EFCC Probe Never Influenced My Defection, Says Uduaghan
Former Delta State Governor, Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan has dismissed insinuation that he defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC) because of fear of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Uduaghan, a two-term governor on the PDP platform, has disclosed that everything concerning his administration state had been investigated over and over again by the anti graft commission since he left office in 2015.
He dispelled the insinuation on a Channels TV programme, Hard Copy on Friday, noting that EFCC investigation was not the reason he decided “to join the APC. Rather, I joined the APC due to the issues I had with the PDP at the national and state levels.”
Uduaghan had last week announced his defection from the PDP to the APC, which he attributed to President Muhammadu Buhari’s intervention in the Niger Delta, among others
He had pointed out that peace and security had been the toughest challenges of any Niger Delta leader since 1997, thereby Buhari’s administration for the giant strides recorded in peace and security since assuming office in 2015.
During the TV programme, Uduaghan noted that he could not have defected because of the EFCC investigation since his administration had been an open book for every Nigeria to scrutinise.
He said: “I am the most investigated former governor for the past three years. My administration has been investigated severally by the antigraft commission. Everything I did in Delta State has been investigated by EFCC. So why should EFCC be the cause of my defection?”
Uduaghan, therefore, revealed the rationale behind his defection, noting that before he left the PDP, he had some issues with the party both at the state and national levels, though declined to comment on the issues.
According to him, I have issues with PDP at the state and at the National level. But I do not what to talk about them since I have left them. I have the right to keep the issues I have with PDP to myself. He spoke on the widely publicised disagreement with his immediate successor, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, claiming that the succession plan theory was not true and that there was never a time they sat and agreed on who should be a governor or not.
Before the emergence of Chief James Ibori under the PDP, Uduaghan claimed that there was an Ibori political family, to which he belong, noting that the Ibori political family “is different from the PDP as a political party.
“There is an Ibori family. Aside, there is a PDP family which I still belong to. We started the political party from the Grassroots Democratic Movement (GDM). But before then, there was an Ibori political family.”