Is it true that you were ordered by President Jonathan to abandon the senatorial race?

No, no, no. You see, people must give it to the President; he is not somebody who has that kind of trait or that kind of character. Remove Emmanuel Uduaghan from it, the President will not order anybody to leave any race. He is not that dictatorial. Even if he thinks you should not run, he might appeal to you and it is for you to make your decision.

I took the decision, he did not even appeal to me. I was the one that decided, based on my knowledge of the security situation on ground. I can boast about it today that I have more experience about managing the security situation in the Niger Delta than any other person. And what that experience tells me is that there are indices that you must look at, you must deal with, there are issues you must deal with, to pre-empt crisis in Niger Delta.

And one of the issues that can cause crisis in Niger Delta is political, struggle for position. Because I have a lot experience, I have a lot of knowledge; I’ve been in this matter longer than any other person today on the political scene. I have been in the matter of dealing with Niger Delta crisis, at least, as far as Delta state is concerned, longer than any other person. And when I see an issue that could cause intra-ethnic crisis in Niger Delta, even family quarrel, I should be able to identify it and deal with it.

And my contest for the senate is one of those issues that could have caused that kind of crisis. And as soon as I identified it, I say look, how do I manage it? I did a lot of consultations, even talking to my friend, Senator James Manager. Of course, he wasn’t ready to come down. And the onus, being the manager of the area and of the situation is for somebody to make sacrifices and I believe I was the one to make the sacrifice.

Once he wasn’t ready to step down, I have to make the sacrifice. I was the one who told the President, and even if he had prevailed on me to continue, I would not have continued except James Manager steps down.

You said you stepped down because of the security situation in the state. But there are reports that you yielded your leadership of the party to former militant leader, Mr. Government Ekpemukpolo (Tompolo) and that he was actually the one who installed most of the candidates of the party, including the governorship candidate and the deputy…

That is not true. But like I said, the story of the primaries will be told well after the elections, because when you start telling that story now, you will just be creating more wounds and we don’t need such wounds now before we go to the main election-if we start telling who did what at the primary and who did not do what- you will just be opening wounds that we don’t need now. There is a healing process that is going on and we want to try as much as possible to allow that healing to go on properly and help us to deal with the main election. I’ve always been the leader of the party in this state and I will continue to be the leader of the party in this state. There are challenging times which is not new, but we are still on.

Many political analysts are of the opinion that PDP will face its stiffest opposition since the advent of democracy in Nigeria in this coming election with the advent of the All Progressives Congress, APC. Some are even saying the PDP may also lose the presidential election. But you have been insisting that President Jonathan will be re-elected. Are you saying that because you don’t see APC as a threat to PDP dominance of Nigeria political space like many analysts or you are talking just as a loyal party man?

No, not just because I’m a loyal party man. There is no doubt that this opposition is stronger than any opposition we have had as a party. But there is also the advantage of incumbency and the advantage of long standing structures of the party. A party that has been in existence for 16 years without breaking of course would have created a lot of structures in between.

I will just tell you, in this state, for instance, we have been on for the past 16 years as a party. Now what that has done is that in every ward, we have people who have been built up to be able to manage the ward and win election. In every ward, we have at least a councillor, we have what we call the youth development committee members from that ward, we have women development committee members from that ward and we may have a chairman. The chairman also belongs to a ward. The House of Assembly members belongs to a ward. The political appointees; special assistants, even my chief press secretary, they all belong to wards. Commissioners belong to wards, National Assembly members belong to wards, the governor belongs to a ward, even the President belongs to a ward.

So, what strategies are we using in Delta? It is that for every ward, we identify all the persons in that particular ward; some may have six, some may have 10. Like my ward for instance, there is only one ward that can have a governor. So, that ward will have advantage over every other ward. Some wards have commissioners. So what we are doing is that we are putting these people together and giving them the responsibility of delivering their wards. That means campaigning and mobilising the people of their wards. So you concentrate on your ward instead of running about.

For instance, I belong to a ward in my local government, Warri North, others belong to wards in their local government areas and they know their wards more than myself even though I am the governor. The operations of the wards, the key issues in the wards and what we can use to campaign in the wards, they know them more than myself. So instead of me going to their wards to interfere or see what is happening in the ward, the ward leaders manage their own affairs. That is the advantage the PDP has. There is no ward in this Nigeria; PDP is either number one or number two party. There are local governments and states in Nigeria where you don’t have the presence of APC at all, even in this state. But there is no ward in Nigeria that we don’t have the PDP. So if you put all those together, yes, the margin of the win this year might be less than in 2011, but I believe that we will still win.

Many Nigerians believe that there is general disenchantment against the PDP over the way it has handled the affairs of Nigeria…

Many people in the social media

So, you think the campaign that the PDP has not done well is only in the social media…

PDP also has its strength in the social media. But you know generally, opposition is more recognized, it’s not just in Nigeria, it is general. Even in the US, during the election period, the voice of the opposition is heard more during election more than the incumbent, so it’s always like that.

But that sometimes is not always the reality on ground. Like in the last election (in the US), if you follow what was happening in the media, you’ll think that Obama has lost the election. I was in America a few days before the election and I got the import of where it was going to go from the cab driver that I used. I just sounded him out and he said yes that they may say what they want to say but for them it is Obama, and it turned out to be Obama. So, it is always like that.