Dr. Odafe Wilson Omene is a one-time chairman of the Delta State Institute of Continuing Education (ICE) Governing Council before he became chairman of Ethiope West Local Government Council in 2008 to 2011. He has since then gone back to his private business as a marine consultant to the Federal Government on ship construction. In this interview with SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT John Dugbe, he speaks on a wide range of issues, including the crisis rocking the Urhobo Progress Union (UPU) and the battle to enthrone an Urhobo person as governor of Delta State and other issues. Excerpts:
How would you describe the controversies that are trailing the endorsement of Chief Great Ogboru by the Urhobo Progress Union (UPU)?
As a proud Urhobo man, who is neck deep in protecting the citizenship of my people, I will tell you that it has never been so wonderful in the history of the Urhobo Progress Union until recently. I am one of those that actually pushed the idea to UPU because the entire political class of the Urhobo nation has disappointed the Urhobo people, particularly those who are in positions of power to control that interest on behalf of the people of Urhobo.
They have disappointed the Urhobo people so badly that in the last eight years; it has been hell for the Urhobo in government or out of government. Having said this, we had a small group that came together and said we cannot continue like this and be disgraced politically and kept aside. What we did was to identify those that can anchor this programme and we identified some of the key Urhobo players. Each of us within the group came up with our own resistance to those people because their antecedents of being self-centered and not doing the right thing. So we teamed up and met with UPU to anchor this programme and they bought the idea because it is our responsibility to protect the social, cultural and even political interest of the Urhobo people because there is nothing you will do in life that there is no politics.
So UPU agreed and went ahead; and what came out of it was the “Uvwiamuge Declaration” stating clearly because they have preference for Peoples Democratic Party because those in my group who went there with this idea were all PDP members. First of all, we have to protect our great party’s interest too. Now, on the basis of that we keyed into PDP and said let PDP be a priority and UPU accepted.
The declaration was very clear; PDP give us an Urhobo candidate or we will go for another major party or any other party. Initially it was the All Progressives Congress (APC), which was very clear; but the main object of the “Uvwiamuge Declaration” was that “we want an Urhobo Governor”. So, that was the declaration, which still stands. The issue of bringing in APC is on and we will use it to achieve the objective if PDP failed to produce an Urhobo man as governorship candidate and if APC failed we will move further to look at other options.
You have to get this point very clear; after the declaration, you must pressure the parties to adopt an Urhobo person as governorship candidate. Strategies are subject to change because of variables and you cannot be static with it if not you will lose that goal. So UPU declaring that “if we do not get in PDP, we will go to other party” is a strategy of achieving an Urhobo man as governor of Delta State and if PDP fails, then your look for another alternative instead of been stucked in PDP. Now, there was the need to continually examine that strategy that you are applying; and that was how Labour Party came on board. Ordinarily, Urhobo people do not have a problem with PDP because if PDP had given use an Urhobo candidate for example, there wouldn’t be the question of having another party to produce the candidate. So I want to state categorically, that PDP has not disappointed the Urhobo nation by picking Okowa because PDP gave us the privilege to emerge as candidate. The consultations UPU made was so powerful that the PDP was compelled through their leadership filtering down to the leadership at the state level to go and pick Urhobo man as candidate; and at the end of the day, the Governor of Delta State succumbed and collapsed his interest and gave it to the Urhobo; and till tomorrow I will continue to praise Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan for his goodwill. I think the problem in it was that, certain group of persons did not want the governor to form a government after him; so on the basis that, and the fact that he went to pick a candidate that was not friendly to those group of people, we then lost the vote of those categories of people, who are not Urhobo because Urhobo voted massively for our Urhobo candidate. But the evil ones who will constantly be punished by God were the delegates that voted out Urhobo candidate. If the Urhobo candidate had gotten extra 60 to our 299 from the man that won with 406, we would have succeeded. But the bad eggs in Urhobo voted for Ifeanyi Okowa; he got more than 50 votes from the Urhobo.
Are you saying that the Urhobo shortchanged themselves?
It is the Urhobo that shortchanged ourselves and lost the opportunity that PDP leadership gave to us. So because of this loss, we have to re-examine and change our strategy. No Urhobo man has any grudge against Okowa and that is why we are allowing him to campaign freely in Delta Central because we should also be free to go to their areas to canvass for votes too. So members of the PDP became Urhobo delegates to represent the interest of Urhobo people in the primary, but they went there to do otherwise. So this why I am very angry with the so-called Urhobo betrayers because they have no reason whatsoever to vote against the Urhobo endorsed sole candidate and they weren’t representing themselves as individual delegates but the Urhobo people who gave them mandate on what they want which was “Delta governorship” because of what we have been suffering for four decades. Out 24 federal appointments, Delta North is controlling 16, Delta Central is controlling only three, while the Delta South (Itsekiri, Ijaw and Isoko) has just five; and the North even has the state capital, including massive advantage of socia l and economic development. Then if you talk about how the fund for developing the Delta North comes about, you will discover that only less than 10 per cent comes from Delta North from internally generated revenue or allocation from the Federation Account. And you still say you want the governorship candidate; and they have been given by the stupidity of some group of Urhobo people; these are the reasons we believe that those people must be punished by God.
So what is your comment on the UPU factions?
I have explained to you the stand of the UPU and their strategy; I said to you that strategies are subject to variables because they are not static. So you must look at these variables that affect your strategies then you put place ‘feedback look’ to make amendment from time to time. But if it is so perfect then you leave it at that. So UPU made amendment by reexamining their strategy and will continue to reexamine it till they get victory. So if you find out that Labour Party is more formidable in terms of popularity so be it. I of in the school of thought that nobody should be declared a sole governorship candidate until after the Presidential election but there aresuperior opinion which has already jettisoned what was on my mind. So the war now is between Labour Party candidate (Urhobo candidate), Chief Great Ogboru and PDP governorship candidate. So there is no faction in UPU because four persons cannot from a faction.
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