Patience Ndidi Key is the governorship candidate of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) in the September 21, 2024 governorship election in Edo State. She is a graduate of Ambrose Alli University, a presidential aspirant in the 2023 general election, a healthcare practitioner, a former Chairman, Nigerians in Diaspora Organization for the United States, and currently runs the Nigerian Diaspora Chamber of Commerce. The PRP governorship candidate, who hails from Ekhekhen in Igueben Local Government Area of the Edo State, visited The Nigerian Observer offices in Benin City recently, where she spoke to Acting Editor, Chuks Oluigbo, Political Correspondent, Tobore Jerome, and Politics Reporter, Cherish Omede, on her plans for Edo State if she is elected the governor. Excerpts:
Could you please tell us briefly what inspired you to want to become the governor of Edo State?
My leadership prowess started a long time ago. I never knew that I would be in a public service. It started while I was in Ambrose Alli University. I was actually called by some guys in 400 level, then I was in 200 level, and they wanted me to be the vice president of the organization, and I asked, what do they do there? What am I going to say? But as God may have it, I became the only woman in the midst of nine boys, and we did a good job. That was how I started my leadership, as in the public one. But as a human being, I saw that the place that I have a lot of strength is my Christian faith. I ministered to people those days in school, I preached and all that, that’s where I see I have a lot of power.
I relocated to the United States in 2006 due to marriage. In 2014 I was invited to a programme in Virginia. Former President Goodluck Jonathan was visiting and some Nigerians from all over the United States and even Canada were at that meeting and they were just agitating, ‘Bring back our girls’. I didn’t know what was going on. A friend invited me. Afterwards I wanted to know this organization. They said it’s NIDO, Nigerians in Diaspora Organization. So, being married to a non-Nigerian at the time, I just thought: This is good, people coming together to say they want to work for the nation; it’s about national development. I asked more questions and decided to be a part of NIDO. In the space of 2014-2015 we created the Maryland chapter where I live, where I became the first president and then went to the national board. To cut the story short, I served on the national board, and two years later, I ran for the chairman of the organization for the whole of the United States, and I became the first female chairman of Nigerians in Diaspora in the United States. That brought me closer home because NIDO is an organization that works closely with the government in power. My administration worked with the Buhari administration. At NIDO we do kind of consultancy. We go home, proffer solutions – healthcare, agriculture, etc. – because what we do at NIDO is bring back our expertise, our knowledge, and see how we can work together with both private sectors, the government, and individuals to build our nation.
And I just thought that I wasn’t talking to the right people, I wasn’t talking to people who feel the pulse of the citizens, who understand the pain points of the people. That made me angry. We travel with our own resources; we leave work in the US, leave business, leave children for the love of nation and the love of your people, and stay two weeks, three weeks, but no results. Several times a year. Then I said, okay, things need to change. People say there are bad people in leadership. Politics is bad. I say, no, it’s because we allow the bad ones, that’s why we see it as bad. It’s because we allow those who are corrupt, that’s why we think it is a corrupt system.
I aspired to be president of Nigeria in 2023. Of course, what happened happened. It was a good experience. People said, ‘Oh, you wasted money’. I said no, for a nation that brought you up or a nation that God decided to make you an origin of that place, we cannot but be a part of the growth and development of the nation.
Then I saw that my state does the first off-cycle election and I thought it was an opportunity, apart from people, my party, and even other parties calling me to come and run in their party. Well, I don’t believe in running from one place to the other. If I want to run, I need to have the conviction, then I have to stay in my party. And when I had the conviction, I said, ‘Okay, I will do it’. And so, I’m running because I see hunger and anger in the land. The other day people were agitating, protesting because of hunger. I never knew people were going to protest for hunger. But for a long time I’ve been saying this. So, this is why I’m running. There is hunger, because a leader has to feel the pulse of the people. And people say, ‘Oh, you have to live here’. No, I don’t have to live in Nigeria to know what’s happening in Nigeria. I just have to interact with people. I just have to listen. I just have to be visionary to be able to do that. So I’m running because I see hunger and anger in the land. I’m running because I see retrogression and regression in my state. Like I said, I was born in this state. I grew up here, the better part of my life has been in Edo State. I had my education here before I continued my education in the United States. So there’s nothing anyone is going to tell me about my environment that I don’t know, or that I don’t know how it was when I was growing up, how it was in 2006 when I got married, when I left, and how it was when I came to bury my mother in 2011. No, you can’t tell me that because I see backwardness and that’s the anger. I believe that things can be better. Things can be better when you have the right people in power. And that’s why I’m here running for this position.
Do you have a manifesto ready? If you do, could you just itemize the key issues you want to address if you are given the mandate?
Yes, we have a manifesto ready. And there’s something I call the Three Power Agenda. My Three Power Agenda is, one, integrated human capital development. I believe in human beings. God has given me the opportunity to be in C-suite organizations, in private sectors, and also led a global organization at NIDO. And again, by the grace of God, I own my own small business. So I understand touching the lives of people. I’m in healthcare, I understand when you treat people well, the kind of feedback that comes back to you. So our agenda, our purpose, our goal for the state is centred on human beings. As we know, human beings are the greatest assets that we have. Without human beings, there won’t be a Benin City, there won’t be a Nigeria. Dubai was a desert, it was a no man’s place, but people came together over 50 years ago to make it an environment and today people are enjoying it.
And when you think of human capital development, you think of education. You have to educate human beings, not just tertiary education, but vocational as well. Creation of awareness is education; skills. Like we know, skills build the world. In the United States, you don’t have to have a bachelor’s degree, but if you are a scrum master, you’re an agile professional, you understand communication, you understand some basic stuff, it gives you money, it pays you. And our environment, we are so educated that when we match it with the kind of skills that will help us to grow, our environment will be better for it.
There is healthcare, because you need able-bodied men and women to be able to do the work to grow this state, to make this state what it needs to be. And again, we have to look at our youth and our women. So those are the things that centre around my human capital development agenda.
Then second one is integrated, diversified environment. Diversification of our economy. We are overly relied on oil, and even the oil we don’t do anything with it; even the over-reliance on oil fetches us nothing. There’s a lot to do with crude oil, there’s a lot to do with the gas that we are flaring. We can use it to generate a lot for the state but we are not doing it. So, the oil we have, we should make good use of it, but apart from the oil, we need to begin to look at agriculture, because agriculture was the mainstay of the Nigerian economy. Any country that believes in agriculture, that funds agriculture, that spends on agriculture, that is 70 per cent job and a great deal when it comes to the GDP of that environment.
Edo State is an agrarian environment. We are big in agriculture. We have the arable land, we have crops that can grow, that can give us the kind of resources that we need. Also, we have tourism. People travel all over the world just to go and look at White House. But when I look at Edo State, you can imagine me bringing friends and people from all over the world to come and look at Oba’s Palace or to come and attend Igue Festival and all the festivals that the different ethnic groups have, that’s a lot of revenue, that’s trillion dollars depending on how we market it, because life is all about branding. I am coming to brand Edo State. I am coming to rejuvenate Edo State. I am coming to revitalize Edo State. I’m coming to match the talent that the people have with the resources to create wealth. We have all that it takes.
The last one is infrastructural development. How do you grow without roads? How do you grow without pipe-borne water? When we were growing up, I enjoyed pipe-borne water. We just opened the tap and it flowed. Now the government is so proud to talk about boreholes. It’s a shame. It’s annoying. It’s mind-boggling. You have all that it takes to make life better for your people. Different allocations come into the state, how much do we pay the workers? The roads are not built. Our educational system is in a shambles. We don’t even understand that we are the biggest when it comes to tourism. The world already knows about Edo State. Why? Britain is returning your artefacts. Germany is returning your artefacts. And so on. Edo State even started this immigration issue. We started this international trade with the Portuguese. We have gone far that we as a people, we are a nation on our own. Mauritius is just a nation with 1.3 million population. What do they have going for them? Tourism only. And it’s just waterways. We have more than water. We have the resources. We have the people who can carve, who can use metal to design. Look at the man-made moat that is now a refuse dump.
You have been going round, campaigning and meeting the Edo electorate face to face. How have they received you? How do they view your candidacy? Do you see, or do you think that Edo State is ready now for a female governor?
Very ready. People are so excited. And my prayer is that from their hearts and their lips to God’s ears. Men, women, people saying, ‘I’m PDP, but hearing you talk…’ People who have the avenue or resources to be on TV, they just talk and you think they’re talking for the public. No. We’ve been going to the grassroots, we’ve been sitting together with the people, the people who are actually the real citizens, the real people of Edo State. They are overly ready and they cannot wait to have me in power as their governor for us to work together, because for me, leadership is a collaboration, it’s a partnership, and that is what I’m bringing to the table. So, yes, the men, the women, the boys, the girls, they are ready. They are ready and they are ready for female leadership.
And for me, I’ve not been playing the female card, and if I want to play it, I’m sure I will win. Why am I not playing the female card? Because I’ve always succeeded in male-dominated organizations. When I served in NIDO, when I contested in NIDO, there were 30 men and four women. And when I say men, these guys are rich. But when I came, I saw leadership as: you see a challenge and you think you have a solution that you can use to match and eradicate this challenge. That’s how I know leadership to be, not ‘he’s a man; women are a minority in the organization, or they have money’ – because those are the things we look at. I will tell you the truth. It was when I started to go deep into leadership that I began to see all those problems that people talk about in leadership: ‘Oh, women are sidelined’; ‘Ah, it is a male whatever’. And I thank God that I did not see those barriers before. Maybe I would have been discouraged.
How do you intend to raise the state’s IGR without inflicting more pains on the people and businesses?
Good question, and I will go to diversification of the economy. How do you raise IGR? How do you raise the GDP? It’s by production. For example, we have rubber. What are the value chains of rubber? What are the products that come out of rubber? The hand gloves that we wear. The car tyres, the foot mats, the tubes we use in the hospital, and other materials – all those things come from rubber that we have in this state. So, it’s not only going to give us local revenue, or national revenue, it is going to give us international revenue, global revenue, because everywhere in the world, in hospitals, and so many facilities, we have needs for rubber.
We have timber and wood. When I become governor of Edo State, we are going to have a furniture village. Edo has soft and hard wood. We have the best of the best wood that can be used for furniture. I see people travelling abroad to go and buy furniture when you have a place where they have it all, just give the people an idea. All the people need is the resources, that enabling environment, that market, that level playing field for them to thrive.
So these are the things. We have agriculture, we have the gas that we are flaring. We can use gas to generate energy. Thank God right now, states have been given the autonomy to generate their own electricity. I’m not just going to be talking about solar. We have gas that we are just throwing away here. So we are going to use those resources that God has already given us to generate wealth.
And for me not to also cause additional pain on people, I just talked about the money that comes into the state. I live in an economy (in the United States) where we think Jesus is very close to them. We understand that there’s pain going on right now. Let’s give succour, let’s cushion the effects, let’s do something to just help our people live. I am going to give tax incentives to small businesses for a space of six months to one year, and we’re going to give grants. The security vote is not for the government. The security vote is not for my cronies. Because we have the resources, nobody should be suffering. So let’s use the money for the people. All I want to do is industrialize the state. That’s how we can eradicate poverty.
And people always ask me, what is the first thing you will do? And if I don’t say security, they are like, ‘Oh, maybe she doesn’t understand’. How won’t you have insecurity when people are hungry? Why won’t you have insecurity when people are poor? There’s unemployment. So I, as a visionary, I look at the root causes of insecurity. That’s where I go. Please, I won’t have to tell you I will tackle insecurity. When I deal with those problems, insecurity will disappear.
You are positioned against some candidates that are regarded as heavyweights. Let’s say you go into this with this full heart of service and then you don’t get elected, and someone else wins and says, ‘All of you who contested with me, I know that you have great ideas. Come let’s work together to move our state forward.’ Will you accept such offer?
Like I said earlier, leadership is a collaboration, it’s a partnership. And it will be very, very important that you collaborate and partner with people who actually will understand why they are where they are. So that’s not a problem, partnering with people, working with people for the service of the greater good. That being said, I’m running for this position because I know I can win. I’m running for this position because I know I’m the best candidate. I’m in this position because I have sieved everyone that is contesting, I have sieved them like wheat, and nothing came out of them. They are not heavyweights where I am.
It’s about four weeks to the election. Assuming you are addressing Edo people directly, what would you tell them? And what would you say to INEC?
My wonderful great Edo people, the heartbeat of Nigeria. You see, we gave 10 days to protest for hunger, and we do not want to protest for hunger again. This time we must do right by ourselves, by using our PVC, using our votes and voting out the people and the party that have caused us hunger. That’s the only way. Edo people, we cannot protest and still keep the same people in government. Then our protest is in vain. We have experienced this by ourselves. It is a tangible experience, nobody should be telling us this is how it is, we have experienced it since 1999. PRP is there. We are known to work with the talakawas, the poor people, the underserved population, to bring them from where they are to where they need to be, to elevate them, to eradicate that thing that made them poor. That is why I’m running and that is what my party stands for – a party that believes in human beings; a party that believes in youth development; a party that believes in women governance (that is even why I am here); a party that believes in a federation; a party that believes that the people have the power, because the government should be at the mercy of the people, not the people at the mercy of the government. We have protested for hunger; for us not to be hungry, we should use our PVC – our PVC is our power. This time we should not carry gun for anybody because their children are not carrying guns for them. We should not be touts for anybody because their children and their family are not doing it for them. We can render them powerless by not doing it. We can render them powerless by using our PVC, going there and voting PRP, the party that talks about redemption; the party that is bringing victory; the party that has the key to unlock everything that the enemies have locked – our progress, our good roads, our good hospitals, our modern education, all the good things of life. We travel abroad and we see good things. We can bring it here.
My people, let’s come together and move our state forward. We can do this. We have the power to do it. Edo is great, Edo is powerful, Edo is worldwide. Let’s move forward.
INEC, everybody is looking at you, because everything that we are suffering, there are people also suffering in INEC. So INEC, do the right thing. As a candidate, we’ve had different meetings with you. Please do what you said you will do for your own good, for the good of the Nigeria that you say you are protecting, for the good of the Nigeria you say you love, for the good of Nigerians that you hold elections for.
This election, Edo being the heartbeat of the nation, let’s start good from Edo. Do the right thing. Let’s count the votes just as they come. Let’s just do the right thing for the very first time, we’ll be happy with ourselves, we’ll be happy with our state, we’ll be happy with our nation, we’ll be happy with the Nigeria that we want to see because we can make it happen. INEC, we depend on you, we depend on your integrity. Our INEC chairman, Professor Mahmoud Yakubu, we depend on you to the right thing as you have promised. We the Edo people, we are watching and we are willing to work with you to do the right thing.
