With less than seven weeks to the primaries of the People’s Democratic Party PDP, a former minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Elder Godsday Orubebe, has said that the 2023 guber race is reserved for the Urhobos of Delta central and advised his Ijaw kinsmen who are gunning for the office to step aside.
Orubebe who was a minister during the administration of former president Goodluck Jonathan spoke on Sunday when Olorogun Barrister Kenneth Gbagi visited him at his Ogbobagene country home in Burutu local government area of Delta state.
Among the Ijaw aspirants who are slugging it out with the Urhobos are Senator James Manager, Braduce Angozi and deputy governor, Kingsley Burutu Otuaro. The trio have obtained their PDP expression of interest and nomination forms for the all time race.
There have been repeated calls for the Ijaw aspirants to step down from the race and wait for the next eight years after the Urhobo people but a section of the Ijaws have remained adamant, preferring to alter the zoning arrangement that has brought unity and harmony in the state.
But Orubebe took time to explain why the Ijaws who are his kinsmen should respect the zoning system and let Urhobos go. He said the Ijaws who are clamouring for Ijaw turn were the ones who confronted him in 2014 and asked him to respect the zoning system when he declared for the governorship with Delta North.
He said he was told to abandon his ambition that the 2015 race was for the Delta North aspirants and that he should respect the zoning arrangement in the state, and that he did. He is therefore wondering why the same Ijaws are now head over heels shouting ‘it’s the turn of Ijaw to produce governor in 2023.”
He said: “The danger is real. When I wanted to contest governorship in 2014, I knew the implications. Something was burning in my heart.
“In all the LGAs in Delta, you can establish two to three industries in them. That was why I wanted to contest. But my people said it was the turn of Delta North. They told me it was not the turn of Ijaw.
“Now I’m saying it is the turn of Delta central, they say what are you saying. Today, I must say it is the turn of Urhobo people to produce the governor. We will prepare some of our young people here to take over from you. Ijaw will come after eight years.”
