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.