Chief Ighoyota Amori is a PDP stalwart from Ethiope West Local Government Area of Delta. He has been in the political arena for over four decades and has made tremendous political impact on the lives of PDP members across the state particularly among Urhobos. He has contested for the Delta Central Senatorial seat for three times and in the 2015 election, after he was declared winner by the electoral body and served for a short while at the Senate, his election was overturned by the Court of Appeal. Ahead of the 2019 election, he has commenced consultation for the Senatorial seat in earnest. In this interview, Chief Amori assured that he will win the PDP primary to fly the party’s flag and ultimately win the senatorial election to represent Urhobo people at the National Assembly.
Excerpts:
You have been engaged in consultations in view of your Senatorial ambition for some time now. What is your assessment of the attitude of the Delta Central people towards you?
Well, first, let me seize the opportunity of this interview to wish my dear Urhobo people a very a merry Christmas and of course, a prosperous New Year. I also confirmed that, yes, I have long indicated my interest to contest the Senate seat of Delta Central Senatorial District and as a prelude to that, I have been consulting with the people that matter, the leaders and elders and the electorate that matter. Of course, it is a general thing to say that the consultation continues because Delta Central is very wide. It covers obviously 8 local government areas and there are so many stakeholders that one needs to reach to formally inform them of my intention to contest for the senatorial seat come 2019. It is a long distance race, it is definitely not a 100 meters dash and as such, one has to take it step by step, and consultation is part of it. The approach is quite different from when you are already a candidate and you are preparing for election. Now, the target is the delegates and of course the opinion leaders within the party, within the PDP family. So, my focus is the leaders and delegates in the PDP fold.
For now, the reception so far has been very tremendous, very surprising. Of course, most of the people I have so far consulted are in sympathy with me. They are aware of what happened in the senate when we have to lose election due to a very inglorious court judgment which we consider as a judicial summersault. But we leave everything to God. We believe that we were robbed at the court. We believe that the issue of card reader which is not tenable, which was the basis for the judicial summersault, will be cured if I’m given the opportunity to contest again. So, they are all in sympathy with me and that has actually fired me on to want to actualize the mandate that was given to me. Of course they all know that we won the election clean clear. We won completely in 7 local government areas out of the 8 local government areas and even in the 8th local government we also won in all the wards except two wards were results were manipulated. Of course, those are the wards of my opponent. So, one can safely say that we won in all the eight local government areas. So when the issue of the judiciary came and the result was a very porous judgment and the election was annulled, people cried and felt very bad.
But here again comes another opportunity for us to redress the issues which were judicially upturned in the 2015 senatorial race. So, as for the consultation, it has been so far so good.
You were quoted as saying in one of your interviews recently that you have no opponent in the forthcoming senatorial race. With the recent development in the party where some persons have indicated interest in the race would you still confirm that you have no opponent?
Well, in an election like this, the first thing is for you to develop the art of positive thinking. So, I’m very positive in my thinking. I’m very positive in my approach to the election. I’m really blind to any other opponent. I’m focusing on myself and my goal also. When I look forward to the election, I don’t believe that there is any other person. I play down on any other opponent. Of course, the time is still very far. As at the time I made that speech I was very sure of myself and I still have that belief that for me, I’m still the only one in the race. That is my thinking. But be that as it may, I’m not new to this race, I have done it twice and each time I did it people contested with me in the primary. The first one we were seven of us that contested and the last time we were eight. Eventually I won. Of course, you know those who contested with me. So, I won the primary the first time and also won it the second time. So, I always see myself as a candidate already and that is my thinking. That thinking is still very much alive in me. Come anytime they will conduct the primary, I know I will emerge the candidate of the party. I know I have sacrificed a lot for the party, I have done a lot for individuals. I don’t need any introduction to whoever that will emerge as delegate. So, I’m very confident of winning the party primary and also winning the main senatorial election.
You sound so confident of the support you expect from the delegates. However, considering the psychology of delegates towards monetary consideration in recent times, where lies your confidence?
First of all, you need to know that the delegates are not new. They are statutory delegates. It’s only the elected delegates that is not constant, it keeps changing. And the statutory delegates are in reasonable number. So, I understand their psychology. They are not new to me; they are people who have been with me in the party from the very beginning. The most important thing is that I don’t need introduction to anybody. Those who will vote for me will vote for me because of what they know of me. Hardly can anybody fault me per se, except for the purpose of being human, people conceive something wrong about you. If they don’t have anything to say about you, they will just cook up something negative and say look at his eyes, look at his ears, look at the type of dress he is wearing, etc. This is just for them to fulfill their urge to say something negative about someone. But for me, I know that nobody will say anything negative about me and that is a plus for me.
I’m a household name as far as PDP and the government of Delta State is concerned. So, unless you are not a native of PDP, if you are a native of the PDP, you would have known who I am. I have done so many good things, too innumerable that they cannot be catalogued. They are just there from day one of PDP, even before PDP, right from the time of GDF to GDM to the formation of the PDP. I have held several offices. I was the first Secretary of the party; I was the first Secretary of the GDM; I was the first Publicity of the PDP; I was the Deputy State chairman of the party; I have held various positions. I was the Commissioner for Education, Commissioner for Water Resources and my achievements are just there for everybody to see. I’ve held the position of the Political Adviser to the governor, I have held several state and national positions, I’m the chairman of the governing council of the Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro. That is a federal appointment. Today, I’m also S.A. to the national chairman of the PDP on Reconciliation and Conflict management. So, I have held various positions. In the aspect of party administration and party governance, both in executive and legislature, I was at the Senate for 7 months. There is just nothing new. So, I don’t really need any introduction. There are so many people, innumerable, they know what they have equally benefited from me. I didn’t join PDP, we formed PDP from the beginning. I didn’t join GDM, we formed GDM from the very beginning. I didn’t join Core Group, we formed Core Group from the beginning; I didn’t join UPF, we formed UPF from the very beginning. So, these are the various political organs we were using protect and defend PDP and the government of Chief James Onanefe Ibori from the very beginning. So, we have excelled, we have used it to protect Urhobo people on several occasions. It is not everything we can say in the print media because it may have adverse political effect, not on the Urhobo people, but for others who may see the Urhobo man as greedy.
Just as a follow up to that question, when I referred to the psychology of the delegates I was actually referring to the current political development when delegate elections are marred with monetary consideration. Are you prepared for such monetized delegate elections?
Well, what I would tell you is that, first, I’m not new to delegate election. The intensity may change but you should know that in 2011, I was also involved in delegates election. In 2015, I was also involved in delegate election. So, 2018 will not be different. The style may change but it is all delegate election. You see, what we are even doing now is probably to even water down the intensity of the delegate election. We didn’t do this before. This early consultation we are doing now, we have not been doing this before. You can see that with it we are already preparing for the 2018 delegate election which is about eight months from now. So, that is why I said that it is a long distance race. I don’t want to burn myself out now before that time. What we are doing consultation, consulting the people one by one, preparing the delegates. Some of the delegates are not known, apart from the statutory delegates, we really don’t know them. It is an ad hoc delegate. They are elected at the time of the election for the purpose and that is the end. Those who were delegates in the last election or those who were delegates in the Local Government election are not likely to be delegates in the next election.
When the time comes, there will be proper time for delegates election and of course, we will now focus on the new delegates. But for now, we know those delegates who are statutory whom we are focusing on and those who are capable of influencing delegates. This is the essence of the consultation we are doing now, which we have not been doing before now. So, when you asked me whether I’m prepared, of course, if I’m not prepared I won’t do what I’m doing now. I’ve been on the field, I’ve been going round and I will still continue to go round to prepare peoples’ mind. I’m in the race and fully in the race. I like challenges, I like competition. You see, competition brings out the best in you. I can’t just sit down and expect somebody to throw the seat at me and say, oh, I dash you. Of course, it doesn’t work like that. As you are preparing for the delegate election, you are equally preparing for your main election.
Would you say you will win hundred percent at the home front in the main election, talking about Ethiope West?
Well, it is not expected for somebody to say, win 100 percent. In any election, it will be Utopian thinking for somebody to expect to win 100 percent. What is important is to win and win substantially. There is nobody who is going to say I will win 100 percent in my local government area. It doesn’t happen. If it is in the delegate election, fine. But in the main election, of course, we have opposition from different parties. People must vote for their political parties. But note that in the main election, Ethiope West has never voted otherwise. Ethiope West will continue to vote for the PDP. In the delegate election, I will win and win comfortably in the delegate election, I don’t care if one or two, either for monetary reason or other.
What would the Urhobos expect from you if you win the 2019 Senatorial election?
In my thinking, today, what the Urhobos generally want is adequate representation at the federal level. Between you and I, I may not say everything, but in Delta State, I would say that Urhobos benefited so much, between 1999 and 2007 in particular. They have also benefited between 2007 and today. But I would say that between 1999 and 2007 when Chief James Ibori was the governor of the State, there was a lot of positive revolution in Urhobo land. That tempo was created by Chief James Ibori administration and we were key players. I was a key player in that administration. Somebody had to take the bullets for the leadership of government at that time and I took the bullets. And I know a lot of development took place in Urhobo land at that time. Nobody should pretend that he did not witness development at that time. I can challenge any Urhobo man in any local government at any time, T, in all ramifications of life. Is it in terms of education, in terms of road development, in terms of health, in terms of human and capital infrastructural development, name it, they were all there and they are still there for all to see.
Of course, between 2007 and 2015, the administration of Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan continued from where Chief James Ibori stopped. But of course, it could not have been on the same intensity with that of Chief James Ibori because James Ibori is from the Central. And between Uduaghn and Okowa, Okowa has started again. You can see some traces and resemblance of Chief James Ibori in the Okowa government. That is how it is supposed to be. So, the Urhobos have been elevated to that level of consciousness of development in their land. But all these I’m saying is lacking at the federal level, completely lacking at the federal. The way we are in charge, here in the state, we don’t have that grip at all at the federal. That is the pain of every Urhobo man. Urhobos may have had ministers, but in spite of those ministers, the impact of the federal government was not and still not felt in Urhobo at all. There is no minister of Urhobo extraction who can create that impact which was created at the state at the beginning during the James Ibori administration in Urhobo land for people to appreciate. This is because, as a minister, you become the minister for the federal republic of Nigeria, not a minister for the Urhobos.
So, Urhobos are not feeling the impact of the federal government at the national level. But as a Senator, all I would struggle to do is for the Urhobo people to feel the impact of the impact of the federal government at the national level. And there are so many ways of doing it. Apart from the physical infrastructure, our people are not in key positions at the federal level. Somebody may be appointed a minister without knowing what is happening at the federal level. But if you are in the position where our people are in key positions, one way or the other you will struggle to bring our people into government just like we did in the state when Chief James Ibori was in government.
