By HENRY UMORU

Esther Uduehi, a former presidential adviser on National Assembly and a leader of Peoples Democratic Party in Delta State, was recently appointed the Chairman, Governing Board of the National Commission for Mass Literacy, Adult  Education and Non- Formal Education. In this interview, Uduehi speaks on national issues, the problems in the PDP, 2015 presidency, the commission, among other  issues. Excerpts:

There is a  stiff  challenge  from some stakeholders to the alleged plan by President Goodluck Jonathan  to seek  re-election in 2015. Do you think he has done much to warrant his coming back?
To me, the issue of coming back or not coming is premature, because  the president has not said he wants  to come back. But if he says he wants  to come back,  he is qualified. Nigerians will decide if he has done enough for them to bring him back. He has been there and naturally started on a shaky note but has gradually come to strengthen  himself in office. He has done some things that ordinarily people will score him and say he has done this and that.

In the power sector, he is handling it squarely, the unbundling of the PHCN, you can name so many of them, but there are certain other things you may perhaps say the  president  ought to have done which he has not. I am from the South-south, I am anxious to see him complete the East-West Road.  But I can at least say he has started it. At a time, the problem on that particular road was that the contractor  couldn’t work because of  militancy.

I don’t really know what their problems are  today. I  want to wake up one day and say that road is done and I can now travel from Benin to Port Harcourt or from Calabar with ease. He has done quite some things and he has some things to do. But if he says he wants to come back, he will have a lot of things to say he has done and it will be left to Nigerians to look at it.

You  are a member of the PDP. How do you rate the performance of your party in Delta State over the years and particularly the challenge posed by the All Progressives Congress (APC)?
Delta is a PDP state and a lot has been done by the party in the state. I don’t know who to commend for this, but the decision of the governors forum peer group that  all states should  make sure that they face education and repair all schools, I think that is quite commendable, because  you see so much being done not only in Delta State, but everywhere. Even when we started the first eight years under Ibori, a lot was done, just that perhaps we expected  that given the funds available, much  more could have been  done.

I think in Delta right now, they are trying now to do as much as they can and we are hoping that before 2015, much more will be done. Of recent, there is a programme on TV that gives the highlights of what and what they are doing, just like what you have in Akwa Ibom State. They are facing education  squarely, they are giving scholarship. On  health, the hospitals are being equipped,  health is free for some categories of people and I think it is because of this that the governor was given a fellowship recently and for which the state was celebrated.

So the PDP has done well in Delta and that is why you find that the other parties have not been able to push no matter how much they have struggled. We believe that in 2015, PDP has no competitor; even nationally, PDP has no competitor.

With the unfolding scenario, do you think the PDP can clinch on to power for many years as was speculated before now?
Even with the unfolding scenario, PDP has nothing to fear. It is not going to be easy  with the so-called merger the defected PDP governors  are going into with the APC. Don’t forget the people they are going to meet in the APC are no fools. You are saying that in a state where those governors are, those people who have been in APC all these years and have been waiting for an opportunity to run for one position or the other; the same governors will now go to APC and override them and take over?

It doesn’t work that way. What of the leaders of the APC in those states? So that will bring about some confusion. It is not going to be as sweet as  it is sounding at the beginning; everybody  wants to get  power one way or the other. So somehow I believe that it is not going to be that easy for them. PDP doesn’t have anything to fear. But the PDP needs to put its house in order, to try and pacify members who are aggrieved; it is very important.