Governors’ forum crisis cost PDP presidency – 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 loss?

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.