Date Published: 01/13/11

Uduaghan: Time to Build Again by Oma Djebah

The result of the January 6, 2010 re-run election has indeed vindicated the Government and the good people of Delta State. On January 10, 2011, Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan was sworn in as the substantive Governor of Delta State.

His success at the re-run is a clear testimony of the grassroots support which Dr Uduaghan has garnered in the three and half years that he has spent as the Governor of Delta State before the annulment of his election. There is no evidence more compelling than that which the people made clear on January 6, when they trooped out en-mass and re-elected Governor Uduaghan into office after the contentious re-run ordered by the Appeal Court of the Federal Judiciary sitting in Benin City. It shows that his popularity among Deltans is unshaken and without doubt. It was his style of government, which focuses on the people rather than on the interest of a small, self-seeking clique that made this political victory possible in the first place.

Dr. Uduaghan’s victory at the re-run polls is indeed the victory of the people of Delta State. It is the triumph of good over belly-aching. It is the triumph of a wonderful administrator. Deltans are a rare breed; they are ingenious, industrious, hospitable and they hold very dear to the values of togetherness and unity. The average Deltan anywhere and everywhere exudes a certain degree of self confidence and uniqueness that is not only infectious but also coterminous with an unyielding drive to succeed irrespective of the prevailing circumstances. These resounding attributes must now be harnessed again and put at the service of the Uduaghan government in his unrelenting determination to build a greater Delta State. That is the message of unity, a message of love and togetherness and reconciliation that Governor Uduaghan preached on Monday, January, 10 when he was sworn into office. We must thus retrieve ourselves from the dust of the acrimonious contest of the past with a spirit of love and togetherness, a spirit of no victor-no-vanquished which has been the sing song of Governor Uduaghan.

It came as a surprise to all Deltans when the mandate given freely to Dr. Uduaghan was annulled last November. It was unexpected by the people even though there was a spate of annulments in the country last year. But as in all things, Dr. Uduaghan took the verdict of the court stoically because he knew that the will and aspiration of the people will eventually triumph. A believer in the ideals of democracy, he knew that the people of Delta will stand with him at all times because they have all seen what he has done in the years that he has been in office. But the annulment did not come without its challenges. It was read in some quarters as the abrogation of the will of the people who massively voted for Dr. Uduaghan in the April 2007 election. Especially challenging was the fact that the legal battle that eventually lead to this annulment was contentious as many of the claims of election irregularities were just what they were then: contentious. But it did happen that on November 9, 0010 the Court of Appeal sitting in Benin City, Edo State declared a re-run between the incumbent Dr. Uduaghan and thirteen other aspirants to the office of the Governor of Delta State.

Soon after, all manners of uninformed rumors about financial impropriety began to make the rounds in the State. Dr. Uduaghan supporters’ applied caution, tact and perseverance in responding to these allegations, knowing full well that this was the work of detractors who wish Delta State ill at every turn. All that has changed now. The people have spoken and the basic principle of the democracy we run in Delta State has been tested and proven to be resilient. Governor Uduaghan is back on the saddle and as a man of the people, he has pledged to continue his good work on behalf of all, including the opposition. This is anchored on the Biblical exhortation that no one gets a position of authority except ordained by God Almighty. In Daniel 2.21 the Holy Book says of God Almighty: “...He changeth the times and the seasons; he removeth Kings and setteth up Kings; He giveth wisdom unto the wise and knowledge to them that know understanding.” Uduaghan understands this and this informs his humility and sense of decorum at all times.

Since assuming office in April 2007, even before the unfortunate incident annulment, Governor Uduaghan has made it part of his administration to revamp the ailing social and economic life of the people of Delta State. He has done so by leading by example, emphasizing from the first day in office that there will be no business as usual for political carpetbaggers in the State. It is time to put the people ahead of any other considerations. Predictably, this has not augured well with these carpetbaggers who see government as the cow to be milked to death. This is one of the many sources of angst against Governor Uduaghan. To effect the changes that Dr. Uduaghan needed to steer the government of Delta in the right direction, he quickly set out his goals in the inaugural speech on assumption of office in April 2007. At the heart of this speech, which is christened, “The Three Point Agenda,’ are the interests of the people of Delta State. Revamping trust in government was also part of this agenda. Indeed, it remains a very important point in the political reconstruction that he instituted earlier on in his administration. For him, it is essential that the people whom he serve must have trust in him and in the programme that he has put in place for their betterment.

The “Three-point Agenda” has these goals: peace and Security, human capital as well as infrastructure development. Taking his political cues from the pages of established political figures such as Mahatma Gandhi, Winston Churchil and Lee Kuan Yu and after due and extensive consultations with locals, he determined that making and sustaining peace in Delta State was a *sine qua non* for any kind of development to take place. He set to work immediately, offering micro-credit facilities for those who hitherto had very little access to such financial support. He put the supervision of this aspect of the program directly under his office, hoping to monitor its implementation to the letter. Even the critics of his administration cannot claim that this has not created a conducive atmosphere for personal and communal growth in the past four years of this administration. Without doubt, there has been a measure of peace and tranquility in the State since this program was put in place.

As part of his drive to improve the quality of human capacity in the State, Dr. Uduaghan also displayed a strong commitment to human capital development. In this regard, he inaugurated the fee maternity health care and rural healthcare initiatives. His desire to target the urban and rural poor is understandable but far more important to him were the other vulnerable groups: women, children and seniors. He recognized the saying that “health is wealth,” and that by investing in the health sector he is investing in the work-force and in the future of Delta State. A lot has been achieved in the field of education. Dr. Uduaghan has also achieved a lot in this area. He saw the improvement of the education of the people of Delta as a priority and set about making this happen as soon as he took office. To achieve this goal, he directed the payment of WAEC and NECO fees for all indigenes of Delta, and began a bursary payment regime to all students from the State. The Youth Empowerment Programme, which was set up to train youths in agricultural know-how under the Youth Empowerment and Farmers’ Support Program (YETA-FSP) has proven to be a run-away success with the youth in Delta State. His critics are well aware of the successes that he has recorded in this area, which have endeared the Governor of the people to the hearts of the youth of Delta State. The Mass Transit system is another remarkable programme of the Uduaghan administration.

Dr. Uduaghan has also scored very well in the area of infrastructural development in the State since he took the reins of power in April of 2007. Some admirers of his have pointed to the fact that this is this area that he scores best as an administrator. He moved quickly on assumption of office, and his cardinal goal in this regard was to use the development of infrastructure in the State to jump-start the rather shabby economy. Once in office, he embarked upon the construction of roads in major urban and rural centers of the State and made it a priority to deal with the menace of water erosion that has been left unattended for such a long time. The Asaba International Airport project, which is perhaps one of the most visible of the infrastructural development programmes, was his passion. The economic vision, which informed this project, was predicated on the notion that Asaba will serve as the bridgehead to the economic development in the sub-region as the airport will become the gateway to the eastern part of the nation. In fact,the imminent completion of the Asaba International Airport is a major stimulant that would open up the economy of Delta State to the world with ripple effects across states of the South-south and South-east regions of the country. The Warri Industrial Business Park (WIBP) project would revolutionalize the economy of Warri and the state as a whole and by extension, the West Africa sub-region.

Calm, focused and patriotic, as Uduaghan took the oath of office on Monday January 10, he reminded every one that he remains the man of the people, the chief servant of the people of Delta, making it clear that he will work for one and all and at all times. He pledged to run a free, fair and transparent government as he has always done but warned that there will be “No more room for frivolous spending. I will listen more and do more to make Delta a better place.” This is a well deserved mandate. It is a mandate of the people given freely to a man of the people. As we await the score sheet of the Canadian NGO, “Oil for Good and Responsible Governance (OGRG),” on the Uduaghan administration, let us to toast to a man of integrity and honour as he returns to continue the good work of getting Delta back to work.

*Mr. Oma Djebah is Commissioner for Information, Delta State.*