Ijaw activist and gubernatorial candidate of NCP in the April poll, Collins Eselemo spoke to our Senior Correspondent, Omonigho Matthew recently in Warri on his aspiration as well as other National and State issues.
Excerpt:
What are your plans for Deltans?
My plan is to abolish poverty and we must consider all the parameters that need to be applied to really abolish poverty. In order to do that, we must really derive a phenomenon to reconcile government’s efficiency and its legitimacy. The authority that you will give to me through your ballot paper is your freedom. Those are the fundamentals we must lay our premises on to liberate the entire Delta people. In the course of our campaigns, we must approach it in an all inclusive and civilized manner. And in order to abolish poverty, you need a radical like me for a radical change for peace and development, which is just the plank of the matter. Those are things that we need to build upon, we are disengaging from the usual norms in trying to get a grip to better the lives of our fellow Deltans that are innocent.
Most legislators at the state and federal levels, including Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan want to return in the April polls, are you perturbed by that?
What is the meaning of perturbed? First and foremost, the constitution allows it. And if the electorates don’t want them back, you vote them out. Off course the constitution allows Uduaghan and legislators to go two terms or as many times they can go, so long as we are in the rule of law. If they say they want to come back, it depends on what they have done for the people and it is the people that want them back.
How would you describe the just concluded rerun election in Delta State?
It is a fallacy based on deceit, propagated in serious falsehood that was expressly put in the voters’ register. Even the umpire, INEC, said the voters’ register was defective, I was surprised Ogboru went into the rerun after I warned him that the result had been known before the election. His aspiration was killed before the election. If a man who wants to umpire an election says look this document I am going to use is defective and Ogboru insisted on participating, then the whole election result of Uduaghan and Ogboru as well as everybody who took part in that election was based on a porous foundation and they have all collapsed. So both Uduaghan and Ogboru did not have a genuine result. Everybody knows good result, because the foundation was defective.
In this Delta Governorship race, who do you consider your greatest rival?
I don’t have a rival, because I am a genuine person, those people are not fit. They are all misfit, they have all been in the system and if Uduaghan is saying he wants a change, he should first of all change himself. He cannot be talking of change or the next level when he has not gotten there.
President Jonathan wants to return to the presidency come April, are you in support of his aspiration as an Ijaw man?
Democracy should not be taken alongside tribal line, Jonathan is a Nigerian, he is qualified to contest, Nigeria is a state ruled by law and by the constitution. He didn’t say an Ijaw or Urhobo man should be the President in 2011, the constitution didn’t tell us that. Jonathan is a Nigerian who happens to be an Ijaw man, so the Ijaw issue does not arise when it comes to that. We need to base our arguments on serious fundamental democratic tendencies. If you know Jonathan has done something in this country that will better your life, vote for him. If he cannot convince you, so be it. I can’t say because Jonathan is an Ijaw man, I must vote for Jonathan. Jonathan must tell me what he has done for the country, because the entire country is his constituency. He is not the president of Ijaw, he is the president of Nigeria.
Back to Delta State, how would you describe the administration of Dr. Uduaghan so far?
Uduaghan administration is a bundle of contradiction based on deceit and a failure. If Uduaghan’s government is good, I wouldn’t opt for the governorship race. I have really come to make the difference.
Do you think the Nigerian State have been fair to people of the Niger Delta?
The Nigerian state has not been fair to anybody, so the argument is not on Niger Delta people alone, everybody has his own complain. We have the Boko Haram, the Odua group, Amangerees, the whole place is militarized. You can’t single out Niger Delta when it is just a part of the country, particularly when we have a Commander in Chief who commands the soldiers to sack his brothers and kinsmen in Ayakoromo. What are we talking about? Hausa man was there we said they were not fair to us. The Ijaw man is there right now and we still have worst situations. So, it doesn’t mean Niger Deltan or Ijaw as there is no Ijaw Nigeria, no Urhobo, Isoko, Igbo or Hausa Nigeria, but a Nigerian state. So the issue of being against Niger Delta does not really arise. What are your policies? We don’t believe in agenda. If you want to better the lots of the Nigerian people, you know how to better the Nigerian people.
Tell us in clear terms, your mission and vision statement
The fundamental commitments of our heroes past are the calling of my time.
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