Delta Gov 2015: Why Urhobo will not chorus it’s Anioma’s turn mantra — Omene on November 04, 2014 / in Politics 12:18 am / Comments Dr. Odafe Wilson Omene is former Chairman, Ethiope West Council and holds a Ph.D in Marine Studies from the University of Wales. In this interview he says that Delta Central Senatorial District is obliged to produce the next governor of the state on account of alleged disproportionate hold of Delta North on federal appointments and state infrastructure. Excerpts: BY EGUFE YAFUGBORHI IS the principle of zoning binding on the PDP in Delta State? We have to first ask; why the fuss about zoning? There has never been any arrangement or agreement, either thought about or sealed, that there should be zoning among the three senatorial districts. It is just a smokescreen. From 1999 till date, the records are there to prove that every senatorial district participated in the struggle to produce the PDP governorship candidate since the days of Chief James Ibori. In 2007, even the present governor got in by sheer political arrangement based on compromises that had nothing to do with zoning because candidates from all three districts participated in the purported primary. North was split with candidates, so was Central. It is not that he had a clear-cut win in the PDP primaries of 2006. Compromises were made. So it has always been a fight with whoever is strongest coming out as the candidate of the most powerful political party, PDP. But then why do some people in Central so opposed to Delta North producing governor? If zoning did not apply when we aspired to the office in past elections, why are we begging the question now? Begging the question The reason we are so upset over this issue is that in the last eight years, we have never experienced this level of disdain in the handling of the political interest of Delta Central. Over the period, federal appointments of persons from Delta State have been tilted to Delta North to the extent that out of 23 high profile appointments, the North alone cornered 18, about 95 per cent. What has that got to do with the governorship? It has everything to do with the governorship. You cannot separate the governorship from the totality of the dividends of democracy, which include the lopsided federal appointment of persons from Delta. What constitutes the dividends of democracy? You have infrastructure, economy, human capital development, social development and any other related factor beneficial to the electorate under a democracy. Infrastructure wise, we have all major federal structures in Delta cited at Asaba. Some include the CBN Regional Office, Federal Medical Centre, Federal Secretariat, Federal College of Education and Immigration, all in Delta North. What do you have in Central because we are comparing these two zones now? Since inception of this democracy, we have only got the Federal University of Petroleum which is still trying to find its feet. For state infrastructure, we have the state secretariat, all ministries, agencies and parastatals, two Government Houses, the best road network, the airport, everything is there in Delta North by virtue of Asaba being state capital. What you get in the other areas are at best mere appendages of the capital city structures. What is the impact on the people? Government is closer to the Delta North people than those from distant zones, who suffer road risks and other dangers if they must go to the capital city to struggle for state opportunities. That is for infrastructure. Struggle for state opportunities I will illustrate with an instance how all these affect the economy of Delta North differently from that of Central and South. On Nnebisi Road, Asaba, a 100×100 piece of land, probably with a mud house today, controls over N120M. The banks would be in a hurry to snap it up. Before we had a state capital, what was the value of that land? It was under N20,000. Even, given the value of money over time, it is still over 5000 per cent appreciation in economic value of a property that a grandfather probably left for a little boy. These are reasons the North has no moral justification to be governor for now. When Ibori was governor, could he have changed the fact that he needed to build a Government House in Asaba? The CBN zonal office at Asaba was built under Uduaghan. Could he have influenced it to Abigborodo, his community? If the appointments you talk about are redistributed to the three senatorial zones would Central concede the governorship to the North? This is the reason we are so upset. When they had the opportunity to be their brothers’ keeper with the privilege of being in the corridors of powers of the federal government, they did not remember their brothers from South and Central. Why couldn’t they have that magnanimity to say we have had a lot, let us now give some to the other zones if they knew a time like this would come? They had the influence of being in the corridors of federal power and they utilized it to the benefit of their people and their people alone. The only dividend left that Central has uppermost power to fight for is the governorship, through strength of votes. Now they are bringing in sentiments to also appropriate it. You rather leave me with my majority, which is the only power I have to use for the betterment and interest of the Urhobo man and woman. Corridors or power It is not far-fetched why the Urhobo are not in the corridors of power. Lies have been told against us, we have been marginalized. There is a school of thought that the president was told the Urhobo never voted for him; that they rigged our votes for the president. If you were the president, would you still consider us as important people? But I don’t want to hinge on that because we have resolved as Urhobo to support our South-South son to remain in that seat because we have been marginalized in the South-South. Our region has been bastardised in spite of the fact that we lay the golden egg. We must support him, but in the process of supporting him, he should be magnanimous enough as the president because the group of people that have given him 807,000 votes could still give him more because there are other Urhobo in Ondo, Lagos, Oyo and all over the place voting. So if we bring the totality of the votes on the table, you have the fifth largest votes you can ever have. - See more at: vanguardngr/2014/11/delta-gov-2015-urhobo-will-chorus-aniomas-turn-mantra-omene/#sthash.dygxh5Zv.dpuf vanguardngr/2014/11/delta-gov-2015-urhobo-will-chorus-aniomas-turn-mantra-omene/
Posted on: Tue, 04 Nov 2014 11:29:31 +0000
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