Senator Ighoyota Amori, a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain in Delta State and Political Adviser to the party’s National Chairman, Uche Secondus, is staging a return to the Delta Central Senatorial District seat in 2019. In this interview he spoke on his aspiration, President Muhammadu Buhari’s second term plan, among other crucial issues. Excerpts:
You have declared interest to return to Delta Central Senatorial seat in 2019. What is your vision for the Delta Central?
Yes, I have declared my intention to contest for the Delta Central Senatorial District seat in the Senate in 2019 general elections. Presently, I am on consultation visits to key stakeholders in Delta Central and Urhobo nation to formally intimate them of my aspiration to reclaim the mandate they gave me in 2015, but was truncated by what many considered as a judicial summersault.
I seek to represent Delta Central in the Senate to touch the lives of the people. The interest of my people comes first before any other thing. Nothing short of giving the Urhobo nation the voice it deserves in the National Assembly for the needed political will that will engendered growth and development. That is why I am offering myself again to contest the Senate seat for Delta Central in the 2019.
My vision for Delta Central has always been borne out of my unshakable belief in the Urhobo project. I have always wished to put the Urhobo nation on the political map of Nigeria. The Urhobo nation, as the fifth largest ethnic group in Nigeria, cannot be pushed aside in the scheme of things. Apart from providing quality representation that would turn around the fortunes of people of Delta Central, I intend to ensure that the people are given their rightful place on matters affecting them at the national level.
The Urhobo people know me as an Urhobo irredentist who has continued to use all opportunities since 1999 till date to positively impact on their lives. My antecedent and profile is well known to the people of Delta Central. I am given a platform, I have the innate capacity to move the world.
My short stay at the National Assembly witnessed a lot of remarkable events. The people of Delta Central have continued to wish that the unpalatable event never happened, not to mention the human and infrastructural development I brought to Delta Central when I held sway in the government of Delta State. In summary, I will do everything possible to bring development to Delta Central. Federal Government presence would be felt in Senatorial Zone.
Do you think the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is capable of holding free, fair and credible elections come 2019?
From experience and within the Africa’s political history where enormous powers are concentrated on a central government, ensuring free, fair and credible elections begins with the willingness of the incumbent President to do so. In other words, the sitting President must be ready to accept defeat.
A typical example was the 2015 general elections, which for the first time saw the defeat of a sitting democratically elected President. It took the then President Goodluck Jonathan to accept the outcome of the election results and eventually conceded defeat to the incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari. As a sitting President he has the state apparatus under his control with which to either annul the outcome of the presidential election or rig it in his favour.
So, ensuring free, fair and credible elections in 2019 general elections begins with President Muhammadu Buhari, who appoints the chairman and members of the nation’s electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and hires and fires those manning the apparatus of government that are critical in determining the success of any election.
Just as former President Goodluck Jonathan insisted that no blood of a Nigerian is worth shedding for his election, thereby not interfering with the outcome of the election, President Buhari should toe the same line. But, with the general disenchantment among many Nigerians about the APC administration, the President wants to seek another term. There is the fear over the outcome of the 2019 elections.
How do you see to the state of the nation today?
I will say there is an uneasy calm in the nation, Nigeria, today. There is a general sense of insecurity, poverty, covert looting of the nation’s treasury, ethnic cleansing and a near collapse of the nation’s institutional framework.
The steady progress recorded by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) administration in 16 years is being eroded in just three years of the administration of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Except urgent steps are taken to salvage the situation, the country may drift to irredeemable level. As it stands, the nation, Nigeria, is sitting on a keg of gun powder waiting to explode.
What is your view on the disagreement between the Presidency and the National Assembly over the election sequence?
For me, the disagreement is uncalled for. If the National Assembly has the constitutional powers to work out the sequence of election, the Presidency, which is the hub of the executive arm of government, should not meddle into the matter. This brings us to the issue of ensuring free, fair and credible elections in 2019 general elections. If President Buhari is willing and ready to test his popularity and acceptability among Nigerians as well as provide a level playing field in the elections, the Presidency should not perturbed about the reordering of the country’s election sequence. This is not the first time such a thing is happening. The unwarranted face-off and political intrigues this matter has generated are pointers to the things Nigerians should expect in the 2019 elections.
What economic problems would you expect President Buhari to tackle before 2019?
President Buhari should take urgent steps to revamp the economy. He should restore the economy the state he met it. Measures to improve the country’s foreign exchange, strengthening the naira to the dollar, pound and euro and creation of jobs should be given top priority by the administration.
A cross section of Nigerians wants the president to declare the killer herdsmen as terrorists. What is your take on this?
This is long overdue. One finds it difficult to say between Boko Haram and herdsmen, which is deadliest. Most Nigerians feel the Buhari government is treating the menace of the herdsmen with kid gloves and view his inaction as a support to the havoc they are wreaking in the country.
An instance of the complicity of the government in the heinous crimes being committed by the herdsmen was the recent flagrant disobedience of the Inspector General of Police to the President’s order for him to relocate to Benue State over the mass killings perpetrated the herdsmen in the state. President Buhari should immediately declare the herdsmen terrorists and save the lives of innocent and defenseless Nigerians.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been declaring its confidence to take regain power in 2019. Why is it so sure of it?
The failure of the current APC government is the hope of victory for the PDP in the 2019 elections. The country is in quagmire. Under the present administration, Nigerians experienced the worst and longest fuel scarcity, killing of innocent lives is unprecedented and abject poverty pervades the nation. Obviously, this is not the ‘Change’ Nigerians voted for in 2015. They should be ready to change the ‘Change’ except the APC government wants to rig the elections.
On the other hand, the PDP has overcome its leadership problem which shook its very foundation, successfully organised both non-elective and elective national conventions and its national leadership under Prince Uche Secondus is doing the needful to bring everybody on the board to reclaim power from the APC.
As the 2019 elections beckon, what is your advice to Nigerians?
Nigerians have seen and experienced the abysmal governance under the APC administration. The destiny of the nation lies in their hands. Come 2019 general elections, the decision as to whether the country should move forward, remain stagnated or continue to drift is left to them. So, I expect them to vote out the APC from power and return PDP to power for the nation to continue on the path of growth and development.
Culled from Daily Independent
