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By Mideno Bayagbon
I first met the Distinguished James Manager back in 1999 just after the one they now call Odidigborigbo, another James, Ibori, appointed him Commissioner for Works. Since then I have watched with keen interest his political trajectory. He was one of those who had wanted to succeed James Ibori as governor but with the exigencies of the time, even though the governorship was zoned to Delta South, where he is from, as an Ijaw; which comprises the three big ‘I’s of Isoko, Ijaw, and Itselkiri, every one knew that the then very hardworking Secretary to the State Government, (SSG), Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan, was the favoured one for the mantle.
James Ibori himself had been friends with me longer than that. I was one of those with him when he cut his political teeth even when it seemed like it was a tall ambition for a son of a seeming nobody to best the likes of Dafinones, the Kraghas and some of the established business and political families in Delta state. In those Abacha years, when the likes of Ibori were the arrowhead of Grassroots Democratic Movement, GDM, it looked farfetched that the big guns of Delta politics today will ever get close to power. But they did on the wings of James Ibori.
The only one among them that had a semblance of a political career, in its infancy, was Dr Ifeanyi Okowa. Then a “scrawny” just out of medical college doctor, who had tenured briefly as a councillor before he was catapulted into acting capacity as local government chairman. I gave him his first major publicity break when l interviewed him for my then column: Meeting People, in Vanguard newspapers. We are talking of those heady Abacha days.
Back to James Manager, one of the first recruits of James Ibori in his quest, first to establish GDM in Delta, and eventually to become the Governor. I remember the sense of awe that was wrapped round James Ibori, when he gave each of the committees in all the local government areas of Delta state the princely sum of N50,000 which in today’s money will probably be more than $30,000. This was at a time most graduates’ annual salaries were less than N6,200. This was when the Ibori myth started which in later years evolved into the Odidigborigbo. The upstarts. The cunningly devious. The stomach heroes worshippers. The whole gang. The derailment. Now I speak in parables better left for a future still wrapped in mystery.
Let us return to the days of the five leprous fingers parties. Remember GDM and four other parties, cobbled together for the purpose of enthroning the kleptomaniac, General Sani Abacha, as life president. They were kicked into the rubbish dump and parties like the People Democratic Party emerged through, again, the efforts of the already mobilised GDM foot soldiers who coalesced into the PDP to trounce all the established political titans in Delta state.
James Manager, was “persuaded” to allow Dr Uduaghan be Governor with a plum Senatorial seat offer. This, the influence of James Ibori help actualised.
Since then, Manager’s umbilical cord remained buried in the hallowed chamber of the upper house, the Senate. Until now. The Distinguished James Manager wants to return to his earlier ambition. He too wants to be addressed as His Excellency. Constitutionally his right. But by political exigencies of Delta State politics, like President Obasanjo would say, e get k-leg.
By the assumed arrangement in Delta State’s politics, each of the three senatorial zones have had their shot at the governorship of the state. James ibori, even though he emerged on his strategic political strength, persuaded the majority Urhobo tribe to allow another zone to take the mantle after him to the chagrin of his kinsmen.
So Dr Uduaghan followed in his stead and now Dr Ifeanyi Okowa, who himself has emerged as a strong political power house in the state, followed. By all the perceptions, it is now the time the starting zone, Delta Central, home of the majority ethnic group in the state, the Urhobos, returned to Government House, Asaba. But that too has a comma, the proverbial k-leg.
Some now argue, with a reasonable degree of truth, that the governorship of the state has always been contested for by all the zones. They argue that the Urhobos, whether in PDP or not, have always fielded aspirants to contest for the position. Mention is made of the perennial aspirants and candidates like Olorogun Kenneth Gbagi and Chief Great Ogboru. Indeed, those holding these arguments also point out that though the Ibori political machinery, even from his prison in the United Kingdom, was able to deliver Ifeanyi Okowa after a keenly fought primaries, the likes of David Edevbie came inches away from snatching the crown from Okowa.
That has been the argument of those positioning James Manager, Deputy Governor Otuaro, and others to contest for and possibly snatch the mantle from the hands of the Urhobos.
The Urhobos realising the danger of complacency have been trying to put their house in order, trying to prune down the number of aspirants, of urhobo extraction, in the PDP. They realise that going into the primaries with a divided house can result in shock, in failure. So emerged DC-23 which recently announced that its preferred three candidates for the contest are David Edevbie, Olorogun Kenneth Gbagi, and Speaker of the House of Assembly, the hard fighting Sheriff Oborevwori. The original idea was that there will be a further pruning of the list to bring out just one candidate to face the other contestants from the other senatorial zones. That has been shelved because it will be a near impossible task to persuade any of the three to step down for the other. Suspicion and elephantine egos rule the roost, renders that an impossibility.
Let us not forget that there are other aspirants, Senator Emmanuel Aguariavwodo, Olorogun Fred Majemite, Olorogun James Augoye, Olorogun Ofobruku, Omizu Odebala, etc who have continued pursuing their aspirations despite their supposed pruning out by DC-23. The Urhobo race into Government House is crowded. It is currently a colony of crabs, each pulling each other down. It is a “if it is not me, then it cannot be anyone else” attitude out there. DC-23 is helpless, the Elders and Traditional Rulers are helpless. So is Ibori who is accused of narrowing the field to only one, his preferred candidate: David Edevbie.
Then there is the rumour that Governor Okowa, despite having David Edevbie as his Commissioner for Finance in his first tenure, is absolutely against the idea of Edevbie succeeding him. Reasons are not far fetched: the 2014 PDP primaries which Edevbie almost snatched from him. He is said not to have forgiven him and has no intention of doing so.
Add that to the fact that Okowa now has built his own political empire, out of the Ibori family. Today, it is acknowledged that given that Okowa’s men control about 60 percent of the grassroots, Ibori is reluctant to confront him headlong. Hence the closed door meetings between the duo for a resolution has yet to produced any concrete way forward. This is even as Okowa is yet to settle on who to support for the role. Yes, he is said to have had an agreement of sorts with the Ijaws for a possible passing of the baton to them at the end of his tenure. But pragmatic reality is an obstacle to this. The Ijaws are not a minor minority in the state. If Okowa gets it wrong with them, the Urhobos, Isokos, Itsekiris and Ukwuanis will definitely punish him.
It is then a given that the race is for the Urhobos, disorganised and less strategic as they are, to lose.
Waiting in the wings is James Manager. He might just emerged the candidate of the PDP in Delta state. It will set the party in turmoil. It will break old alliances, unbundle the Ibori family and political futures of the main protagonists will be in jeopardy.
It will mark the end of the party’s dominance in the state, as the All Progressives Congress, APC, without a solid base but featuring Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege, might just come to the rescue of the politically tactless Urhobos and capture the state for the All Progressives Congress despite their huge internal demons wracking the party in the state.