Chris Ekiyor, a Dental Surgeon is the President emeritus of the Ijaw Youth Council(IYC). He is the founder of RAHI Medical Outreach.
He was at a point the Transition Committee Chairman of Patani Local Government Council of Delta State. He is also a former Commissioner for Commerce and Industry in the state.
In this exclusive interview with Popular News he talks extensively on the recent mass defection of members of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) in Delta State to the All Progressives Congress(APC) and what it portends for the state.
“It’s a welcome development for APC. It’s long overdue. We(APC) have craved to takeover Delta State and provide a new kind of leadership for the state governance structure.
“Unfortunately, what I see now is more of a charade of a people who are desperate to remain in power. Who are not convinced of changing participants but are just desperate to be in power.
“And the only way to survive is to jump into the APC so that they can maintain the status of oppressive tendencies and under development in the state. These are a people who have mismanaged their party and they want to join the current party.
“It’s my hope that they’ll come in and fall in line with our vision of a new Delta because I can imagine the animosity they dispayed to us when we who were in APC tried to change governance.
“The level of bad mouthing, unprintable things they said about our party and then suddenly they are all rushing into the party. It shows the only reason they’re coming is because they want to remain relevant in power.
“However, it’s lovely. It’s going to be a one party state. The negotiations on the table will change. The ideology driving the party will now change because they’re now going to align with our party vision and the realities on ground about a new Delta.
“I have quietly watched the PDP that’s coming into APC in Delta State. They’re practically vision less. I hope that their coming into our party will put vision on the table. Apart from the flyover in Warri. I don’t see any other thing that the government of Delta State has been doing in the last two years.
“For me, it’s a survival strategy. It’s very clear now they know that if they don’t join APC we are going to kick them out of power. However, it makes life easier if they enter APC. We don’t need to kill ourselves fighting or jostling for power. We just do some realignments for the benefit of Deltans and development of our people.
“For me, governance is not about political parties but about providing dividends of democracy. It’s about changing, driving policies that will in the future bequeath to even those even yet unborn the system that works. It’s about respect.
“If you notice, I did not bother to criticize the PDP in all my years in the APC because I used to be in the PDP myself but when I saw how Governor Ifeanyi Okowa was treating Ijaw people I didn’t find it funny. I had to walk away.”
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