Dickson: Why I Hosted Ex-militants in Government House
Governor of Bayelsa State, Seriake Dickson, recently marked his third year anniversary as governor of the Southsouth state. He took out time to speak on his stewardship, challenges of governance and particularly the challenges of being the governor of the
Being the governor of a state where the president comes from has so many challenges. What are these challenges?
Being the governor of any state comes with its own challenges. If you should ask me my take, how I feel, having been governor for three years now. I will describe it in three words: exciting, challenging and fulfilling. Let’s start from the first one. How is it exciting? It is exciting because it is an opportunity to directly impact directly on the people. With God being on my side, it also gives the opportunity to leave lasting legacies. I believe in impact. I believe that it is not really a question of how long you serve or how long you occupy a particular office but the degree to which you impacted your society positively. When you do so, then it becomes exciting. For me, any time I go round Yenagoa and I see the life-changing projects that I initiated and have come on board, a number of them completed, when I see the impacts of our programmes on young people, prospects of families, children going to school abroad on scholarships, the hospitals and schools we built, I feel excited by that opportunity. Fulfilling. Again because once all of that is done, you feel accomplished in a way, at least in that specific aspect to yourself and to your God. Challenging, as I said because being a governor of any state at all comes with its own challenges. Challenges arising from expectations, challenges arising from the politics of the job, managing all of it, the interplay of politics and the society comes with its own challenges.
Coming from the same state with the president comes with its peculiar challenges. If things are not going so well at home, people will tell Mr. President that things are not going well in your home state. Looking at the situation in Niger Delta and the situation in Rivers State, the home front ought to be well secured. From your own point of view, what are these obvious challenges?
Well, Bayelsa cannot pose any challenge to the president. It is safe for the president. I don’t think there is any rational person in Bayelsa who will not support the President for a second term, who will not do his utmost to support his reelection bid. I interact with everybody. That is my duty to mobilize the home front and keep it safe as it is today. I can report that Bayelsa is safe for the PDP. Bayelsa is safe for the president. I am aware that there are some distractions here and there, mine is to stay the course, not to be distracted, in order not to give in to those distractions and temptations. We are bent on keeping the family safe, making the state a secure PDP base. I know that our former governor, my immediate predecessor, is in APC. He is more or less a leader in APC. But the APC does not have any following that could threaten us in all our elections, particularly, Mr. President’s reelection.
You talked about Rivers State. Yes, the situation in Rivers State is not ideal. It is not what we would have wished for, wanted or even prayed for. But it is a political reality we are managing and we must deal with. Even at that, we are very confident that the President’s reelection, I don’t think, Rivers State would pose a big challenge. Yes, we are actually likely to do as well as we did last time. Working hard, the party is doing well. People understand the issues at stake. They understand that the stakes are very high, as far as the presidential poll is concerned. And coming from where we are coming from as a people, as Ijaw people, as Niger Delta people, I know that in the Niger Delta area, people are likely to look beyond political personal grievances and things like that and focus on fundamental issues, as to why President Jonathan should be reelected. Talking about Bayelsa, talking about the entire Niger Delta, for the presidential poll, it is going to be Jonathan all the way. It is going to be PDP all the way. Maybe as you go down to the local elections, where the stakes are much lower and far more localized, you could have some divergent views one way or the other. As far as the presidential poll is concerned, Bayelsa, no shaking, particularly with me there. We are working, we have worked. We have performed; we are still performing. And our people believe we are doing our best. Few distractions here and here, but you would expect that those distractions would come. Of course, in politics, people want to exploit situations, people want to take advantage of developments to further their own interests, ambitions and so on. We are managing all of them, particularly the working relationship, the political relationship I have had over the years with the president. We are both determined not to be distracted. It is my duty to keep the home safe and to work with other friends and brother governors, who, by the way, are doing so well. We know that Cross River is safe. We know that Akwa Ibom is safe. We know that Delta is safe. I am talking of the presidential poll and to a large extent also the gubernatorial. The PDP is still very strong in Niger Delta states.
What is the nature of your relationship now with the First Lady, because if you read in the papers, you refer to challenges and distractions. I am talking of the political relationship between you and the First lady. Secondly, your state chairman of PDP has just been sacked. And he has been saying that his sack has nothing to do with finance but local politics because he was not ready to move with people who were close to the First Lady. What exactly is going on in Bayelsa. You are talking about Bayelsa being safe but all the undercurrents we are reading in the media indicate that the state is not as safe as you are projecting?
First of all, before I talk about the state PDP chairman’s response to the problems he is having with members of his own exco, let me say that when I say PDP is safe, what I mean is concerning the presidential election. There is nobody in Bayelsa, except very few people, who will not willingly come to vote for the president, majority, 98 per cent.
Even with the crowd we saw at the APC rally, and you still say 98 per cent?
No, that was a rented crowd, more or less. That was rented crowd and that was why I instructed the security to provide protection for the APC people. And I also directed my team to get a safe venue for them to campaign. I knew that APC does not have a large membership that can fill a stadium for example. They applied for a small venue. But it was a primary school field and schools were in session and I knew that they would bring in cult elements, young boys and so on, unruly, unmanageable crowd. What you saw was just people picked along the streets and very few committed party men. I don’t even know the leadership of APC beyond the fact that my predecessor is there and he is running an election and two former local government chairmen under his tenure, who I sacked. They are the only members of APC in the state that I know. Beyond that, I do not know any other prominent politician that was in the APC rally. That rally, they just picked about 1000 to 2000 young boys from the streets, markets and fixed their camera there to give an impression of a sizeable rally. Rallies are not very often, as all politicians know, a good indication of how well a party can do. So, APC has no presence at all.
As I was saying, majority of our people, 90 something per cent are going to work for Mr. President. That does not mean, as I always said, that when it comes to other elections, that you won’t find differences of opinions. You may have a situation where one or two people would disagree with me and yet, they will work for the president. It is to that extent that I am saying that Bayelsa is not a problem as far as presidential poll is concerned.
Now coming to your specific question on my political relationship with the First Lady, you know we are Africans and African values that we espouse, to me, does not allow me to discuss my boss’ wife particularly, publicly on the pages of newspapers. No, I won’t do that. I have resisted the temptation to do so. If I were to do so, there would be no difference between me and maybe, some other people. I won’t do that. What I can say is that she is our wife, she is our sister and she is a mother. I play politics with her husband. For me, the political relationship that I have with my boss and my elder brother, the president, is excellent. I am doing my best to advance and protect his interest and advance the course and development of our dear state, a state I know he also dearly loves. Remember when he was the governor, I was in his cabinet. I know the passion he also has for the development of our state. And as President, he has always given me support on any issue that has to do with the development of our state. So, I am concerned about that and happily that whatever reports that are going round, despite what the propagandists are doing, it is not affecting our relationship. I am okay with that. I will work hard by the grace of God to keep it so.
Talking about the PDP state chairman, it is unfortunate if he said so. I don’t believe that my party chairman will say so. He has not seen me since his disagreement with his exco