THEOPHILOUS  OKOH was a senatorial aspirant on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Edo Central in 2011. In this interview, he spoke on the recent APC membership registration exercise, the position of Edo Central Zone in the alleged governorship power play between the Deputy Governor, Dr. Pius Odubu and Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu among other issues. Excerpts:

BY GABRIEL ENOGHOLASE

How was the turnout of persons during the period the exercise lasted?
Very overwhelmingly. In-fact in Edo Central I had the opportunity of going round. This registration was supposed to be done within six days but within two days, we ran out of materials. The initial material sent to every unit was 100 per unit.

Are you not afraid that factional strife within the party could affect your chances of confronting the PDP in the forthcoming elections?
It is expected that PDP should be more organized. Let me educate you a little bit on what you find in Edo North and Edo South.
You know that APC is an amalgamation of ANPP, CPC and AC.

Meanwhile after the registration of APC, the party has not formally come together under an umbrella and you know politicians when there is a vacuum, they find something to do.
What you called faction and group, they happened because there was a vacuum, there was no umbrella body and for them not to be idle, they now had groups here and there coming together to form pressure groups.

ACN lost your senatorial district in the last general elections. What corrective measure has your party put in place to avoid same error come 2015?
This is not a very fair question but I will answer it, you know in everything nobody is perfect. In my party, we are not perfect I believe if we made mistake then, we are learning from our mistakes. I believe we are learning very seriously. Let’s not the prejudge issues.

We know we made some mistakes, that was the only senatorial area we lost because of choice of candidate and we are doing everything possible to amend that mistake I know we will take it this time.

Where do you stand on the alleged face-off between the deputy governor and former SSG, Osaze Ize-Iyamu?
You are talking about Odubu and Ize-Iyamu factor. I am in APC, Idon’t know about it. We are in 2014 and you are talking about governorship. We cannot be talking about governorship, we just did governorship election just only over a year ago.

For whatever you say, the only power play you see today like I said before was because of the vacuum, there was no authority to say this is the party per se. I don’t believe in rumour, when the time comes for Ishan to choose a candidate, let me say this, I am bold to say this categorically.

The present governor who has done wonderfully and extremely well is from Edo North, the previous governor, Lucky Igbinedion was from the South.

Think about that, do you think that Edo South should be the one fighting over governorship or Edo Central? Are you saying Edo Central is not involved in this power play?

The PDP Senator representing your district recently boasted that he has no rival in his quest for a 3rd term to the National Assembly. What do you say?
Why are you asking me to dabble into the politics of my opponent?  I am in APC. We are just sitting down to watch what happens in PDP. We are waiting for them to come out, we will not want to interfere into their politics.

In the governorship election, we won the five local governments in the senatorial district. If you remember, the last senatorial election came first and we lost out because we made a mistake and there was a bag wagon effect. I pray we don’t make that mistake again. But I can tell you and you know that unless APC members are sleeping again there is no way PDP can win us.