Dr. Wilson Omene, a former chairman of Ethiope West Local Government Council is a stalwart of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in Delta State. In this interview with Vanguard he reasserts his opinion that the Urhobos will vote against his party’s candidate for governorship on the basis that the candidate is not Urhobo, traces the enthronement of an Anioma person as the PDP governorship candidate to internal sabotage within the Urhobo nation among other claims. Excerpts:

By Godwin Oghre

Do you think the Urhobo can still make it to the Government House?

The Urhobo Nation is willing and prepared to form a strategic partnership with the PDP at the national level in the 2015 general elections. The Urhobo man is bent on rewriting the imbalance. The electorate will determine who will win the governorship election and I can assure you that the Urhobos will win the election going by its population strength. PDP has a great challenge and it will fail at the state level.

What do you think led to the failure of Urhobo nation to producing the PDP governorship candidate at the primary?

The answer is ‘dog ate dog.’ Some personal selfish interests of Urhobo political class caused it. They made the process of the emergence of the delegates to the primaries faulty based on the presence of channels that violated the laid down party procedure. It was the very people in PDP who call themselves political leaders in Urhobo land that ensured that the preferred choice of the Urhobo nation for the party ticket lost out to an outsider whose ethnic nationality is from Anioma.

Ethnic nationality

While the Anioma played the same role as the UPU, to ensure the success of their candidate, some of the Urhobo PDP leaders ensured the failure of the Urhobo candidate. That fact has not been denied or contradicted by any of those fingered in the plot to ensure that an Urhobo man does not get the PDP governorship ticket.

What is your take on the palpable disagreement between Chief Great Ovedje Ogboru and Olorogun O’tega Emrhor?

•Omene

I love all of them who came out. Emerhor, Ogboru, Omo-Agege, Prof Utuama, Edevbie and others, in the sense that they came out with their hard earned resources to rescue us. They are fine gentle men but what I want to say is that let us look inward to see the objective of the struggle. They must remove personal interests.

They must look at the actual strategies to actualize what we want, which have variables and can change based on the politics of the day, personality, and many others. I advise both of them to come together. Again I feel at this point in time that APC has no direction because, how will its presidential candidate come to visit UPU leadership on the one hand and his deputy is coming to visit the dissidents on the other hand?

What is the current relationship between UPU and the political class of Urhobo extraction?

Over 90 percent of them have abandoned the pan-Urhobo cause. It is now UPU that has come to rescue the Urhobos from the situation. UPU has tried, even by defending the votes we gave to Mr President at the previous election. This has never happened before. The political class National Executive of Urhobo Progress Union (UPU) at its emergency meeting held on Sunday 14th December, 2014 decided to reinstate the sanctions which were hitherto lifted on Ighoyota Amori, Monday Igbuya, Prof. Onyovbaire, Evelyn Oboro, John Nani and their co-travelers.

Henceforth all those mentioned cannot and will not be allowed to associate with the UPU. They cannot attend any meeting of UPU or social gathering of the union neither can they represent us in any capacity both politically and otherwise. Any appointment given to them is personal and not a slot of the Urhobo people.

What is the relationship between the Urhobo nation and other ethnic groups in the state?

The relationship is cordial. Our relationship with the Ndokwas is amazing, in fact they are our brothers.

Preferred aspirant

The Ijaws are our brothers of over three hundred years, even though Senator James manager, Tompolo and other Ijaw leaders also led their delegates to vote against the preferred aspirant of the Urhobo Nation at the primary election. The Itsekiris, the Isokos and the Aniomas are doing well with us.

Does your party, I mean PDP have the chance of winning the forth coming governorship election in the State?

As a party man, the wish of the party is my wish. But I must say the party has a formidable challenge from the Labour Party. As of now from the way I am seeing things, my answer is no, and nothing can be done to correct the situation. From the look of things, it is too late for PDP to win the governorship election in Delta State. Victory is currently appearing to be on the side of the Chief Great Ovedje Ogboru led Labour Party.