Ogboru: Our Record Will Give Us Victory
The Labour Party governorship candidate in Delta State, Chief Great Ogboru, in an interview with journalists in Lagos, spoke about his chances at the polls. Shola Oyeyipo brings the excerpts
You claimed you were rigged out in the previous elections, how are you sure you will not be rigged out again this time around? If you are in a project and you are not making progress, the tendency is that you want to quit. I told you earlier that we are making progress from 2003 to 2011. Whereas in 2003, the election that took place did not allow any result that came from the electorate and in 2007 the same thing took place, and by standing and ensuring that democracy should take root in the society, we made it possible for people in authority to come out with a new concept that those elections should be put aside.
Therefore, the elections in 2011 became such that we had at least 75 per cent of what we called free, fair and credible elections. Where in 2003 and 2007, 90 per cent in the National Assembly were not elected, they were just selected. So in putting in all of those processes in place, we have been part of history by ensuring that this democracy must come to stay and at the end of the day, it must be one-man-one-vote.
If we had quit then the practice of having election without result and having result without election would have continued, but because a few men thought it wise that the struggle must continue and that Nigeria as a state must not be turned into a banana republic. They stood shoulder to shoulder defending their rights and today, we have come to a stage where we actually want to develop further the democratic norms. That is why the idea of card readers came. Are you worried that your brother defected to the PDP? Julius is my brother. He is an adult and has his own reasons for taking decisions. The DPP won 11 seats in House of Assembly but because of the nature of our democracy which you also complained about, most of these members were forced to leave the DPP for the PDP. A good number of them did that not because they didn’t belief in what they are doing but because they could not take the pressure coming from the executive and so they had to abandon ship and went to PDP.
Nevertheless, those who left did not take with them the followership of our party. Today, all of them who left did not get ticket in PDP – at least 95 per cent of them and those who got tickets in other parties are surely going to lose their elections because the electorate are in sync with us on this that those people were traitors, including that brother of mine who incidentally is already making his way back again. Of course, we are giving him stringent conditions to accept him back. It cannot be settled on the basis of family; it has to be on the basis of time. But between him and me, irrespective of what he has done, we really don’t have any personal problem, so if you thought I was worried because my brother defected and made some silly statement. He is qualified to survive. How are going to run Delta State, given the dwindling oil prices and the fact that the resources coming from the federal government is likely to be less? Perhaps, it is for these very reasons that God kept us for a time like this, because you have managers who can manage in different circumstance. Where there is surplus of money, anybody can be a manager but when resources are getting scarce and are dwindling you need special skills to be able to turn things around and I belief that with the programmes we have in the Labour Party (LP), we will be able to survive and yield dividends in terms of turning around the economy of Delta State, irrespective of dwindling oil prices.
I have said it elsewhere and I say it now that the type of shift we are talking about is a permanent shift, not a shift to the left or to the right but a total overthrow, a totally different system from what we have in place now – a new system – one that works for the people and not people working for the system. Are you relying on your personality or the Labour Party to defeat the ruling PDP? You want to know how Labour Party will defeat the PDP being a new party, but you have not been listening to what I have said. When we started, we started all these since 2003 and then we contested on the platform of the Alliance for Democracy (AD). The AD broke into two and we didn’t want to be in any of the factions, so we went to DPP and DPP now metamorphosed into Labour Party.
It is not just myself that is moving into Labour Party but the entire party move from the Alliance for Democracy to Democratic People Party and then to Labour Party, so the entire membership of our party has been consistent. We are not manufacturing new individuals for new membership. Our members have been due to who has been with us from 2003 till date. Except for those who have defected and those who passed on – may their soul rest in peace – there should be no fear about the strength of our party, our party is strong and it is on the ground. If the election is free and fair, we will win. You are not the only candidate from Delta Central senatorial district and who are the UPU supporting: you or other candidates? In this case, there are two candidates contesting in this election and that is my strong belief; that is the candidate of PDP and the candidate of Labour Party. The APC was ACN, was ANPP, was AC and all of those parties have never been on the ground. The major oppositions we had in Delta State were AD when AD was here, DPP when DPP was here and Labour Party because we all moved from those party and joined Labour Party. So, we don’t have a problem with that.
But let me tell you something, the UPU endorsed my good self as their candidate and not Otega. Of course as you know, Peter is a very important person in this country, the candidate of APC and has a lot of means but unfortunately this is a politician decision that has to do with your connect with the grassroots and with the people.
In this instance, a far greater majority of Delta State people today believes, right so, that I’m a better candidate to represent them. So, I’ve their support. I don’t think that the candidate of the PDP who is from the Delta North is coming from the Delta North in isolation. So I don’t think the PDP has a monopoly in those areas. Are you relying absolutely on your popularity or you are getting some support from the PDP? You want to know if I’m a Labour Party candidate or a PDP-sponsored candidate. You have to understand that we didn’t invent words. You have heard about alliance, collaboration, cooperation, all of these are words that are not just cheap or used because they are there, they are used to promote a meaning. You have to align sometimes with some persons. You have to collaborate sometimes with some persons to achieve certain things. In this case, we aligned with the Labour Party from the Delta and speak for Delta. Do you share the views soldiers be deployed for elections? On the issue of deploying soldiers in elections, I must be frank with you on this: I do not share the views of people supporting the idea. I belief strongly that we should not deploy soldiers in any election whatsoever but because we have become a nation of everything goes – where people could come to the polling booths with gun, cutlasses, machetes and all those things and steal the ballot boxes and nothing will happen. It is unfortunate but in spite of all of these shortcomings, I will never support that we should bring soldiers for the election because we take away the civility of the process and that is not good for governance. And democrats we should be more responsible and that responsibility should be our ability to police ourselves and our environment and to make sure that whatever we are doing is within the context of the law. So I do not support soldiers in our election.