Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan is the governor of Delta State. In this interview with AYORINDE OLUOKUN and JETHRO IBILEKE, he spoke about the changes that have taken place in his state since he was elected in 2007, the politics of Peoples Democratic Party and Delta State and other contemporary issues. Photos: FEMI IPAYE People are apprehensive about the 2015 general elections, what could happen after the election. Do you also share the concern that the outcome of the election may signal the beginning of trouble for Nigeria? Yes, there is a lot of concern about 2015 elections. The concern really started from a prediction by certain persons in America that Nigeria might disintegrate in 2015. Of course, the major activity that can lead to disintegration in 2015 is the election. So that build up has been there for years, and then we are getting to a situation now where various candidates have emerged, campaigns are going on, utterances are being made that are worrisome and actions are taken that are also worrisome. So if one says that worry is not there, I think one will be deceiving oneself. That worry is there that after the 2015 elections, we might have some violence. But I think the good thing about that is that it also puts us on our toes to also do everything possible to avert any form of violence after the elections. Many are of the opinion that your party, the PDP, did not manage its primary elections well. You also said at the recent thanksgiving service of your state governorship candidate that your party needs to do some house cleaning. In view of this, do you think PDP could retain Delta State in the coming elections? [caption id="attachment_19397" align="aligncenter" width="300"] •Dr. Emmanuel Eweta Uduaghan, Governor Delta State[/caption] Yes, some challenges have been thrown up as a result of the primaries from even the delegates’ lists to the national delegate election to local government council level, the House of Assembly elections, the National Assembly elections, the governorship. Each of these stages threw up some challenges. In certain areas, they were fairly bad, but in most areas, although challenges were there, they are manageable. Now what the party has done is to put up teams to go round the state to identify the problems in the state to see how reconciliations have been carried out by the committees and if not possible, and where not possible, they will take their findings to the national body of the party so that the national will do something about it. So, there is a higher body looking into it. Now, as for our state, like I said, we need reconciliation, because as a result of the primaries, certain persons are aggrieved, some have even moved to other political parties, to get tickets to the Senate or House of Assembly. If it is possible to bring them back, we will bring them back, and we are making moves to bring them back. You know, in bringing people back at that level, there must be something that is very solid that they are looking up to. If it is an appointment, you sort of tie them down to that appointment that if we win, this is what you get. But generally, that is difficult to manage. So it’s just to find other ways of giving aggrieved people hope of not being abandoned in the next dispensation and that is the challenging part of it. With what has happened, do you think PDP will be able to retain its position as the dominant political party in Nigeria after the 2015 elections? It is even worse in opposition parties. Yes, the one of PDP is maybe more publicised, but in APC, the internal problems are worse. Are you also aggrieved by the outcome of the party’s primary because your preferred governorship candidate did not emerge and you also failed to secure Senate ticket as you would have loved to? No, I am not aggrieved; I need to correct that impression. If I was aggrieved, I would have made moves for people to know that I am aggrieved. If you are aggrieved, you must seek ways of redress. I’ve not sought redress from anywhere; I don’t think that anybody has heard that I am seeking redress. No, I am not. I may have my reservations about how some of the things were handled. For the governorship, I tried to provide a free and fair environment, which happened, activating security and all that which was my primary responsibility. There is no doubt that as a governor leaving office, I will be lying if I said I didn’t have an interest, but you must subdue your personal interest under the overall interest of the state. I think that was what happened. There are areas I don’t agree with; like the primaries to the House of Assembly. But what we tried to do was to get a delegates’ list that was transparent, which everybody agreed on, and with that, all the other process will just flow. So we used that for the House of Assembly election. Unfortunately, the panel that came was already bought over, very hostile and disappeared even before the election finished, and tried to compile the result in Abuja. And I resisted it, I said no. 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. When you took over as governor of Delta state in 2007, certainly you had a vision of where you wanted to take the state to. Now at the twilight of your administration, how well will you say this vision has been achieved? We have done very well. First, what is our vision? Our vision was that of peace and security, infrastructural development and of course, human capital development dovetailing into empowerment, and we pursued those things very vigorously. I’am sure today you are aware that there are no incidents of security challenges. In terms of peace and security, we have doing better now, there are better infrastructures. If you were here in 2007, first where you are now ( the new government house), we would have not been here. So many things we have now were not there. We now have a lot of things that were not there then. The airport was not there, many roads were not there and our schools- you must have seen some of our schools and hospitals that are wearing a new look. So we have a lot of things that were not there in 2007. Of course in terms of human capital development, our pro-poor programmes of free maternal health care, free healthcare for under five children, assistance in education with various scholarship scheme for post graduate study for First Class graduates, they were not there. And of course, we also have micro credit scheme which has directly impacted on the lives of 111, 000 Deltans which also has multiplier effects. All those things were not there before, but they are all there now. So we have gone far, but the development we are talking about does not really have a terminal date, it does not end with my tenure. Whoever is coming will improve on it and that is what we expect. That is why some of us are concerned about our successor. So a lot has been achieved and I am happy and satisfied that we’ve done this much. Growing Delta state economy beyond oil is one of your cardinal programmes. But how have the current drop in international prices of oil and consequently, the reduction in revenue accruing to the states affected your programmes? Yes, it has affected the programme, but if our objectives can still be achieved. I am happy that what is happening now is happening to some extent. Yes, it is not nice, it should not have happened, but it is a wakeup call for all of us to redirect our minds. And this is the call we have been making for several years now that we must look at other areas of the economy apart from oil and gas. The price is getting to $40 per barrel and that is a big challenge to most governments that depend on oil revenue. [caption id="attachment_19398" align="aligncenter" width="300"] •Emmanuel Uduaghan[/caption] Nigerians must accept that the oil being a volatile commodity is a commodity we cannot rely on for economic development and we must accept to move to other areas. And I am happy that we are coming up gradually, maybe we need to move faster to areas of agriculture and other investment strategies that we need to put in place as a government. So it is Nigeria beyond oil- the economy of Nigeria when the oil is not there. Those are the things we must strategise on. But like I said, it’s not something that has a terminal date, but at least, as we go along, we are able to reassess ourselves what achievements we have made. So, how well would you say you have done in your attempt to diversify the economy of Delta State beyond oil before the crash of oil price? That is the summary of my achievements because everything we have been doing since 2007 is about preparing Delta for eventuality, that is preparing Delta for when there will be no oil or when the price will drop as it is happening now. We have made a lot of progress. Some things are just basic, that you need to put on ground- you need to have good roads, you need to have power, you need to have access to the ports. These are basic things you need to have before you now begin to think of how well you have done. Those are the things that we are concentrating on now. But in doing that, the investors are also taking interest and they are having discussions with us and I believe the next governor will enjoy that goodwill that has been created from Delta beyond oil and it has a lot of national appeal. Many people believe that is the way to go. Your administration has been taking over the rehabilitation of some major federal roads and some months ago, your commissioner for works said the federal government has failed to reimburse you the billions you’ve spent on these roads. How many federal government roads has your government embarked upon, and what is the total amount they are yet to reimburse you? They have not reimbursed the state any kobo. We have a 148 kilometre Asaba-Ughelli dualisation- that is a federal road, we have 36 kilometres Ugbenu-Koko road. That one is very swampy. So, we have those two major roads. Of course we have the Effurun-Eku road- that is about 31 kilometres. So we have those three major roads that are federal roads. Collectively, the contract sum for these roads is over N80 billion because some of them are in a very swampy terrain, especially the Koko-Ugbenu road. But we haven’t gotten a kobo. We have made several efforts, but of course, the answer from the federal government has always been no money, no money, no money. What informed your decision to embark on rehabilitation of these roads considering that it is costing the state so much? They are economic roads. They have economic benefits for the people of the state. Let me take the Ughelli-Asaba dualisation for example. You know, one of the biggest markets in Nigeria is Onitsha market and many of the traders import their goods either by sea or by air. Yes, the Onitsha end of the Niger River has been dredged but it can take very small ships, so most of the importers bring their goods through Lagos ports. But the closest port to them is Warri port. We actually went to discuss with them in the market, their group called OMATA and one of the complaints they had is that the road between Warri and Asaba is too narrow for their lorries. That is why we thought we should expand it so that they can now have access to the port in Warri. The State House of Assembly passed a law decreeing death sentence for kidnapping which used to be very rampant here, but you refused to sign the bill into law, unlike some other state governors. In spite of that, cases of kidnapping seemed to have reduced. How were you able to tackle the problem of kidnapping? Those governors who signed the bills, how many have they killed? Why are we deceiving ourselves? But like I did say that time, there are other ways of handling criminality other than death sentence. The thing is, first of all, we’ve been able to sensitise our people, we sensitised our traditional rulers, we sensitised the religious leaders, we sensitised the various communities, we sensitised even landlords, it is like know your neighbours type of operation, know the type of people who live in your area and all that. Two, we have been able to provide information to security agencies. We have a way of getting information. Then we also had the area where they (kidnappers) have a lot of concentration, where they have their structure, like the Kokori area. And using the security agencies- the SSS, the Police and the Army, we are able to go after them. Of course, you know that their chief, Kelvin, was arrested. His number two was arrested and number three was also arrested. A lot of them were arrested. Although once in a while, the members still try to rebuild but we still go after them to abort it. So we have two aspects: one, engagement, two, law and order. For the law and order, we are using the security agencies. And of course, some of the properties like buildings were identified and we brought them down. That is what some other states are also using now, we started it- myself and Obi (former Governor of Anambra State) at that time. That also helps to reduce cases of kidnapping. But let me say that this state has had the highest number of prosecution of cases of kidnappers than any other state. We have a lot of them that have been sentenced by the various courts and they are in prison custody. Our judges have become very bold in doing that. Other judges are afraid to sentence them, but our judges have been very bold and that has contributed to the reduction of cases of kidnapping. One other area your government has done well and has been earning glory for Nigeria is sports. What informed your interests and investments in sports? First of all, as a person, I’ve always been interested in sport. But that is not the issue. The issue is that a foundation has been laid during the old Bendel and that foundation was laid by General Samuel Ogbemudia. We must never forget him when we talk about sport in this area. And of course, by the time I took over from my predecessor, he had also built on that foundation, especially in the area of infrastructure. He has constructed many stadia. What we did was to complete some of the uncompleted stadia; we rehabilitated some and also tried to develop the athletes. Now, the fear of every athlete is what happens to him or her after his days of glory. If you look carefully, a lot of them, even to pay their rent is not possible because they were not prepared for the future. So we have tried to prepare the future of athletes in this state. For those who win gold or silver medals, they are automatically absorbed into the civil service. So that at least, even when they stop competing, they are sure that they are working, they are receiving salary and are sure that when they retire, they are sure of receiving pension. So for life, they have something going for them. That has encouraged most of our sportsmen and women. But beyond that, we have also invested in a lot of training on some of our athletes. One of the things that affect athletes is struggle for money and they get burnt out easily. However, as the governor of Delta, I discovered that Delta people love sports so much, that if you lose, people are not happy with you. If you win, everybody in Delta is happy with you. All those national sports festivals that we won, all those competitions that we won, each time we won, you will be amazed with the calibre of people that call me. In fact, one of the first persons that will call me is Chief E.K. Clark. He is usually one of the first persons that will call me to congratulate and thank us. Another person is General Ogomudia, the former Chief of Defence Staff, even people who are not from Delta, like Olubunmi Cardinal Okogie. He will call me. They are all happy that we won. So if we are winning in Delta, it’s like we are wining for Edo/Delta. They are all happy. So, we just have to continue. And that is one advice that I will give to whoever is going to take over from me, that he should also pay attention to the area of sports because that is one thing that those of us from this area will love to hear. Your investments in health has also been recognised nationally and internationally. You have done well in the health Millinnium Development Goals and your maternal mortality rate is below national average. Is this passion for investment in the health sector borne out of the fact that you are a medical doctor? It is possible, my profession is part of it, but it is also part of our overall strategies that a healthy mind will equally develop a healthy set of persons. You know, when we talk about human capital development, one of the strategic areas is health. The combination of health and education are two key areas that we can use to improve the society. You can construct all the roads, you can construct all the bridges, but if you have an unhealthy population and uneducated population, those things will not just make meaning. So we try to lay some emphasis on health, especially on maternal and child health because that is where if you fail to miss it, you have damaged the life forever. If a woman is pregnant and she doesn’t take care of it properly, the outcome of the pregnancy could be a problem to the society. So when you’re talking of deviants in the society today, when you are talking of criminals and all that, sometimes if you go back to what happened to them when their mother was pregnant, you may find out that something may have happened to the mother during pregnancy that has made the son to become an armed robber or a criminal. So that is why it is very critical to take care of that segment of the society. How will you compare Uduaghan the medical doctor and Uduaghan the politician? Well, they are still the same person, but with different experiences. Uduaghan as a medical doctor was somebody who was dealing with people with health challenges or health conditions that require medical attention. Why I am being careful is that some of the pregnant women that I dealt with are not ill, they don’t have health challenges, but they have medical conditions that require attention. And in dealing with such persons, when the result is good, which is what happens most times, the people are appreciative, so you see very happy persons who are appreciative and all that. In politics, you also deal with persons or people who have challenges and who you also have to do some things for. And when you do that and it affects them positively, they are not as appreciative as the ones you dealt with medically. They just take it like whatever you have done is what you’re supposed to do anyway! A few will express some appreciation, but of course, most will just take it for granted that that is what you are supposed to do. Let me give you an example of what I am talking about. In 2007, I started this street lighting programme. Today, I see many states putting up street lights, but we still have the highest number of street lights in this country, with street lights totaling over 200 kilometres. At the time we started it, of course we started with generators. There was so much criticism. In fact one of the television stations came and said instead of constructing independent power plant, you people are using generators, why not solar lights? But we persisted. Some other started with solar lights, but now even the federal government, everybody is using generators to power street lights and nobody is complaining any longer. And because we have done it for over seven years, they take it for granted. But what happened in the last one week, we had some challenges with street lights here in Asaba, and I heard somebody shouting, ‘please bring back our street lights’. So, I was just talking to some people, I said, ‘Oh, so these street lights are so important. That is when I started hearing stories that even pilots that pass through Asaba at night; they recognise Asaba whenever they see the street lights. I started hearing all sorts of testimonies. People who drive from the west to the east, passing through Asaba, they know when they have reached Asaba. Everybody started asking, ‘where are our street lights, where are our street lights?’ That is why I said that in politics, you do certain things and people take them for granted. It’s not like that in medicine. Some of the patients I treated when I was practicing over 30 years ago, when they see me today, it’s as if I just treated them this morning. They will come, hug, they are so excited. You recently did some projects at Delta Steel Company (DSC) housing estate in Orhuwhorun. What informed this, given the fact that the company is a private enterprise or is it because it is your root? If you call it my root, yes, I think it is my first recognized root in terms of medicine and being able to start life, leaving your parents and earning a living for yourself that was where I actually started earning a living. Then, two, it was a community that had a lot of things going for it. We had good roads, we had light, we had water, we had working health system, we had working educational system, all of that. Unfortunately, over time, because of the challenges of the company, most of those things collapsed. The place is still part of the state, so when I went back and I saw some of these things and as the governor of the state, I thought it was necessary for me to do a few things. So we constructed some of the roads. I was even paying the workers in the school and the hospital, until the new owners came and did not just stop the payment, he even tried to sack the medical director and the principal of the school for accepting money from the state government for their salaries that were not being paid. He even dropped the workers, and I said no, it cannot happen. I mean, people that were not paid for eight, nine months, they are part of Delta State and we are in position to at least give them some assistance. What we were giving them was really more of an assistance because it was their basic salaries that we were giving them until the company is able to find its feet because the school is still one of the best schools in Nigeria, the hospital is still one of the best in Nigeria. So I think it was very insensitive and inhuman for the man who did that. But we have made an official protest both to Mr. President and the Federal Government and I believe that they should be able to deal with it. I am still waiting for the reaction of the federal government. Do you think the flagging off the gas city located at Ogidigben by the President which was disrupted over the naming of the site will still take place before the end of your administration? Well, I am hoping so. It is primarily an NNPC project. Some discussion is going between the communities and the NNPC and I think some suggestions have been made to settle the issue. There were some quarrels between you and some of the elders of the state, like Chief E. K. Clark, during your first tenure. But lately, you seem to have been able to reach amity with them and your relationship with them seems to be perfect. How were you able to manage that situation? Well, one of the responsibilities you have as the governor of a state is to be able to manage everyone as much as possible- the young, the not too young, your age mates and the elderly people. My attitude towards elders and leaders is that of people who have age on their side, who have experience on their side. So when they talk, I try to analyse what they have said, based on their age and their experience and try to see what I can do about what they have said. If what they are saying are things I cannot do, of course, I will just say I will not be able to do it. But I never, ever ignore what has been said by an elder or a leader and I never join issues with them. Even the Itsekiri Leaders of Thought, if you saw what they did last year, you will never see reactions from me because some of the things they said, I have to look at them. There are some that were political, I just ignore them. But when I see them, we talk, we relate and all that because one day I will become old too. And If you don’t have that respect for age, I always believe that when you are old, the young people will also not have respect for you.