He contested for the Bayelsa Central Senatorial election in 2015 but narrowly lost. Now, Prince Preye Aganaba has indicated interest in running for the governorship of the state at the November 16, 2019 election. In an encounter with Okolo Emmanuel in Abuja, he spoke on a wide range of issues bothering on recent controversies in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), his relationship with former Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Ameachi, and other current issues. Excerpts
YOUR intention to contest the gubernatorial election in Bayelsa State come November 16 is no longer hearsay. Is your governorship project still on course?
Even though I’m yet to make any formal declaration to that effect, my ambition to become the next governor of Bayelsa State is a divine project and it is very much on course.
Though I’m not desperate about it but no one can subvert the will of God. I have spoken in several fora that power is given by God. When you look at the history of governors in Bayelsa State, they didn’t emerge because they were so powerful or so wealthy or so popular. They were all dark horses whom God, by His design, threw forth. I have unconditional and absolute faith in the Almighty God. His will shall prevail in the fullness of time as far as this project is concerned.
Some say you are too young to be governor; that you don’t have the experience to manage the office.
I have the educational exposure; I have the experience as an employer of labour and manager of human resources spanning over a decade. Statements like that are laughable in the true sense of experience. Some people right from the beginning of their lives have no single vision for themselves and the people around them. So, when they see young men and women of vision they feel threatened and device this means to pull them down.
That’s why I have said repeatedly that education will be my key priority to liberate the mindset of our people from thoughts of darkness to those of light.
Together, we will use education as a tool to refocus our sense of direction. I’m 45 years old. Are they saying I’m too young to manage the resources of the state? I’m an engineer by profession and a member of the Nigerian Society of Engineers.
I have my private company and have been in the murky water of business. I have successfully managed it. I’m an employer of labour. All the people who have governed Bayelsa State from 1999 to date were either in their early forties or late forties and I fall within that age bracket. So, what are they talking?
In other climes, they are moving towards generational shift such that young men and women are taking the centre stage of governance. It’s painful that here in Bayelsa, people constitute themselves into a band of dream killers.
I have a dream that Bayelsa would not be left behind in the competing development among Nigeria’s constituent states.
Some have said that you are an ally of the immediate past Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, and that he is using you to destabilize the APC governorship primary in Bayelsa. How do you respond to that?
This is another laughable issue created by an insignificant few within the APC in Bayelsa. Politics should be a contest of ideas and not a contest of petty talk by petty and little minds. We can play politics without mudslinging.
However, if I don’t respond to this issue; those peddling this baseless story will make people to believe it hook, line and sinker. First, I cannot deny that I have a personal relationship with Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi – a relationship which we have built over the years before the birth of APC.
Amaechi represents light. He is principled, disciplined, morally-dependable, very God-fearing and with a very strong character. Those who cannot fit into his cardinal principles often accuse him of arrogance and call him all kinds of names.
I am not surprised he’s being linked to the governorship primary in Bayelsa. Unlike some of the politicians in Bayelsa who are making such wild allegations against him, Amaechi doesn’t patronise cult boys to pursue his political agenda. Some of them are grand patrons of cultism; some of them are certified looters of state treasury. They are just afraid of the moral credentials of Amaechi and it’s a combination of mischief and complex.
My governorship ambition is divine and has nothing to do with Amaechi. But if you say I’m inspired by him to replicate his dividends of democracy or good governance, then I have no hesitation to say yes I am. I have no apology to be associated with a man who has become a model to many people who cherish good governance.
Let’s veer into the raging issue of zoning in the politics of Bayelsa. What’s your position on the issue?
Zoning is a home-grown arrangement which has not only become part and parcel of our democratisation process, but also gives every component part a sense of belonging. Anyone with the frame of mind to jettison that concept is inviting anarchy and instability in the system.
In Swaziland, zoning is an integral part of their political process, conditioned by their own peculiar history. In Nigeria, zoning as a principle is as old as the country. In Bayelsa, it has become an imperative for the peace, unity and prosperity of the state. Every geo-political zone in Bayelsa State has produced either governor or deputy governor except the Kolokuma/ Opokuma Local Government Area. That is why there is this growing agitation all over the state that all the major political parties – including APC – should zone the governorship ticket to Kolokuma/Opokuma LGA based on the glaring indices of marginalisation over the issue of governorship.
What’s your view about the storm surrounding the National Chairman of the APC, Adams Oshiomole, especially the call on him to step aside?
Those calling for his resignation are reactionary elements who are used to the old order. They are finding it difficult to fit into the new. In the old order, governors and powerful party chieftains were lords of the manor, who wielded a lot of power to undermine the supremacy of the party. They removed party leadership at will. There was also grotesque indiscipline. Today, the Oshiomhole-led APC has changed the narrative by entrenching discipline and restored the much cherished values of party supremacy – a practice known all over the world where liberal democracy thrives. That is the offence of Chairman Oshiomhole.
For the first time in the history of party and the formation of government, the Oshiomhole-led leadership asserted itself in enforcing party decisions over the emergence of the leadership of the National Assembly. It also ensured that APC won the governorship elections in Osun and Ekiti States. These are no mean achievements. Some of the states that APC lost were not the fault of the chairman. It was rather caused by the crude politics of greed, anti-party politics and indiscipline of the old order which played out in those states. Oshiomhole has demonstrated that such sad events do not have to reoccur. Even the blind can see that he has the capacity to reform the party and place it on the level of an institution in the formation of a responsible government.
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