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Open Letter To Senator Arthur Ifeanyi Okowa, Executive Governor, Delta State Nigeria. The forth coming Local Government Elections and the slogan of ’Power to the People.’ Your Excellency, I write to you today with great respect for your office and your enviable political experience. I congratulate you for taking a credible step towards organizing the forth coming local government elections and the on going amendment of the State Electoral Law. As Delta State gear up for the Local Government elections, expectations are high to judge your personal integrity in the ’Smart Agenda’ of your regime. The time has come for you to boldly write your name in gold in the annals of history through this democratic dispensation. It is our expectation that your name will go down in history books with a pride of place. My main reason of writing this letter to you is to sincerely appeal and encourage you to fully ensure a fair and level playing ground in this election so that only the best candidates chosen by the people will emerge victorious to represent them. Only the people can genuinely assess the candidates that can work to attract development to their respective local government areas. Too much time has been wasted doing nothing at developing the local government areas. It is on record that your predecessor Emmanuel Uduaghan failed woefully when he, for many years, left the vital aspect of grassroot governance in the hands of caretaker committees who he cash- strapped and teleguided to pursue his personal agenda of delaying elections. We cannot forget that. Local governments in Delta State have not developed as expected because many of those that were put into positions were inexperienced and visionless. They were picked and imposed on the people through rigging and the godfatherism factor. Political gate keepers and godfathers now see their support to their god-sons and god-daughters as a way of sustaining their political relevance and as an economic investment that must yield superlative dividends by all means against the development of the communities. Why have our local government areas remain undeveloped for a long time? For how long can we continue like this? I believe that after this election, with the right persons in positions, local governments will be catalysts at catapulting your Smart Agenda. Too many campaign promises have been broken by local government Chairmen time and time again. Now we no longer see constituency projects executed by Ward Councillors like many years back. This is despite the monthly allocation of 20.60% of Federal allocations to local government areas and their Internally Generated Revenues, IGR. For example, there is a very crucial bridge at Urhuoka Abraka which is very vital for the transportation of farmers and their products for years. Almost every politician in that region has campaigned about building a befitting bridge to replace the dilapidated one there when they enter office. Nothing has been done for decades about that bridge which has become a death trap now because of its deplorable state. The dilapidated bridge at Urhuoka Abraka. Photo Credit: Frederick Odorige Sir, if you visit the rickety bridge now, your heart will jump out of your mouth in fear, when you see women dangerously crossing it with slow, fearful but studied steps, carrying restless children strapped behind their tired backs with heavy loads of cassava dangling on their heads tightly held with shaking hands as they watchfully pop out their eyes in cautious anticipation of falling into the deep water... Sadly, nobody has helped us. Should life continue like this for my people? What we always hear are excuses that their monthly allocations are barely enough to pay workers’ salaries! If the condition is that bad as we are made to understand- though we don’t believe, why is it that no local government Chairman has ever resigned? Are they mocking us? It is not enough that we have political praise singers everywhere who are very busy singing the praises of their paymasters for the purpose of enhancing their selfish ’stomach infrastructure’. I urge you to kindly use this election to put an end to godfatherism , rigging and sponsored candidates which has been a bitter pill forced down the throat of Deltans since 1999. Present-day godfatherism is a primordial tradition taken to a criminal extent where few persons benefit to the detriment of the masses. The phenomenon has far-reaching negative effects on the democratization process in Delta State, nay Nigeria. This is engineered by the political permutation that ’if you have your people on ground in all the LGs, you hold political authority, whether the people like it or not’. This is not always correct. I believe that most Deltans irrespective of political affiliation will vote you again if your administration continue the set standards. We must get only the best people into public offices no matter their financial background, social status or party affiliation. That is the only way that you could get patriotic leaders that will be loyal to you and the people. Remember that there are elected persons that joined or returned to the PDP after their elections because they admire what you are doing. We look up to you. We are aware that some 2nd term Chairmanship aspirants who are bent on feathering their selfish nests against the wishes of the people have literally moved their offices to Oghara with the hope of continually appealing to James Ibori instead of the conscience of the electorate. They believe that despite their failure in their first term in office, once Ibori gives them the nod as his candidates, the electorate could go to hell. This should be unacceptable. It is oppressive as it is dehumanizing. ANY CHAIRMAN THAT HAS FAILED TO PERFORM CREDITABLY IN HIS OR HER FIRST TERM HAS FAILED BOTH THE PARTY AND THE PEOPLE. Like the Scriptural Master that went on a long journey, if you call all the local government Chairmen now to give account of how they spent their ’talents’, most of them will look downwards, crest- fallen with nothing to show for it. It is no longer news that the genesis of Ibori’s travail was after he technically imposed Emmanuel Uduaghan against the wishes of the majority. We thank God that Emmanuel Uduaghan could not impose somebody else on us! If he had succeeded, we may not have been seeing the good work you are doing now. Ibori served meritoriously well but, as a human being, he also failed in other respects. He remains a respected Deltan in some circles and he should be given an opportunity to have a long rest after his incarceration. People should not bother him into imposing them on us so that he does not have new enemies because people have different sensibilities. Our voters' cards must not be made useless in our hands. We are all equal stakeholders in the Delta project; a people with a common socio-political destiny. However, we are also aware that people could also flaunt Ibori's name to intimidate political opponents without his knowledge. It is pathetic before man and God when we hear that painful sentence BEFORE elections: „nor worry yourself. Dem don do the election finish. We don know the result”. The other sentence is when a loser ’wins’ an election and he/she tells the true winner to ’go to court’! We no longer want the survival of the smartest; we want the survival of the people. All electoral offenders must equally be made to face the full wrath of the law. Your Excellency, the ball is in your court if we truly have faith in the avowed slogan that power belong to the people. Imposition of candidates in the name of 'selection' instead of 'election' has been the hydra-headed monster injuriously fighting Deltans since 1999. The antics of election hijackers dehumanizes your people who wait in vain for ballot papers at polling stations when the result sheets were already filled in private homes and hotel rooms! This is not the time when the names of the people’s candidate are switched for the names of visionless political acolytes, lackeys and boot lickers. This is a factor that has defeated the goals of PDP over the years. Whoever wins the PDP primary should be supported. Which ever party wins the general election should equally be accepted as the will of the people. The winner may take all, but not all winners are performers. Performance in office is not just about attending marriage, burial or other ceremonies connected to Party leaders. We should no longer continue to enthrone self-seeking mediocres over the will of the majority. Democracy has to do with the protection of the interests of all and should not only focus on the narrow interests of the privileged in the society. Deltans have been very angry and bitter about this. This is something I trust you could effectively handle Sir. It is easy to say that it is the job of the electoral commission to ensure fairness, but we also know that, as your appointees, he that pays the piper dictates the tune. Sir, kindly ensure that there is a level playing field between all contestants within the PDP and during the general election. Dare to be different and see the huge positive impact it will make on your respected political legacy and on the politics of the State now and in the future. It will be a legacy that your biological children will cherish and be proud of for life when your name is mentioned among those that purposefully sanitized our democracy. It is not compulsory that PDP must win all 25 LGs ’by all means’ or through ’do or die’ means against the will of the people. On the other hand, our people must be courageous this time around to take their destinies in their hands. We must vigorously protect our votes until the actual results are announced; no matter whose ox is gored. We must eschew fear. The electoral manipulations by a few persons have retarded the development of our LGs since 1999 when the LGs are supposed to be the reflection of grassroot development. Can we sincerely say that development at the LG level today has truly reflected the developmental goals and missions of PDP since 1999? Should we continue to institutionalize mediocrity and savagely undermine the generality of our people who throng out to wait for ballot papers at polling stations when the ballot papers are being filled in private homes and hotels? No!! Only the best candidates chosen by the will of the people can bring development to the State. Only smart leaders can enhance your Smart Agenda. Our LGs should not continue to be farms cultivated by a few for a few. Power belong to the people. We need practical leaders who can transform ideas into reality. We reject this growing stagnancy in the midst of plenty. As a State, we cannot be called the ’Finger of God’ when we do not recognize and respect the Hand of God but easily kowtow and decieved by the insidious hand of Jacob. The Nigerian constitution empowers the court to protect the right of citizens to vote (Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 as amended, ss, 1(2), 117(2), 7(4), 118(5), 178(5) at the background of s.36 – right to fair hearing and s. 42 – freedom from discrimination.) and be voted for. Due to poverty and ignorance, citizens of Delta State do not exercise their rights when they are disenfranchised. The Nigerian Bar Association and other civil societies should be supported by government to file class actions against any system that deprive the citizens from voting. We have reached that stage and our people must wake up to their responsibilities. International observers have reported that since Nigeria returned to civilian rule in 1999, only a dismal 13% of her citizens express confidence in the honesty of elections. This election is an opportunity for you to prove that power truly belong to the people. It is a litmus test. I have keenly followed your political sagacity for many years and I trust that you can courageously handle this through thick and thin. Those tricks of secretly compiling results, multiple voting, exchanging official ballot boxes with unofficial ones already filled with voting papers, stealing electoral boxes, selling result sheets, chasing voters away from constituencies where their candidates are likely to have few votes, killing and wounding political opponents, etc must come to an end. Power belong to the people. Thugs are irrelevant in elections when there is fair play. With the current level of insecurity in our land, youths that are used as thugs will be abandoned as thugs after elections and they will grow to become hardened criminals if fair play is not ensured in our electoral system. True democracy should come from the grass root and not from the top. Democracy is worthless if it does not evolve from the effective political participation of the citizenry. Apart from having the right to be freely voted for, the citizenry must exercise the unfettered right to vote. It is my prayer, that as the world is watching and people are sceptical, you will make a huge difference by setting the pace for a credible and enduring LG election in Delta State that will be a legacy for future generations. We wish you well Sir. Yours Sincerely, Frederick Omoyoma Odorige The writer is from Abraka. Former Ethiope East 2007 PDP aspirant into the Delta State House of Assembly President, Association of Nigerians, Hungary. Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Oriental Times

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