By Festus Ahon & Ochuko Akuopha

CHIEF Great Ovedje Ogboru was the gubernatorial candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, in the March 18th governorship election in Delta state. He was the face of the opposition in the state before the 2023 elections.

In 2007, 2010 rerun and 2011 elections, when he ran under the Democratic Peoples Party, DPP, he put up a strong fight against the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. In those elections, he produced some members of the State House of Assembly.

In this interview, Ogboru spoke on the 2023 governorship election.

Excerpts:

How did you see the last gubernatorial election in Delta state?

After the conclusion of the election, we had to congratulate the winner of that election, Rt Hon Sheriff Oborevwori.

Having said that, I want to say that the process of electioneering in Nigeria is deteriorating on yearly basis and this should not be so.

From what we have witnessed, it will be safe to conclude that no person again can win an election without a very deep pocket. As a matter of fact, after those elections, one of my children sent a text to me and said, ‘daddy we will not contest election again unless we have N10 billion’.

If I have to extrapolate, I want to say the youths of today have caged themselves; we find it a bit worrisome and unthinkable that people can willingly sell their birth rights by selling their votes. By so doing, they consign themselves into modern slaves and they have no voice to therefore to question the doings of government; this is pathetic, sad and unacceptable, the future has to guide against it.

After you congratulated Sheriff Oborevwori on his victory, there were insinuations in some quarters that you were given money and bought over by PDP before the elections. How true is this?

I have heard some of those silly talks from some quarters and we know those are sponsored discourse from our friends in the APC who specialize only in maligning and destroying peoples’ character because they believe that the only way to rise in politics is to bring somebody down.

That is the trademark of the APC in Delta state. If you know my antecedents, you should know by now that there are certain people who are above bribery, who are above inducement, who are above money and I am very confident and I say it proudly that I am one of the few people that money cannot induce under any circumstance.

If anybody was making that insinuation, they are wrong. What happened was prior to the elections the PDP approached us that I should step down for their candidate and endorse him and I said no, it should be the reverse, your candidate should step down and endorse me and this went on for a few weeks.

Then after a few weeks, they said we should have a meeting with the governor of our state. We met and we tried to convince the governor that the candidate of his party should step down for us and they said no and I said I will not step down for him either; we have to go into the race.

Nevertheless, in that meeting we agreed that one of us should win that election and that if Sheriff won, Great Ogboru won and if Great Ogboru won, Sheriff won.

So, to that extent, it was proper for me to congratulate him and be part of the celebration, but in any case it was not pre planned that it should be so. There is therefore no apology whatsoever to anybody. We did what we thought was right, we congratulated the winner because we did not win that election.

You did say you congratulated the winner and at the same time you said without a deep pocket, no one can win in an election. What is the correlation here?

It is not contradictory whatsoever. You see, the issues of apathy, violence, voters inducement and intimidation are not issues to be adjudicated upon in the court; these are realities and if you are not able to change it because the law did not permit you to do so, you must accept the outcome.

There are no contradictions whatsoever; yes, the elections were marred with all of those shortcomings which I mentioned earlier on, but it did not take away the fact that somebody won the election as it were. We accept that result and and we are standing by it.

So what is your word for other contestants?

I have no word for other constants, they have their own party and I have my party.

It was a decision we took after due consultation with members of our caucus, very senior members of our party and our political leaning, so it wasn’t a personal decision.

For them, they will have to come to the conclusion themselves. By the time they realize as I have realized that it is not going to be easy, it may be impossible for that matter, to prove some of the allegations levied against the election, they will come to the inevitable conclusion that yes, they will not question the outcome.

In any case, it is a process, let them go to court, they have their grievances let them go to court and do what they think is the best for them and hope that they will get justice. In any case we stand by our own judgement, confirmation that Sheriff Oborevwori won the election properly.

Before the elections, you used to be a very good friend to Senator Ovie Omo- Agege. Why did you and Ovie Omo-Agege part ways and what is your current relationship with him?

Ovie Omo-Agege is my younger brother just as Sheriff Oborevwori is my younger brother. But you may have two brothers, one is good and one is bad, just like when we had two thieves in Calvary beside Jesus, one was a good thief and the other was a bad thief;

that is the correlation I see here and I am not too sure it is worthy of my time to discuss what transpired between Senator Omo-Agege and I.

Having said that, he is still my younger brother, whether he is the good one I don’t know but you can judge for yourself. I am in a position where I have two brothers and I must support one.

How did I come into the conclusion that one must be supported and not the other? Twenty years ago, I was sitting in my car somewhere here in Abraka; I think we went for an occasion, my people were doing one or two things and somebody came and knocked the window of my car and I wound down the glass.

The person greeted me in Urhobo language. I asked what are you doing here and he said he was schooling there. He looked at me, opened his purse and brought out N20,000 new notes of 200 denomination.

I noticed that it was unusual because I did not ask for it but he said bros take this for the good work you are doing for us in Delta state and I said thank you very much.

I am sure he has even forgotten about it because when you do some certain good you forget. As the young man was growing, he became a member of the State House of Assembly, after that he became the Speaker, and every time he saw me when he was the Speaker, he would stop his convoy and would come down to greet me with his entourage.

It is unusual seeing a big man in Delta state stopping his convoy to greet his elder brother. I found this to be very unusual. In any case, that happened on more than one occasion.

During the campaigns, he called me to say bros, we haven’t been seeing the force we used to see in your campaigns in the Asaba area. I told him the force was coming out and my deputy was going to start the campaign very shortly, which is to say the man is not just contesting but he is also interested in your own welfare; if he is not going to win, he wants you to win.

On the other hand, I have another brother who came from the opposing party, he came to join us, saying that all the evils and atrocities that his party had done against us will never repeat itself because they were the architects of all of those evil doings.

We believed him, we worked with him, we gave him a ticket free of charge, we supported him financially for his election, when he ran out of money, we even went and borrowed and raised money from all quarters including the leadership of the opposition party then. 

We gave him our votes and he became a Senator, and when he wanted a second term, we put everything behind him to ensure we had a ranking senator; but then, he felt that we were not good enough that he could do better.

I believe that was the reason he came out and took the structure of the APC where we were in then. Now looking at both scenarios, you see that you have two brothers and you must support one, who will you support?

The decision is yours, the decision is individualistic.

I took a personal decision to support what I thought was right and thank God members of my team believed that the decision was a right one to take and we have stood by it, we are working by it and we hope that going forward there would be an accord to make sure we give him the necessary support and impetus to become a successful governor in Delta State.

Let me use this opportunity to say one thing that is certain, that in 2027, Great Ovedje Ogboru will not be in the ballot for the governor of Delta State.

I didn’t say l am quitting politics, I only said I will not be in the ballot for the governorship and that is because we are expecting that Sherrif Oborevwori will do so well and will have a second term.