DELTA State Commissioner for Orientation and Communication, Chief Paulinus Akpeki, in this interview, argues that Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan has been fair to the three senatorial districts of the state in the distribution of social amenities.

UDUAGHAN

He also raises a  fresh political puzzle that Uduaghan’s tenure ought not to terminate in April, but, in 2015, given the judgment of the Court of Appeal that nullified his election last November.

Excerpts:

Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan said he had learnt some lessons while he was away from office  on ethnic distrust and now that  he is back, he would try to restore the confidence of the ethnic nationalities in the government of the state. How is government doing this because this issue will affect the continued stay or otherwise of PDP in Government House, Asaba?

What the governor  said is true. The first thing we must try to do in this state is to ensure that there is trust among all Deltans. I have always said and I will continue to say that our first national anthem in this country, if we sit down and keep to it, life will be the best for this country.

Though, tongue and tribe may differ, in brotherhood we stand. Today, I am an Urhobo man, I am in Dr. Emmanuel  Uduaghan’s government because he has some confidence in me and other Urhobo men, and others from other tribes, he appointed us, he has some trust in us and we also have some trust in him. I think that is what it is supposed to be.

What we are doing now in my directorate, which is public enlightenment, mobilisation, etc. is to get back to the various tribes in  the state and try to make them understand and believe that together, we can make Delta State great. We are beginning to build trust back in ourselves and want to see the Urhobo man as a brother, let us see Itsekiri man as a brother, let us come together, let us work together and, together, we shall build a great state. I think we are doing that, we are reconciling ourselves and I do sincerely know that we should get there.

Frankly speaking, the charge against the government of the state, particularly from your senatorial district, Delta Central Senatorial District, is that the Uduaghan government has failed them…
(cuts in… In terms of what?)

In terms of provision of social amenities and infrastructure …

(cuts in again, I don’t think so, I don’t think so…)
I have not finished my question…However, this perception of failure is not the same from the Delta North and Delta South senatorial districts. What is your take on this charge of non-performance?

As regards what? You said provision, provision of what?  I think Uduaghan has done well by providing amenities in the three senatorial districts of Delta State. To the best of my knowledge, all the amenities were adequately shared to the three senatorial districts. There is basically nothing that you will find in Delta North today that you will not find in Delta South or you don’t find in Delta Central.

The only thing is the mega project and the only mega project so far that has been sited in Delta North, for instance, that is not in Delta South is the international passenger and cargo airport. In terms of roads, water, street lights, education, health, name it, I think every area in this state has been catered for by the Uduaghan administration. And, in the case of the airport in Asaba, the Uduaghan administration also went ahead to acquire a large expanse of land at Osubi in Delta Central to expand the Osubi airport.

His administration went ahead to start negotiation with Shell Petroleum Development Company to take over the Osubi airport so that he can extend the runway and do other things.

How true is the information that some PDP leaders from the Central district worked against their party and that is why PDP performed poorly in the district in the January 6 rerun?

In any system, there could be a black leg and there will always be a black leg, if not, Judas Iscariot would probably not have  sold out his master. Our prayer is may God not let us have a bad player in our system. I tend to agree with you and I agree with you because PDP is the major political party in Delta  and for it to lose in that form in that senatorial district, definitely, something went wrong. And, these are the things we are now addressing, where did things go wrong?

We are addressing them now but during the election, the enemy out there is  easier and better to manage than the enemy within. I agree totally that we have a lot of black legs and enemies within,  but I believe that we will be able to reconcile ourselves within so that  all the party members would have genuine intention to work for our candidate. However, these enemies, if at all they are enemies, I can tell you that we can still manage them but there are some of them that no matter what you do, you cannot change them, but  there are a few among them that you can also probably talk to and they will talk with you, tell you really why they are angry and they will reconcile favourably with you, and there are some that will continue to deceive you.

I am, however, of the school of thought in politics that it is better to have one person you can trust that to have millions that you don’t trust. Nevertheless, we will continue to do the talking and the pleading until, by the grace of God, some of them will reconcile with us.
PDP lost narrowly to  DPP in the Sapele Local Government Area, where you and some other party top shots hailed from and in Ethiope West Local Government Area with headquarters in Oghara, but lost in the other six local government areas in Delta Central.  Do you see the party coming back in the district in the next election?

Should there be an election in April in Delta, I think PDP will do far better than what they did the last time. In the rerun, we underestimated some groups of people. This time, we will come from our shell and work better. I am not going to disclose our strategy on the pages of newspapers. But,  really, we did not lose in Delta Central as such because Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan got the 25 per cent mandatory vote in the district, Delta Central and if we have not met the INEC requirement in the totality of the local governments he won, he would not have been declared governor.

Some people are of the opinion that since the Court of Appeal, which nullified Uduaghan’s election last November ordered a fresh election on the grounds that the 2007 gubernatorial election was a charade and a nullity, that his victory in the January 6 re-run means a fresh four-year mandate. Do you agree?

I have never subscribe and I will not subscribe to the word  rerun, be it semantics or not. Everybody who likes Delta  State should go and pick the judgment and read. The judgment signed by Justice Monica Dogban and her colleagues states clearly that INEC should go and conduct a fresh election in Delta State. That was their statement in paragraph five of the judgment and in paragraph six, they said that until INEC conducts that election within 90 days from the day of that judgment, the Speaker of the House of Assembly should take charge of the affairs in Delta State.

Clearly speaking, the judgment of November 9, 2010 that nullified our election in Delta is different completely from the judgment that nullified the election of all the other governors. Ours was a fresh election and not a rerun. I am not a constitutional lawyer, but I challenge lawyers to go to court and seek interpretation of this judgment. My candid opinion is that we went for a fresh election and Dr. Uduaghan’s tenure from that judgment is supposed to end in January 2015 because it was a fresh election.

And, I am happy that one of my friends  who contested the last election during  one or two arguments said Uduaghan is a new governor. He was a flag- bearer of one of the parties. So, it is a four-year mandate for Uduaghan, let the lawyers and Deltans go to a competent court of law to seek interpretation of the judgment vis a vis the January 6 election that was held in the state.

Government won’t go to court because if we go to court, they will say we don’t want to contest election; we are fully ready to go for an election even today, but, let justice take its course.

Senatorial and House of Representatives primaries have practically torn PDP apart in the state. Do you think things can be the same again for the party?

Cuts in… It depends on the areas you are talking about.
There is anger everywhere…

Cuts in again… Among which set of people
In PDP. Many people have left PDP to join DPP, ACN and other parties because of their dissatisfaction with the conduct of the primaries, saying that…

Don’t you know that losers always  complain. How can somebody  sit  in Abuja and say he is contesting election back home when he does not even visit the wards in his area for National Assembly. Take Delta Central, for instance, we have proliferation of aspirants; while one or two of them were going round the wards, some were sitting  in  London, Abuja, Port-Harcourt and Kaduna without visiting their wards.

We had over 15 aspirants, some anyway found their way to other parties, same thing in the  House of Representatives, even House of Assembly, same thing happened. They did not even know when delegates emerged. It is three delegates per ward and they thought money could buy them after they have emerged.

Those days are gone when money played  a dominant role. To those who have lost, I plead  with them to stay in the party. If they leave the party just as you said some people have left, they will still lose there because God has not ordained them to be senators, House of Representatives and House of Assembly members.

How far has your ministry or directorate gone  in changing the erroneous  perception of some people towards the Uduaghan government?
You will see that it is a new directorate. One of our charges in this directorate is to change people‘s  perception, values and so on. It is gradual, we are getting to the grassroots to make them see reason  they should accept government policies and programmes.

Some of them have started seeing reasons  certain things are the way they are and even among the civil servants, some of them do not know how much we get from the Federation Account, how we spend the money, but now they know that their salaries alone gulp nothing less than N5.6 billion every month.

They now know that we give N2.5 billion to DESOPADEC every month, they now know that we collect not more than between N8 billion – N9 billion every month from the Federation Account, they now know that we have between N1.2 billion and N1.8 billion every month from internally-generated revenue, they now know that we spend most of the money we collect in paying their salaries, DESOPADEC, paying for the mega project and the little money we have left in government coffers is not more than N900m with which we run government.

Now that they know, now that they have seen, they now have some sympathy for government. So, when they are negotiating anything now, they know where  they are going to start from and where they are going to end.