Delta State Governor, Emmanuel Uduaghan
In this interview with TUNDE ODESOLA, Delta State Governor, Emmanuel Uduaghan, comments on party politics and the recent general elections, among other issues
A major objective of your
administration was to make Delta State less dependent on oil. Looking
back, can you say you’ve been able to achieve this objective?
The issue of ‘Delta beyond oil’ is our
vision for economic recovery by simply using the funds we are getting
from oil now to develop the structures that will encourage investments
in other areas of the economy, especially in the agriculture, culture
and tourism sectors. So far, we have reasonably laid the foundation for
that kind of economy. The foundation we tried to lay is in three major
areas. First is peace and security, without which no investors would
come. Second is infrastructure development in transport, power, ICT and
to encourage investors to come and thirdly, in the area of human capital
development; to produce a strong workforce that can be absorbed when
this structure comes into being. We have focused on those three areas
and we have laid the foundation. I believe that the next administration
would build on it and also expand the scope for the investment that
comes to the state.
Your party, the Peoples Democratic Party, lost the presidential election. What do you think accounts for the los
I think we can attribute the loss to our
internal problems. The election was for the PDP to win or lose but the
party unknowingly or deliberately lost the election. The issues are that
of impunity, intimidation and lack of internal democracy which are big
challenges in any party, even in the All Progressives Congress of today.
But when it becomes consistent, it can lead to the death of the party.
After the 2011 elections, the party had to change its executive. Some
elders and leaders actually started grumbling about the governors and
that the governors were getting too powerful and they were trying to
clip their wings. It was a deliberate effort to reduce the influence of
the governors. The party structure took up this responsibility as led by
the chairman who was relating to the governors as if they were
nobodies. Now, the truth is that political power over time revolves
round the nucleus of a political party. During the days of the National
Party of Nigeria, political power revolved round the ministers.
Ministers were the ones who had the powers. In the PDP, it was the
governors. Right from 1999, the governors had always been the strength
of the party. So, when these people decided to weaken the influence of
the governors, that was the beginning of the downfall of the PDP. The
national chairman then was treating governors like nobodies, writing
letters and queries to them. Gradually, the governors started having
challenges with the party and then one of the things they also did was
to divide the governors. Of course, they did this through the Nigerian
Governors’ Forum. So, the kind of thing you saw at the forum was
actually influenced from outside. The governors were divided and there
was weeping from the party and some (governors) had to leave the party.
That really was one of the ways the party went down. Then when the
primaries came, the party witnessed impunity and lack of democracy.
People were not given a level playing field to contest. When the popular
candidates emerged and the list got to the National Working Committee,
there were lots of manoeuvres and changes were made. Sometimes,
aspirants that came third in the primary emerged the candidates and
their names were sent to the Independent National Electoral Commission.
So, many were upset and left the party. This really caused a lot of
problems. The remnants were not strong enough to make the party win.
Also, the way the campaign went, we didn’t have a strategic team for the
election. I can tell you this because I am an insider. There was no
strategy. Each time people came up with strategies, they were
jettisoned. Mr. President on his own took over the campaign and he
started moving in the last few weeks. Most of the things he was doing,
he was not supposed to be doing them. He took personal control. But it
was too late.
You don’t see the treatment of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo as one of the factors?
In 2011, there were some of the
President’s kinsmen who made him to win. One was the late General Owoye
Azazi, the other was Oronto Douglas and also Tony Uranta. They were his
kinsmen. They were the driving force behind the civil society. I know a
lot of civil societies and the media really assisted the President in
2011. Azazi is dead. Oronto didn’t have the strength till he died. Tony
Uranta was elbowed away. Obasanjo was elbowed away. There were others
who believed that they knew too much and they were making it impossible
for the people to perform. Even the President had good intentions but
they made it impossible.
As an insider, what actually transpired during the controversial election that split the NGF?
There was an election. I was the UN
observer (laughs). By the time I give out that information; people will
be paying for it when I write my book. Yes, there was an election and I
played a prominent role in the election.
How do you feel that the winner of the election, Governor Rotimi Amaechi, was denied victory?
My brother, wait for my book.
Why did you forgo your senatorial ambition?
It is not every governor that wants to
go the Senate after his tenure. I know the majority don’t want to go to
the Senate. I actually had the ambition to go to the Senate but I come
from a very complex senatorial district that has been involved in
inter-ethnic crisis and one of the reasons is political considerations.
It could be so bad that it would lead to ethnic crisis or the burning of
houses and killings. If I had pushed further, it probably would have
happened. I didn’t want the peace we have achieved in the state to
degenerate because of my personal ambition. I just pushed it back. I had
to make a choice. There is no big deal about the Senate.
The rumour mill has it that you
jettisoned the ambition because of the threat by ex-militant, Government
Ekpemupolo, popularly known as Tompolo, to set Delta on fire if you
contested the senatorial ticket with him?
Tompolo is my younger one and he is very
close to me. I have saved him before and he knows that and he has
respect for me. I have related to him the way people do not like. After
the Niger Delta crisis, some people were upset that I drew him closer.
He has been given a larger-than-life image which he doesn’t have or
deserve. In fact, once or twice we discussed this issue of Senate and
what he said was that any decision agreed by the top is okay by him.
There were other things he was more interested in but not the Senate. He
cannot tell me not to go to the Senate or that if I go Delta will burn.
Tompolo’s story will come another day.
A governorship aspirant of the
PDP in Delta State, Tony Obuh, was said to be your ‘anointed candidate.’
Some believe that it was Tompolo that forced you to support Dr. Patrick
Okowa as the PDP candidate.
No, Okowa’s ticket came from a free and
fair primary. That is the difference between Delta and many other
states. If you notice, many other states are still in chaos. Immediately
after the primaries, many states witnessed chaos up till the elections
and defections out of the PDP. There were only two major people in Delta
who left. One of the two is back now. What happened was that in the
primary, I allowed everybody to get involved in the choice of the
delegates. We had a consensus. All the big leaders and I had a meeting
and agreed with the panel from Abuja on how we were going to handle the
delegates. This was because everybody was boiling. I could have as well
sat in my room and drawn up the delegate lists but we allowed leaders
from the wards to have a say. That way almost all were involved in the
selection of the delegates and once you are able to do that, you give
everybody a sense of belonging. Many states ignored that. That produced
Okowa who was the most popular candidate. At a point, some wanted to
disrupt the primary and that he was not their choice but I said no, that
anybody produced by this primary is my candidate. After the primary, I
called the contestants and we met. They all agreed that it was free and
fair and all of them became members of the campaign council. Delta had
peace after the primary. You saw the massive votes that we delivered for
Mr. President because we were united. After the presidential elections,
many thought that the loss of Mr. President would lead to mass
defection to the APC but we were able to put ourselves in order because
of the structure we have. So, it was not a matter of somebody forcing
his will on us. It was the way we handled the primary.
Nigeria has a military but the
Federal Government has given out a contract for pipeline security to
militants. What’s your opinion?
I think they misrepresented this
contract. It is not a contract for security. It is a surveillance
contract. They are two different things. There are three types of
pipelines in the Niger Delta. One, we have the one that carries the
crude oil. We also have the one that conveys the gas and the one that
carries condensate. With time, there had been damage to the pipelines,
especially the one that carries crude oil. Initially, it was due to
corrosion and lack of maintenance by the oil companies. Later the issue
of oil theft became prominent and this overtook corrosion. If you do not
understand the terrain, it is difficult to pursue oil thieves. You
might be by the river and see just water but inside the water, there are
areas your boats can’t pass. It is people from those areas that
understand the terrain and can assist you to navigate and do fast
movement. Two, some of these boys that were involved in the Niger Delta
crisis originally, know these oil thieves. Sometimes, they are able to
engage those doing damage to the pipelines. What contract did the NNPC
give out? It gave contracts to some of our youths that understand the
terrain to do surveillance work. They don’t carry guns and ammunition.
They work with security agencies – the Navy and the Army. They are in
the military boats, escorting the soldiers and telling them the routes.
They can mingle with these thieves, collect information from them and
they tell the military and the military pre-empts pipeline crimes in
this manner. It is surveillance contract, not security. With that, the
youths are engaged. Sometimes, they say if you want to protect yam, give
it to a goat to secure. Unfortunately, this has been misrepresented.
Has the APC reached out to you?
I am not defecting. I have a lot of
friends in the APC but I’m not defecting. We compare notes. There is
politics and there is friendship.
What’s your plan after May 29? Are you going back to medical practice?
No, I can’t practice medicine again. I
can advise on medical or health issues as it has to do with
administration. I am going to be doing much about mentoring of younger
ones on leadership skills as it relates to governance. With my
experience, I believe I can mentor some youths and share with them my
experiences in government so that they learn from them.
How is the state preparing for the return of former Governor James Ibori?
Is he coming back now? I don’t know.
But he will come back eventually.
I don’t think that’s a state issue.
What’s your view of the card reader?
The card reader was an issue. If you
notice, those of us that called for caution on the use of card readers
were accused of many things. We were not against the use of the card
readers. We just believed that there was not enough trial for the card
readers to be used for the elections and we were proved right. During
the presidential elections, there were a lot of challenges with the card
readers. At some point, INEC officials started using the manual method
but I must also commend him (Attahiru Jega) for insisting that the card
readers should be used for the governorship election. There were
improvements during the governorship poll and during the rerun elections
there were also improvements. The good thing about the card reader was
that some people tried to snatch ballot boxes but by the time they did
that, they saw that it was useless. At least for now the issue of
snatching of ballot boxes is not a big challenge. That aspect of our bad
political culture has stopped. Moreover, it has given credibility to
our electoral process.
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