CHIEF Ighoyota Amori a big player in the politics of Delta State was political adviser to Governor James Ibori and subsequently, Senior Political Adviser to Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan. Despite obstacles put on his way by the Urhobo Progress Union, UPU, Amori emerged to claim victory in the Delta Central Senatorial election on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. He subsequently helped to galvanise support for Senator Ifeanyi Okowa to emerge governor of the state against the desire of the UPU. In this interview, he discusses recent issues flowing from the politics of Delta State. Excerpts.
By Emma Amaize, Regional Editor, South South
THERE were assertions that your bid for the Senate almost led to fisticuffs with one of your former political sons, Chief Ovie Omo-Agege. Is it true?
I do not think there was anytime when myself and whoever was my opponent tried to exchange blows. I know we had disagreements and it is very robust for democracy for people contesting on different party platforms to have disagreements, it could lead to exchange of words, but I don’t think it degenerated to having fisticuffs.
Umbrella body
We disagreed on issues that had to do with our position on collation of results at the Collation centre, which is quite normal and after that, we equally embraced ourselves and we have been living our normal lives.
The Urhobo Progress Union was against all the PDP candidates in Urhobo land in the last election, you were banned, unbanned and banned again, how did your overcome the offensive?
First, it is our belief that UPU is an umbrella body that belongs to every Urhobo child and it is actually not a political party. There is no qualification for you to become a member of UPU as long as you are born Urhobo, either paternally or maternally, that is what qualifies you to be a member of UPU, and in UPU, people are free to associate themselves with different political parties, which we did from the very beginning. So we never, and till date, did not believe that the UPU is a political party.
We concede to the leadership, that its executive members can support whoever they want to support, but how far they can carry out that support to fruition is the issue. We did not have any problem with them having sympathy with certain political party other than the PDP or certain persons, but this is a God appointed time, we are all God’s children and He decides who to crown at any time and for those us who are in PDP, against the wish of some persons in UPU, God has crowned us and we thank God for the crowning.
All the PDP members that went into the election won, I won my election clearly, Hon Monday Igbuya won clearly, Hon Evelyn Oboro won clearly, Miss Erhiatake Ibori won her election clearly, all of us banned or sanctioned by UPU won clearly.
So the ban was a blessing in disguise, so we thank God for what He has done for us. For UPU, we don’t have any problem with them at all, knowing that as Urhobos, we are all members of UPU, we are all stakeholders.
As an active player in the politics of the state, can you tell us what politics without Ibori has been like in Delta?
First, there is no doubt that Ibori’s absence created a vacuum because we lost his physical leadership, but I will tell you categorically that even though he is not around, Ibori is around. We have lost only his physical presence but his political presence, leadership presence is still very much with us.
So his absence is felt but probably we would have done better than we are doing now, but from what we know, we have lost nothing. Ibori is still very much with us, of course, his daughter just won election into the state House of Assembly. Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, Senator James Manager, Senator Peter Nwaoboshi, we are all members of the Ibori political family, he has lost nothing, everything that is good politically today, you can trace it to Ibori. Let nobody deceive you, he laid the foundation that we are building on today.
Of course, you know we are all his political apostles, even though he is not around, the apostles are very much around and completely in-charge, it would be difficult, extremely difficult to displace this dynasty that has been properly established, laid on a solid foundation. He is a political rock of Gibraltar.
In what way did Ibori contribute to the emergence of the incoming governor?
Ibori may not be physically here but he is here with us. Okowa is an apostle under Ibori, Ighoyota Amori is an apostle under Ibori, James Manager, an apostle under Ibori, Peter Nwaobohs, apostle under Ibori, anybody that has won election today in the state are all James Ibori’s apostles.
Okowa’s victory
So if Okowa emerged as governor, oh, one of Ibori’s apostles/disciples has emerged. So the hand of Ibori is everywhere, his hand is in my victory, it is in Okowa’s victory, Nwaoboshi’s victory, his daughter’s victory, Igbuya’s victory, his hand is in the election of the members of the House of Assembly in the state and all of us in the National Assembly.
Let nobody tell you that Ibori is away, Ibori is just away, but politically, spiritually and otherwise, he is very much with us. Of course, we are waiting for him to come back very soon.
Given the mixed feelings by some Urhobos against the emergence of Okowa from Delta North, what should the incoming governor do to win the hearts of the Urhobos?
Let me correct an impression, there is no mixed feeling among the political class as far as Okowa’s emergence as governor of the state is concerned. If you look at the result generally, Okowa won and won convincingly in the Central Senatorial district, that shows acceptability. He may have lost two local government areas where his opponents come from, which is expected because they are from there, that is why he lost, but generally in Urhobo land, he won, Okowa won everywhere.
So there is no question of Urhobo people having mixed feelings, all I will just say is that as a governor, he has to carry everybody along because he derived his winning vote from all the senatorial districts. To whom much is given, much is expected, they have given you their votes, they have given you their mandate, you have to ensure that they live to their expectations by being fair to the senatorial districts. And I can say that he is too knowledgeable and experienced not to know what to do.
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