The President-General of the Urhobo Progress Union (UPU), Chief Joe Omene, in this interview with BOLAJI OGUNDELE, highlights the challenges facing the Urhobo nation, especially the so much talked-about marginalisation of the majority tribe in Delta state.
The last few months you assumed the office of the President General of Urhobo Progress Union (UPU), how has it been?
It is very challenging and interesting, challenging in the sense that this is a very trying period for Urhobo nation, the challenges have been there. In 2015 we are going to have the governorship election and nobody will want to be a loser and Urhobo nation will not want to lose the governorship race. So that is how it has been, we work around the clock to make sure we get it.
You said something about it being a trying time for the Urhobo nation, besides the 2015 general election, any other …
(Cuts in) For example, after war, there are also the spoils of war, even the time of sharing the spoils of war, you are cheated. You won’t be happy in trying to correct the abnormality. We see it as trying time; we really need to reposition ourselves properly in order to be accorded the recognition that is due us.
Prior to this time, the UPU started a bridge building relationship with other tribes, in your terms how far?
Yeah! We are working on that and then this bridge building relationship, we want to be friendly with our neighbour and I am sure that our neighbour did not disappoint us, the Itsekiri did not disappoint us, the Isoko did not disappoint us, the only place we had disappointment is the Ijaw neighbour. We have over the years been thinking that they are our close pals, neighbours but what they just demonstrated baffle us. You see in any relationship there should be a spirit of disastic and if the Urhobos voted overwhelmingly for President Jonathan being our Ijaw neighbour. I saw no reason why the Ijaws will vote against us in the recent primaries because one good turn deserves another. Now, if for example we want to pay back, they are either telling Urhobo nation not to vote for Jonathan. If for ordinary primaries they decided to vote for us and they are so proud about it, so proud and happy that they did not vote for us. And they are indirectly telling us not to vote for the President in the forthcoming Presidential election.
UPU said that the resolution of the Urhobo is that whoever gives its governorship ticket to an Urhobo aspirant will have Urhobos support. Now PDP has shown it is not ready to give support to Uvwiamuge Declaration. Does it mean that the President should be afraid?
No! You see in any system there can be saboteur maybe some overzealous people who could be so close to the President can saboteur his effort, I don’t think that the President himself will want to make sure that Urhobos suffer. Sometime, your Aide can cause problem for you, some of your aide can cause problem for you. PDP is not just a carry go affair, the President should explain or discusses with the Urhobo nation and tell us why certain thing happened, and then we will understand. If the APC or any other party can gave us the governorship ticket, it’s equally your right for you still need to discuss with us. What is going to be our own if we vote for you? We will not just go out blindly and vote but such people may have a better chance. The two, Mr. President and the Presidential candidate of APC and any other Presidential candidate will need to discuss with the Urhobo nation first and foremost before we can make up our mind, if you don’t talk to us we will not blindly go out there and throw our ballot papers into your box, it won’t happen.
It looks like the mainstream of the Urhobo elites is not pleased with the former Governor James Ibori. Why?
No Urhobo man, except maybe his agents, apart from his agents and co-travellers, no Urhobo man is happy with him. When this new executive (UPU) came, the first thing we did was to set aside the curse that was placed on him and he assured us that we will work together to produce an Urhobo governor because that is one of the anger we had against him, other than that one we had no other problem. What Dr. Omene said is the correct thing. His (Ibori) own daughter, Mrs. Erieh Atake, was at the venue, campaigning to everybody, including delegates from Ethiope West that her father said they should vote for Dr. Okowa. Again, recently at a marriage party held by one of the PDP Chieftains in Urhobo land, Chief Ighoyota Amori was at that party and right there at the party, he placed a call to Chief Ibori after which he handed the phone over to the organiser of that party that James Ibori was telling him who to vote for and also pleading with him, telling him to vote for Amori and also to Okowa. If he says that it is not true, he can come out to say it. After all he has been talking to people, let him come out and deny it and talk publicly that look ‘oh my stake is for the Urhobo’. What Urhobo elites say and what they believed is that he does not want any Urhobo man to grow politically. He wants the highest placed Urhobo politicians to dance around here at Asaba and his local government. None of them should become the Iroko tree like he used to. That is the anger of the Urhobo elites with him.
Some believe that what happened at the primaries of the PDP is an indicator to the general election in February…
It cannot and it will not because for example in the last local government election, in Ughelli local government alone, about 70,000 plus voters voted. Compare that to a local government like Bomadi, compare it to any three local governments put together in the North that is only one local government. See, very few local governments can beat Ughelli in terms of voters’ strength. You have the voters in Urhobo land. Genuine voters you have them in Urhobo land, the people are there and there is no faking there. Delta North, because of the mago-mago of the past when they gave them many local governments, they have about 440 delegates to Urhobo’s about 410 delegates, but their voting strength they are not more than one quarter of that of Urhobo. Burutu for example, the voters in Burutu are not up to a quarter of that of Ughelli local government, but Burutu is a local government. Urhobo people produce more votes for Jonathan than many or over twenty states in the federation in their separate capacities.
Can UPU count on the faithfulness of Urhobo voters by the time the election comes?
The case in party primaries is different from the general election. Primary is like delegates and delegates are controlled by their owners, delegates are controlled by the amount of money you give to them. So general elections are different and I can tell you it will be all out electoral war even the non-registered. Those who did not register whether you are in Ghana, you are in Sokoto, you are in Osun state or you come home, if you did not register, cheer up those that registered, push them to go and vote, it is not a question of as it used to be, no! We are not going to have dry votes by the grace of God, the people, their spirit is high, they will come out to vote.
Just few hours to the primaries of the PDP, the governor threw his weight behind the UPU choice to emerge with the PDP ticket. Does it mean that his relationship with Urhobo nation has be mended or what happened then?
He is an Urhobo man now, is he not? The governor is an Urhobo man, it does not mean that if your father does not come from Urhobo you are not Urhobo, if your mother comes from Urhobo, you are also Urhobo. He is partly Mosogar, he grew up here; he had his primary education here. So the thing is that at times, you have misunderstanding and at times you put this misunderstanding behind you. For example, if anybody wants to maltreat him now, Urhobo will come out stoutly in his defence. I can assure you that. If anybody wants to rubbish him because of this or that, we will come out to defend him because he is one of us. There were times I have spoken bad of him too and at times he may have spoken bad of us, but the most importantly thing is the ability to reason together, to come together not to support Urhobo, but to only give everyone level playing ground.
We said okay don’t support an individual, you are the governor, give everybody a level playing ground and that is what happened. So if somebody was carrying you before and you based all your strength on that person and the person now decides to be neutral you will fall. If you rely on your strength that is exactly what is going to happen at the general election. We are not saying everybody should come out and favour us. We are not saying the Governor should come and favour us because he is an Urhobo man. He should give everybody a level playing ground because democracy is all about number. See, the minority can have their say, but the majority will always have their way. In Benue state only Tivs have been in government, the Tivs have produced the government of Benue state right from the beginning of this democracy, they did not part with it and that does not mean the minority there did not have their say.
You cannot have the state capital and be thinking of having the governorship, it’s unfair and if you want to do that you must come and convince us, don’t tell us it is the issue of strength. It is not long, this is just primaries and see the arrogance in them already, how their people talk, go and read the Anioma papers and how they have started insulting the Urhobo, they are not yet governor, they are not yet in Government House and they have started talking rubbish about us. So why do you think Urhobo should feel comfortable by allowing them to be in Government House. How comfortable can we feel? Instead of them to say well the thing has come and gone, we are all the same, Urhobo we want to appeal to you, their papers and the so-called social media started insulting UPU, insulting my humble self, laughing at us, they are not good sportsmen.
Who, between the candidate of the APC, Olorogun O’tega Emerhor and that of the Labour Party, Chief Great Ogboru, will the UPU support?
I can tell you which of the two. Before the primaries you had about seven and few days before the primaries, Urhobo came up with one and about that one who polled about 299 votes, the next person polled just 10 votes. When the time comes, UPU will tell the Urhobo nation what to do; so if we are able to bring seven people and we were able to shortlist them to one what is difficult then in asking one to step down for the other between the two people. It is not a problem. Urhobo knows what to do when the time comes and unlike the primaries we will not wait for the last hour before we take the decision.
The elections are just eight weeks from now after the elections when the dust is settled what is going to be the focus of the agitation of the UPU?
If UPU is 83 years old and all the 83 years old we are not devoted towards elections, it is just that these are the elections time otherwise there are other skirmishes between kingdoms against kingdoms even within kingdoms there are skirmishes here and there. UPU will look into this for it is a socio-cultural organization to further the interest of the people since government is not listening to the yearnings of the Urhobo people. UPU will still appeal to the government to please do something about it not confronting the government anyway, appeal to the government to look into the problem. We are there because of the collective welfare of our people not just there for name, not there for politics, we say politics, UPU is not a political party that is what people say but there is no socio-cultural group in this country that is not into politics. Let me give you an instance during the last constitutional confab, the Aferifere were there defending the interest of the Yorubas; the Arewa was there defending the interest of the Hausas. You have the Middle Belt defending their own interest. You also have the one Eze Ndigbo defending their interest. Is that not politics? If an Urhobo man is only an adulterated Urhobo man that will say UPU cannot play politics. How would you defend the interest of your people? If a group of people using politics to suffer you, to deny you of what is due you and you have a socio-cultural group like UPU. Are you saying UPU should not cry out? And in crying out what are you doing you are playing politics, so there is no socio-cultural group that is not into politics in Nigeria but there are some people who put their personal interest first before the interest of the general or the entire Urhobo people. Like a situation, is it not laughable for somebody to say because he was to be a Speaker? Urhobo man should not be a Governor because if Urhobo man becomes a Governor, he cannot be a Speaker, is it not laughable? Can you call that one a good Urhobo man? In other word, he is now thinking of his personal interest and that personal interest is over riding the interest of the entire Urhobo people but he forget to note too that it is God that gives position to man. If you fight for a position you will not get it; if God say this position is for you; you will get it. Today if one and half years ago, somebody told me that look you are going to be a prominent member of UPU or a member of UPU Exco, I will say how? I will doubt it but I became a UPU member because when election was coming I did not know. You see I was invited to come and contest. I did not know that they were going to have an election, I was invited to come and contest and specifically told to contest for the 1st Deputy President General. Some people in UPU rose from Ex-official member to Deputy President General. I entered as 1st Deputy President General, not even Ex-official not even other ranks. I don’t know but I think its God own arrangement. We lost our President General. Even after the election so I am now the President General. I am the President General today because I did not dream to become one. I did not even dream to become 1st Deputy not to talk of President General. So whatever you will be you will be and you cannot be what you are not and if God has anointed you to become a Speaker you cannot be. People become Governor because it is the approval of God. Look at our incumbent governor, he is from one of the minority tribe in Delta State, a tribe that is considered somehow being unfriendly. Though not real not that they are unfriendly, people think they are unfriendly but they are not as people think and yet they produce the Governor, it is the hand work of God, it is not by the power of that individual who became Governor because ordinarily if an Itsekiri man wakes up to say he wants to be Governor, people will say you are joking but he is the Governor and people say they cannot be trusted, they are this, they are troublesome, they are this. People may not understand them but God understand them. You see is like that. This people if you want to get to any level, first and foremost put it in prayer. If God say it is your own, it is your own but my advice to the politician is that you should see yourself first and foremost as an Urhobo man before you become a member of that your party because at the end of that your party, you still remain an Urhobo man; if you occupy any position in your party after some time it will still expire and you go back home as an Urhobo man. So that is why they need to look at the Deputy Governor against all odds, he became an aspirant. UPU decided after setting up a Committee to say it is this person that can go. A whole Deputy Governor was gracious enough to lift up the hand of the chosen one by UPU and say I step down for you. That is somebody that is honourable and Urhobo nation will remain to appreciate that gesture that is why in our report after the primaries. Look at another Urhobo man James Ibori, the Urhobo nation put food in a plate for him, go and eat this food (that is the governorship) at the end of the day bring the plate so that we put another food for another Urhobo man, he carried the plate and give to another person and told us he is given it to that person because that person is also an Urhobo man and looking at it deeply the incumbent Governor is also an Urhobo man because maternally he is an Urhobo man. Okay no problem, after the tenure of that person, he now James says it should go to Delta North despite our appeal, despite our initial anger. This is the point; this is where we are angry with him. So today he is saying if at the end of the day he eventually gets the governorship which eyes is he going to look at Urhobo after selling out?
