Chief Joe Omene is the factional President-General of Urhobo Progress Union, (UPU). In this interview with John Oghojafor (South South Bureau Chief)., he condemned those who are distracting the Senator representing Delta Central Senatorial District in the Senate, His Excellency, Obarisi Ovie Omo-Agege. He accused some Urhobo politicians of conniving with enemies of the Urhobo nation, to plot the downfall of the Senator who is also the Deputy President of the Senate. According to him, the recent attacks were meant to frustrate his political ambition in 2023.
Excerpts:
A so-called group of Civil Society Organization, CSO, led by one Solomon Adodo recently called on the Deputy President of the Senate and Senator representing Delta Central Senatorial District, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege to resign, alleging that the Senator committed a traffic offence in the US some time ago and was convicted. They even threatened to protest if he fails to resign. What is your reaction to this development?
Well, I’m not surprised. Nobody will be talking about a mad man in the street. When Senator Ovie Omo-Agege has not risen to this height his attackers were not this many. Today, he is about the number 5 or number 6 highest person in Nigeria. What do you expect? Very many people will aspire to get to that stage. Since they cannot get there then there is tendency to pull him down. This is because they know that if he has these four years as a Deputy President of Senate, the next four years beginning from 2023 will make him a superstar in the political arena of this country. People are now targeting him now, not because he is DSP today, but they are trying to pull him down so that he does not become a stumbling block to them come 2023. There are some people who want to become senators in 2023. There are others who want to become governor come 2023. There are some who want to become Vice President.   There are even be those who may want to become Senate President come 2023. So, when you see the arrows, they will definitely be coming from different directions. But for things like this you may need to ask: who is Solomon Adodo? When you go down, you will see that coming under the cloak of Civil Society Organization is just a mere cover up.
 We have so many hired attackers in this country; we have so many hired blackmailers in this country; we have so many hired writers in this country. But the people who are really responsible for all these things will not come out openly. They will have to come out through somebody, saying go and write this, go and write that and blackmail him, let’s pull him down. The people are in the corner. Sometime ago when he was vying for the position of the Deputy President of the Senate, you saw some prominent Urhobos who paid some Urhobo youths to go and protest that we Urhobo do not want Ovie Omo-Agege as Deputy President of the Senate, that they wanted an Ibo man, Orji Uzor Kalu to be in that position. Can you imagine a situation like that? Did you think those Urhobo youths were the real people responsible for that planned protest, the answer is No. Those people who paid youths to go and protest that Urhobo do not want to occupy the position of Deputy President of Senate may be the same people perpetrating this present attacks against Senator Omo-Agege. And this time, instead of using a fellow Urhobo man, they now go outside Urhobo because they don’t want to be known. And they say that the person who is organizing this present attack is well connected to a strong top politician from the Delta North in the Ika area. And this top politician from Delta North from Ika area is a strong ally of a top politician in Urhobo land who worked in synergy with them for the governorship ticket at that time. So, if you sit down and analyze the issues carefully, you will find that the whole thing is also coming from Urhobo land. It is Urhobo man who will call the outside person and enquire what can be done to his fellow Urhobo man? So, what do you expect the non-Urhobo to say: he will tell him I have a boy who can do it. That is how they operate. They do it in such a way in order to give the impression that it is not coming from Urhobo land. They will go and use one Ijaw UPU to condemn it. This is the same Ijaw UPU who refused to work with Omo-Agege. It is the same Ijaw UPU who worked with others to try to sabotage Omo-Agege’s position as Deputy President of the Senate. So, if an Ijaw UPU man comes out to condemn the attacks, we know who they are. They are trying to cover up so that the Urhobo people will not look inward to know that this thing is coming from an Urhobo man. So, what is happening now, don’t go to the South East, don’t go to the South West, even in Delta don’t go too far, it is happening among our people in Urhobo here. The same Urhobo people are trying to sabotage Senator Omo-Agege’s effort because they see him as a potential threat to their 2023 ambition either at the Senate level, governorship level, vice president level or Senate president level.
So, in all of these, what would you say are the effects to the Urhobo nation as a people?
The Italian will tell you: ‘Ke sera sera’ – ‘What will be will be’. Before you became a journalist and a lawyer, there were people who were working against your ambition. Were they able to stop it? Before Omo-Agege became the Deputy President of the Senate, there were people who were working against him. You see, you cannot be what you are not. Some people would wake up to say I want to be a journalist. If they are not made to be qualified journalists, they cannot be. You wake up and say you want to become a Senator. If you are not made to become a Senator, you cannot be. It is from God. What Urhobo is going through today, God has already known that Urhobo will go through this. So, Urhobo will still occupy the position it will occupy in Nigeria despite the sabotage of these people. And so, when people say Urhobo unity, Urhobo unity, Urhobo cannot unite. It is only when people individually secure good position that Urhobo people will now say he is our son. And everybody will now come together. You could recall that when Ibori was governor of the state people were virtually speaking only Urhobo in Asaba. Is it still so today? When Jonathan was the president, you saw some northerners working with him sabotaging him, especially in his first tenure. What cannot be cannot be. You can be very popular but if God says you cannot be then don’t waste your time. So, God has created Urhobo to occupy a position in this country at a particular time. And when that time comes, Urhobo will occupy it. Look at Prof. Onokerhoraye, former Vice Chancellor of University of Benin with other professors and prominent Urhobos making effort to unite the UPU so that it will be one. They came to me try and broker a reconciliation among the factions in UPU. Among those in the group, one of them is sabotaging them. After holding meetings with them he will go behind to leak the decisions they have reached to the other party and convinced them not to attend. And that is how that movement died.
 We were approaching 2020, precisely in December, 2019 Prof. Eghagha, Prof. Oghojafor and other top professors and eminent personalities came here to talk to me. I told them it is not a matter of do or die. There are million other Urhobos who are better qualified than myself… So, I told my people that the question of who was there as the President General at any time, does not stop us from holding a unified election. I told them and they were happy. They went to meet him but he refused. One thing I don’t like about Urhobo top men in position is that they are always afraid to speak out. Otherwise, if Prof. Onokerhoraye came with his team and at the end he made his report known to Urhobos, they will know. If Prof. Eghagha came here with his team and at the end of the day, he made his report known, Urhobo will know. Apart from these, Prof. Temi Akporonor also came with his team for the purpose of reconciliation. Initially, they were thinking I will be the stumbling block, but of course, not me. Who Am I? Now, they came, I listened to them, I discussed with them and at the end of the day, nothing changed. But himself was dribbled by them. And these three sets headed by prominent Urhobo professors, no one was able to come out to publish their findings. Why? And tomorrow someone would come to me to talk about Urhobo unity. How can you unite a people when you are not even sincere? How can you unite people when you will not be bold enough to speak the truth? The Yorubas are not like that. Another question, when they were with me, they were saying, Omene, just forget. If I did not stand my ground, will Urhobo had gotten to the level where we are today in the government of Buhari as Deputy President of the Senate? The other faction of UPU did not endorse Buhari. We were the only ones who endorsed Buhari and endorsed Ovie Omo-Agege, for the second tenure. Now, when they were agitating for this position of Deputy President of the Senate, I wrote to President Buhari and I said, look, we were the only ethnic nationality that endorsed you in the South South of Nigeria without any form of precondition. We did this because we felt that you will be able to right the oppression which Urhobo have been going through. And I said this is an opportunity. Please give the position of the Deputy President of the Senate to Urhobo as a ‘Thank You’ card. It was the last minute for the National Working Committee of APC to take the decision as to whether the position of the Deputy President of Senate should to South East or South South. If it had gone to South East, Urhobo people would have lost it. But they now decided that it is true that Urhobo people really tried. They now said it should go to the South South and to the Urhobo people. That was how it happened.
 I advise that Senator Omo-Agege should not get distracted. Urhobo people should not get worried over it because there is no legal provision that can warrant the removal of Ovie Omo-Agege. In a situation like this, if you are worried, the enemies would be happy over it. It is the faceless enemy within, even in Urhobo land. So, he should continue to face whatever he is doing because these are people who are already jittery over 2023 and they are using foreigners to create the impression that what is happening is not from within the Urhobo nation. So, like I said, the Italian would say, ke sera sera – what will be will be. If he is going to be anything in 2023, he is going to be. If he is not going to be anything in 2023, he will not be. It is not because of the present distraction. If Urhobo will get the governorship in 2023, Urhobo will have it, if it is not going to have it, it will not have it. So, he should not be worried over these distractions.
 But those Urhobo people who do not want anything good to come to Urhobo land except for their personal benefit, they should watch themselves and to check their own conscience whether it is proper to behave like that. This is because, it is the same Urhobo people who feel that come 2023, Omo-Agege is going to dwarf them who are forming a league to rubbish him.
 My advice to Senator Omo-Agege is that he should always remember those who worked for you because if you don’t remember them they would not work for you again when the time comes.
The Senator has spent approximately four years in the Senate. What will be your assessment of his overall performance?
Well, so far, he has performed creditably well. In the first four years he was well known in the Senate because of his performance. That was what made the party to vote for him in the second tenure as the Deputy President of the Senate. He performed well. The Bill establishing the Federal University of Petroleum Resources, Effurun was passed into an Act, several constituency projects, including water and roads and so on. He also sponsored the bill for Anti Sexual Harassment in higher schools which has now been passed, among others. In his second tenure now, within a few months after he introduced it, the bill for the Federal Polytechnic, Orogun has been passed. And I know that before the expiration of the present four years, we will have the Polytechnic in operation.
 My second advice is that he needs to work on his personal relationship with individuals. This is because people complain to me that they worked but he does not remember them.
 Also, he should groom more of Urhobo journalists because they are the people who know much about you and when they grow up they become guru in their profession and you can always count on them as you go higher in your political ascension. All the political battles today in Nigeria is majorly propaganda. So, if you don’t have a good propaganda machinery, you will be defeated easily. Now, he should be aware that if you empower a PDP member, you soon discover that he has his own agenda. They may eventually be the ones to contest with you tomorrow. So, Omo-Agege should look inward.
If you have a one on one meeting with the Senator today, what will you tell him?
If I have a one on one with him today, I will tell him that the purpose for which he was elected, he is doing excellently well. But he needs to improve on his relationship with people who believed in him and worked for him.
Some see you as an APC member. Does that imply you are partisan?
It is because they don’t know. My primary objective is to make sure that Urhobo is not shortchanged in any way. If you are PDP member and you come to me and put something on the table, if it is not in the interest of Urhobo, I will not accept it. If APC comes to me and put something on the table and I know it is not in the interest of the people, I will not take it. The one that I know is in the best interest of Urhobo is the one I will take.
