, if the progressive leadership puts together a machinery that can tell each other’s stories. I think all this will be different. We have not done that. And that’s because the leadership has focused on simple Abuja-based party management. It is beyond Abuja-based party management. You have to come home. The votes are not in the Abuja secretariat. That’s not where the votes are. That’s an administrative office.
There are people given to do the administration. People holding the political office of the party are supposed to meet the people, not just during election time. Before election time, during election time, and after election time. There must be interaction and exchange of ideas. Is our policy working? If it’s not working, why is it not working? There must be a feedback mechanism. There must be two-way communication; you need to meet the people. You need to be accessible. We move from Southeast to SouthSouth. I’m doing that now as a candidate. And from South to South West. I’m also doing that now as a candidate. And then we need to mingle with the North. We need to bridge the gap. Remember, I was the Chief of Staff to DNC North. So, my coming in as a DNC South, there will be a true handshake between the North and the South.
The national chairman’s job will be easier. Because you have a support base. You will get support from the South and support from the North. And whatever is working well for the South, we share it with the North. And whatever is working well with the North, we share with the South. This is our dear president. We have to help him. We have to take care of the political party and allow him to do the governance. He can’t be doing both. Right now, they are getting those involved in governance to be part of the political establishment. We need to be able to explain government policies.
Finally, even though you’ve answered part of what I want to ask. I believe that your ambition is tied to Tinubu’s re-election. Can you tell us the role you will play in achieving this if elected as Deputy National Chairman (South)?
Number one, I mentioned it. We know that right now there are many broken fences. And those broken fences and cracked walls, they need to be amended. They need to be patched. We can’t ignore it. Whether in the five states in the Southeast, you will see those fences. You see cracked walls. In the six states of the South South. The same thing exists. You can’t disregard anyone. The six states of the South West. It’s the same thing. That is why you see people defect. People don’t just wake up one day and defect because they are pursuing ambition. When those who founded the party are mistreated, treated as if they are worthless, and nobody cares to call them. I don’t want to name names. But they exist here in the South. We disrespect our founding fathers. The party leaders are not going to them. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will not do that. It is the job of those in the Southeast who are in the national working committee to do that. You go to South South, you see the same thing. You see, the founding fathers, those who helped in building this party when it had very limited value. You discriminate against them because you have new joiners. Sure, we love the new joiners. But don’t do away with the founding fathers. We need to make the party bigger than it is, like what we have done in Enugu state. We mended fences here in Enugu. So, from Enugu, we will move the story to other states of southern Nigeria. There are people who were in the Labour Party. We brought them in. There were founding fathers who were disrespected, disregarded, suspended, expelled, dejected, and rejected. We went to them. It’s not that magical. You don’t create space. You talk to aggrieved members. People are out there expecting someone to come to them and tell them, “We are sorry.” And once you say that, they reconsider their position. Enugu State is bubbling today for the APC because we did that. I led a team that went from one leader to another and said, “We are sorry. You’ve been mistreated. You don’t deserve such treatment.”
So, we do that in the Southeast states. We do that in the South South states, and we do that in the Southwest states. Then that will give us the impetus to have a mega rally. And we set up our own group that will not only be responding to false accusations, but will be digging deep into the nonsense the opposition is doing. Because we can’t allow one story to be told, and then there’s no response. We have a situation that we are working from. And we are doing everything every day to work it out. To make it better. To build a system that will last longer.
The APC-led government is committed to building a modern nation, a modern city, both in the areas of security, education, tourism, infrastructure, mining, and technology. But all these things are not going to be done in just one day. Though the good news is that Nigeria is experiencing a huge improvement in all sectors of the nation’s economy. Thank you.
