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By Amos Odhe, Yenagoa
A political stakeholder in Sagbama Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, Chief Perekeme Richard Kpodoh, says people in the area will continue to fight against what he asserts as “the greedy interest of some politicians to scuttle the brotherly rotational zoning of National Assembly positions between the local government areas of Sagbama and Ekeremor that constitute Bayelsa West Senatorial district”.
Speaking with journalists in Yenagoa recently, Chief Kpodoh berated Gov. Douye Diri for allegedly lobbying “selected persons from the area with N50,000 each to work for the re-election of former governor of the state and serving senator Henry Seriake Dickson, against the zoning formula that now favours the Ekeremor people to produce the next senator.
“Gov. Diri should understand that his plan to undermine the Sagbama/Ekeremor people is the beginning of the war against his second tenure election.
“Let Diri and Dickson tell us what Dickson attracted to the area when he was member of the House of Representatives and in his current tenure in the Senate.
“Diri is only maternally an Ekeremor man, and in the Ijaw tradition, nobody dey answer mama name. Let him go and decide for the Kolokuma/Opokuma people if they allow him to break their age-long zoning arrangements,” Kpodoh said.
He warned that the Sagbama/Ekeremor people will join the opposition APC to reverse the political pendulum in the state if Gov. Diri, Dickson and the Prosperity administration treats their threat with kid gloves.
He accused former Gov. Dickson of creating wealth while he was governor for only family members and few cronies, adding that this he extended to what he described as the “focusless Prosperity Government”.
According to Kpodoh, the Dickson administration received accumulated 2 trillion, while what Governor Douye Diri has received is being collated and will be made public soon.
He accused the Diri administration of recruiting some fierce looking youths as taskforce members, supervised by the office of the deputy governor, alleging that these operate “twenty-four hours daily to extort unsuspecting transporters and commuters.
“They are no longer thinking rightly. They think that they are the only wise people, without realizing that they are only holding the mandate of Bayelsans.
“These are leaders that couldn’t provide ordinary water in the state capital in spite of over two trillion naira that the present administration has gotten on behalf of the state.
“They are not bothered that local investors are daily packing out of the state as a result of bad governance, government not been able to provide social amenities, incurable insecurity and falling education.
“We need the opposition to be more formidable to wrest power from the PDP if its leaders no longer respect the views and opinions of the electorate”, he said.
Chief Kpodoh said young girls have no option than to go into prostitution for survival because of the absence of employment which is only accessed by children of high profile politicians and their paymasters.
He called on Gov. Diri to learn from Ebonyi, Yobe and other states that were created alongside Bayelsa in 1996, but have “gapped the state in terms of development
“Look at Bola Ahmed Tinubu. When the Federal Capital was moved away from Lagos to Abuja, people thought the economy in Lagos would fall. But Tinubu proved them wrong and today, the economy of Lagos is still the strongest”, he added.
He criticised Gov. Diri of defying developmental contributions from the public, stating that the inability by government to build modern markets and motor parks have reduced the state capital to a glorified council headquarters, referring to neighbouring Aba as a commercial center that should strike Diri’s mind.
“They recently commissioned the Media building and brought people from all over the country and lavished public funds for that purpose. That building cannot be put to use because it is not completed. Who are they fooling?
“I don’t also know if it is Dickson, Diri or Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo that is governor of Bayelsa State. Diri thinks he can connive with Dickson to make him life senator because he made him governor.
“They have collected so much loan that will enslave the state for the next forty years.
“No succeeding government has ever declared to Bayelsans what the previous left behind because they see Bayelsans as politically and mentally docile. But we have serving and retired military generals, high profile politicians and business people who should have been talking on the state of things in Bayelsa.
“We are collating more of their loots and at the appropriate time, we will make it public and even drag them to court.
“If they are enjoying immunity because they are in office, they won’t enjoy it thereafter.
“Recently some youths allegedly stormed a Bayelsa High Court and stoned a judge. They were quoted to have chased out all the lawyers and litigants that were in the court room, and people are shouting wolf, forgetting that a once sitting governor who is even a lawyer sacked a Federal High court in Yenagoa and nothing happened.
“I am not supporting those who perpetrated the act. But it will make more justice if we prosecute the first offenders”, Kpodoh said.
