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Olorogun O’tega Emerhor, accountant, business mogul turned politician was the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC in the 2015 election in Delta State. Emerhor who lost the election to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP’s Senator Ifeanyi Okowa severally sought to reverse the outcome but failed upon the Supreme Court affirmation of the election.

In this interview Emerhor reviews the outcome of the judicial appeals, the performance of the federal administration and lines up the plans of the opposition towards 2019. Excerpts:

By Levinus Nwabughiogu

What are your next plans following the court judgments?

Our case just finished in February and we are in March and of course we have a government to run even if we don’t have a specific role today, we believe that we are resourceful people to the government and one way or the other, we will be part of ensuring that the manifesto of APC is clearly delivered and we support the president to ensure that he succeeds and change the direction of this country. That is what I have been involved in since.

What is your assessment of the performance of the APC led Federal Government?

APC government has done very well under the circumstance. You are not a stranger. You are a journalist.

Totally destroyed economy

Olorogun-Otega-Emerhor

You have seen the revelations that have been happening since the APC government took over. We met an economy that was totally destroyed. We met a country is so broke and our earning capacity so damaged from two directions; from the production of oil and the quantity we can even sell and the price that oil is selling today.  So, you need to measure the progress based on the circumstance that we face.

Do you think the anti-corruption war has brought dividends?

This is a serious government, so why won’t people be jailed? Unless the judiciary has a pact with corruption and they will not jail them. Money has been traced to people’s accounts. Money that came from a source that clearly it is from the government. So, what is supposed to be the defence?

If we weren’t running a democracy, these are people that they will line up and shoot in places like China, North Korea and other places because they have seen the money traced to your account and the trace leads back to government. It shows you didn’t earn the money, you have no authority to spend that money.

How is the opposition in Delta State?

We worked very hard in opposition in that state for 16 years and we believe that if they allowed an election to happen in Delta state, the opposition will win any day, any time.

We actually were very hopeful at the judiciary that we were going to have an opportunity for a rerun in that state. That didn’t happen so naturally we were disappointed but we haven’t lost hope but if you were following the politics of Delta State, you can see that for the first time the opposition is now trying to come together again.

You must have learnt that Labour Party for example led by my brother, Great Ogboru is coming to join us in APC to ensure that we have a more robust opposition.

You must also have heard of Victor Ochei, for example, the former speaker of the House who is leading a group from Accord to also come and join us and there are many strong PDP leaders who have fallen out with the PDP, because, you know there is a limit to which you can drive something that isn’t working that is wrong.

The resources of Delta State should be properly utilized for the benefit of Delta State and the will of the people should survive in any election.

So all that is coming together and we are building a more formidable opposition. So, that is giving some level of hope and assurance to our people. Yes, there won’t be any other election until 2019 but this is the time to prepare, to work towards that.

Any intention of running again in 2019?

No, that isn’t what I am saying at all. 2019 is too far and so many events will happen between now and 2019 for anybody to say they will be the governor in 2019 but all of us who have run before have the responsibility to analyse why we haven’t been able to uproot the regime that has been in that state for 16 years and it is our responsibility to come together and create a viable platform that will allow a viable candidate to be able to challenge the PDP so that the party in the centre will come to Delta State and good things will come to us.

Teething problems

I am not talking about myself. I am talking of all these people coming together to work together and at that point, we will get a viable candidate who will be our candidate and we will use that candidate to ensure that the state is taken.

An alternative to APC in 2019?

What alternative to APC will emerge? I am not conversant with that. APC has only been on ground in government for less than a year. We may have our own teething problems but I don’t think that is enough to break APC into factions that will now go and form another government.

Very soon some of the issues that are concerns to APC people I am sure will be addressed. We inherited a country and a government that is filled with PDP people at all levels; at government level, parastatal level, agency level meanwhile the APC people that did all the work are still waiting to be able to participate in the government.