Community leader warns PDP leadership against discarding zoning in Sagbama/Ekeremor district

Nathan Tamarapreye, Yenagoa

A community leader and political stakeholder in the Sagbama Local Government Area of Bayelsa, Chief Richard Kpodoh says zoning remains sacrosanct in Sagbama/Ekeremor Senatorial District.

He cautioned the leadership of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Bayelsa to respect zoning or risk a protest vote by the electorates.

Kpodoh said people in the area will continue to fight against what he called “the greedy interest of some politicians to scuttle the brotherly rotational zoning of National Assembly positions between Sagbama and Ekeremor LGAs that constitute Bayelsa West Senatorial district”.

Speaking with journalists in Yenagoa on Monday, Kpodoh berated Gov.Douye Diri for recently lobbying select persons from the area 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 plans 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 a 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 All Progressives Congress (APC) to reverse the political pendulum in the state if Gov.Diri, Dickson and the PDP treat their threat with kid gloves.

He accused former Gov.Dickson of amassing wealth while he was governor for only family members and a few cronies which he extended to what he described as the ‘focusless’ Prosperity Government”.

He accused the present administration of recruiting some fierce-looking youths as task force members, supervised by the office of the deputy governor, who operates 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 in thrust for the people of Bayelsa.

“These are leaders that couldn’t provide ordinary water in the state capital in spite of over two trillion naira that the past administration under the leadership of Dickson received on behalf of the state.

“They are not bothered those local investors are daily packing out of the state as a result of the government not being 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.

He called on Gov. Diri to learn from Ebonyi, Yobe and other states that were created alongside Bayelsa in 1996, but have left the state behind in terms of development.

“Look at Bola Tinubu. When the Federal Capital 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 said.

He criticised Diri for denying development from the public, stating that the inability of the government to build modern markets and motor parks has reduced the state capital to a glorified Council headquarters.

Kpodo, a former Security Adviser to the Bayelsa government made reference to neighbouring Aba as a commercial centre 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 many loans that will enslave the state for the next forty years.

“No succeeding government has ever declared to Bayelsa people what the previous left behind because they see people of Bayelsa as politically and mentally docile.

“But we have serving and retired military Generals, high profile politicians and business people who should have been talking about the state of things in Bayelsa.

“We are collating more of their loot 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 courtroom, and people are shouting wolf.

“They seem to be 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.