Recently, a close ally of Ibori and Uduaghan made some confessions. And this is one who we thought did not only share with the duo the underpinning crude dynamics that created all the rot Ibori and Uduaghan gave Delta, but was co-operator of the machine that drove all that to most damning level. I refer to Elizabeth Ogbon-Day, a former ambassador under Shehu Shagari, 1979 gubernatorial aspirant, apparently the most ‘active’ woman politician in Delta’s PDP and one who got various appointments under Ibori and Uduaghan to the point of having a state and federal appoint concurrently. Her confessions get the attention today.
Ogbon-Day has been up there with Ibori-Uduaghan and company for many years now at Everest of all that is rancid and noxious. She has been very comfortable with all the unqualifiedly nonsense modus operandi of the duo and the toxic and venom they offer as governance hitherto. But because she recently felt hoodwinked by Ibori-Uduaghan, the lady came straight from the shoulder. In one and half pages of interview she granted The Urhobo Voice of March 7, 2011, she said so much, though nothing new to some of us actually. She simply ‘recapped’ some of what we have been saying about the Augean stable that Ibori-Uduaghan has made Delta. But that she was speaking as core insider, and supposed member of the innermost caucus of spoilers of Delta State (1999-2011) is what is instructive here. That she waited for twelve years before she could speak and give this no-holds-bar interview, and all because she did not have her way as a senatorial candidate under PDP, however, represents her as an unserious person talking seriously.
Nonetheless, so much there is we can glean from what she said. So much! But we represent just a few here: She said the already too obvious fact that the cultists make their days in Ibori-Uduaghan’s un-mandated governance of Delta. Why was she irked? Besides being rigged out in the PDP senatorial primaries in Delta, and that by one of the contestants (anointed from Dubai, “from a cell in Dubai”, according to Elizabeth), she did not even had a vote; meaning that she didn’t even vote for herself but rather voted for the said anointed candidate. Hear her response to that: “when you do ugly things, you can’t even think anymore?” But she knew that is how they’ve been operating from day one. In fact, she reminded me again what I have already said about the foolishness Uduaghan brought into the rigging of the recent gubernatorial rerun elections in Delta. Uduaghan so rigged that a Federal Constituency in a riverine, very remote and sparsely populated area had more votes than each of the Senatorial Districts in the hinterland with their many cities, urban centers and townships; and indeed almost doubling the votes of one of these Senatorial Districts. True, when they do ugly things, they can’t even think anymore! Elizabeth knew this all along. Why now is it an issue, and not an issue thrice now with Great Ogboru as victim since 2003; and that at larger scales, at general elections (not primaries), and at state level! Do people who say the truth only when they are victims, and are hurt deserve sympathy? The less of them we have in our society the better for us.
Today, she could say and ask in one breath: “the governor has always surrounded himself with dishonest people… why does he surround himself with dishonest people?” Of course, only a dishonest person would surround himself with dishonest people, to answer her question. And Ogbon-Day happens to be one of the people Uduaghan surrounded himself with. Apparently not yet satisfied with the way she has conveyed her observation of governance of the state by PDP here, she dared to immediately draw from God’s only book for humanity: The Holy Bible! “Let not the wicked rule the godly lest the godly will be forced to do evil” – Psalms 125 (but she omitted the very verse, which is verse 3). And since I couldn’t readily lay hands on the version of the Bible she took that from, I may quote from the New Living Translation which presents it in similarly simple and modern English: “The wicked will not rule the godly, for then the godly might be forced to do wrong”. So, she brought that for our consumption BUT was silent about the duo that rubbished everything in Delta these twelve years with the connivance and assistance of herself and others.
After that biblical quote, Madam Elizabeth Ogbon-Day said: “I am not an angel but I am not a blood sucker, I am not a cultist, I am not a ballot snatcher. So, before they spoil me, let me go to people who don’t do these things”. I am not too sure you read that very well. You may need to take it again. She said all that! And indeed, she said so twice in the course of the interview. In the other she was even more pointed and direct, and fuller. Of PDP in Delta she said: “The politics of today is… no longer about credibility but about how many ballot boxes you can snatch, how much blood you can suck, how many assassins you can bring to undo your opponents or to eliminate people who stand for truth.” Of course, the opposition has said those things before, and grapevine is awash with them without the laws and courts of the land taking these issues seriously. An insider and major player has now spoken, though here exonerating herself because from the quote we just read she implied that despite her deep involvement in affairs of Delta PDP as a key player for twelve years she did not play dirty, but now need to leave before she is submerged. Madam! But with a confession such as this coming from one such as this, it is hoped INEC and our courts/tribunals and security networks will be more serious now. And those of us who represent the truth must have some form of security!
Ogbon-Day actually called some of the key players in PDP “real demons”. At some point she suspected witchcraft at work and queried: “Was it coven that PDP was running there?” To her: “We cannot make those whom the gods have stoned with shit our leaders”. Of ‘real demons’, ‘coven’ and the gods with their shit on PDP leaders in Delta: this is where she excels the opposition in knowledge (of PDP in Delta)! Lest you and I fail to hear her well she revisited the ‘real demon’ thing elsewhere when she alerted: “Deltans should look for who is a human being… Not those wearing the coat of human beings but they are real demons.” Remember that she has moments ago also drawn attention to damning cultism.
Her final score sheet given all the above: She says that 99 percent of the masses are suffering with only one percent enjoying (that is, in Ibori-Uduaghan’s Delta State after 12 years of bounteous provision by God). It is not one of us saying this now, but a chieftain of PDP that circumstances drove away so that society can get a voice to corroborate what has been well said by us already.
Well, she gave herself sum pluses when she said among other things that unlike other PDP chieftains she has only one house which is not even painted yet; that she has not received one single contract job from government all her life; that she does not belong to any cult, and that she told Uduaghan when she was appointed a special adviser that she is a “different cookie among the people he appointed”. We cannot verify those now.
Then, came her last sentence: “We are still waiting for Amori to dance naked as he promised, and he will dance naked”. Ighoyota Amori for those who may not know him enough, is Ibori’s number one co-conspirator, chief accomplice and principal accessory in all that he represented in Delta from 1999-2007 and all he (Ibori) and Uduaghan now represent. This man among other things once said he would
dance naked: His way of scaring the opposition, that is Ogboru and some of us. Amori said that because of us. That is years back. Ogbon Day was comfortable with that then even when some of us reacted. In fact, yours sincerely in a one and half page interview granted Weekend Urhobo Voice of Thursday, June 19 2003, headlined: “Amori not a Democrat”, said that “democracy, of course, cannot accommodate men who will ‘dance naked’ or ‘kill an ant with a sledge hammer.’” Amori said all that way back 2003, and not surprisingly though. Ibori, Amori and Uduaghan are the trio that all the crudity in Delta politics today hangs. Amori may even be a mentor to more PDP inglorious topnotch than Ibori, let alone Uduaghan. Both the leaders and follower-ship in Delta knew their mentor could make good those crude promises; and if he did, they too characteristically would; including Ogbon-Day. Why digging that and many others up now? Why, after eight years!
Anyway, if it will take eight years for a key functionary in Ibori-Uduaghan unmatched mis-governance to confirm what the opposition has been saying all along: The off-putting characters handling the affairs of Delta State since 1999, their noxious modus operandi and the harrowing pains they have caused us all, and worst still the way they have frustrated more than once the mandate the people have been giving to Great Ogboru to deliver them from the clutches of bestial tendencies and feat, then we cannot say it is altogether unnecessary; especially if our courts/tribunals, security agents and INEC will be all ears now in Delta.
