Why I withdrew my support for Okowa in 2015 — UDUAGHAN

*Says, I had fears of him becoming governor

Immediate past governor of Delta State, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan has given reasons on why he withdrew his support from his successor, Governor Ifeanyi Okowa during the 2014 PDP governorship primaries in the sta

He among other things stated that he had his fears of Okowa becoming governor even as he waved aside comments that his defection to the APC was owing to his fear of not being able to clinch the Delta South PDP senatorial ticket. The former governor spoke in an interview with Channels Television.

By Perez Brisibe

My defection from PDP to the APC

It did not come about suddenly. It’s something that I had been thinking about, I would say for about six months. It is not easy to move from a house that you built to another house especially with your household. So you have to plan it properlymCourt orders closure of 5 banks in Imo over Ohakim’s entitlements

Of course, generally, we have been together for over 20 years, and there is bound to be disagreements. But when you look at the larger picture of where the family is now, where your political party is, the future of your current political party and look at the party you want to go into, where are they now? But the final decision is yours because whatever happens, you bear the final consequences either good or bad. That was what I did, and that was why it took some time.

Reasons for my defection to APC

I managed Delta State for eight years and before then, I worked closely with my boss as SSG directly in the center in the management of the place with my boss (Chief James Ibori) being the head of the management.

I know what it took to manage the Niger Delta because most of the problems started from Delta State as the interethnic crisis in 1997 and spread to other states.

With that kind of experience, you look at the people currently managing it. You look at the federal and various state governments, from time to time, you access what they are doing. Sometimes you are happy with what they are doing and sometimes you are not because you have done your bit and pulled back, then you assess your bit.

Now it’s not possible for one person to go there and do everything, the people that have come in, what improvement are they putting in the place? And when you see that these people are doing something that would move the region forward, you would want to encourage them by making sure that the things they are doing, they are supported.

Why I shelved my senatorial ambition in 2015

I had the ambition to go to the Senate in 2015 but I was also the governor of the state, and I was managing the state. As governor, you get a lot of intelligence, and prior to the election, I got a lot of intelligence reports and the security situation in the Niger Delta with assessments made in red, amber and green.

Delta and some other states were on red, and that meant the possibility of violence was very high. Secondly, coming from a minority ethnic group with the president then being an Ijaw man, there had been a crisis between Itsekiri and Ijaw, though I had a good relationship with the president, some of his people felt I wasn’t going to give him votes.

Then, I had this third issue of who was to take over from me and these three scenarios. So I sat down and thought about it and having worked so hard for peace and security in the state, I said any action that would cause crisis in the state directly from me would defeat all that I had achieved.

Secondly, I would not want blood to be spilled on my account of going to the Senate.

So when I looked at these, I had too many war fronts to manage, so I said let me reduce them, and the one that was easier for me to reduce was my decision to go to the Senate, and I pulled back and the election in Delta was violence-free and am happy that it was violence free despite the fact that the state was on red and my not going to the Senate that time has not taken anything from me as four years is so short.

Relationship with Okowa during the 2014 PDP primary

There are a lot of deep issues; I didn’t want to talk too much about that but let me say this, yes, I had someone (successor) else in mind. Initially, I had him (Okowa) in mind, he is my friend, we had been together as commissioners, but something happened along the line when I had him in mind, and I had to pull back.

Of course, we had a leader, Chief James Ibori who at that time was not around, so we had discussions over it, and I said look, these are my fears if he becomes governor. So the issues went on, no…yes…no…yes till about two weeks before the primaries, and I had an in-depth discussion with Chief Ibori and he was more for him (Okowa), and I said ok, he is our leader and in the last two weeks before the primaries, I had to do some manoeuvre that gave him advantage at the primaries and I managed the primaries in such a way that it was violence free. Everyone was happy, and of course, he won the primaries, and I got deeply involved in managing the main election because he was now the PDP candidate regardless and we put our hands together and supported him fully to emerge as governor.

The differences we had, were being tackled between himself and myself by some leaders especially Chief James Ibori but they were not fully resolved before I left.

I am not scared of primaries

I asked myself where can I make that maximum contribution and having looked at it, I felt I can make it in the APC based on assessment of what they have done, what they are doing and what they are yet to do, it’s not as if I cannot go to the Senate through the PDP.

The Delta South senatorial primaries is not my problem as I am sure am the person who had contested the most elections in Nigeria and had gone to court the most.

I was only looking at the platform to actualize the senatorial ambition and give maximum contribution. I have things I want to do. I am not going to the Senate to sit down, and I do not think that it is true that former governors do go to the Senate to retire. Saraki is a former governor and the Senate President, and I think he is the most active person in the Senate today.

Restructuring

I was one of the first advocates of community policing. In my early years as a governor, I was one of the strong proponents of community policing but many of my colleagues especially from the northern states then did not believe in it as there was this argument that governors would use the police against their opponents especially for election purposes.

There are crimes of different degrees, crimes that the traditional rulers are able to handle and instead, they are taken to the police. So, our police are overworked, are overused, and are few. If we do the community policing structure, the local police would know that these are the areas of my structure and they would limit themselves to that while crimes that are more dangerous or technical go higher in the structure.

So, we can have the state police, we can even have the local government police and we have the national police and they know their boundaries. It’s just like the courts.