By Newton Umukoro
The Urhobo nation like the larger polity called Nigeria is presently at a crossroads. The 2015 general elections now confront Nigeria, Nigerians and quite significantly the Urhobo people with a dilemma whose resolution has the propensity to make or mar. The political fate of the Urhobo people since 1999 has been like that of a pendulum deliberately programmed to swing the odds against them in spite of their strategic location in the national configuration of socio-economic and political reckoning. For one, the Urhobo nation is demographically Nigeria’s fifth largest ethnic bloc and the most populous in Delta State where they control more than half of the over one million registered voters in the state. Secondly, its abundant oil and gas resources contribute to the federal coffers and help in stabilizing the national economy. Thirdly, it is endowed with one of the best human capital anywhere in the world. Furthermore, it has an enviable topography made up of arable land for productive agriculture, wetlands with a rich biodiversity and over eight navigable rivers that connect with the Atlantic Ocean.
The foregoing ought to put the Urhobo nation in the league of the fastest developing places in the world. The state should have been Africa’s Dubai or Singapore telling her evolutionary story of ‘’third world to first’’. But this has not been so. In a clime where development is closely tied to government and the whim and caprice of those who hold the levers of power, development is often retarded or arrested when the wrong ones mount the saddle of governance. Delta State and by extension the Urhobo nation has been at the receiving end of bad governance since 1999. The amount of money that accrued to the state since 1999 was enough to launch another Marshall Plan for half of Europe. Yet, what we encounter in Delta State and Urhoboland is monumental misrule resulting in acute underdevelopment and extreme poverty.
The case of the Urhobo people can be described as pathetic. The Urhobo nation has borne the greater brunt of the malaise of misrule in Delta State. The lamentation of the Urhobo people is dual arising from marginalization in Delta State where they constitute the majority to exploitation and alienation by the Federal Government that is partially sustained by the oil and gas wealth of the Urhobo nation. Thus the articulation of the fate of the Urhobo nation depicts it as a violated space with a people haunted by socio-economic and political marginalization. They have been made to play a role lesser than the second fiddle in Delta State, just as they lack the needed presence in the national scheme of things in Abuja. This appalling level of neglect and marginalization constitute the themes of discussions where two or more Urhobo people are gathered.
It is against the foregoing background that the Urhobo people enunciated the now famous UVWIAMUGHE DECLARATION of 2014. The credo of the Declaration is that the Urhobo people must break the jinx of socio-economic and political marginalization in 2015 by ensuring that an Urhobo becomes the governor of Delta State. To this end the Urhobo people put machinery in place and began a rigorous agitation which soon became popular and caught headlines. The rider in the Declaration says that the Urhobo electorate will vote only for any of the two national political parties which gives its governorship ticket to one of their own. The two national parties are none other than the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC). Both parties held their primary elections in December 2014 and the APC gave its governorship ticket to an Urhobo in the person of the highly regarded turn-around expert Olorogun O’tega Emerhor.
Emerhor’s emergence as APC governorship candidate threw the entire state into celebration. The implication of the state wide approbation which greeted Emerhor’s victory at the party primaries is that his endorsement is a pan-Delta ticket encapsulating the hopes and aspirations of all Deltans irrespective of ‘’tongues and tribes’’. Deltans whether they are Urhobo, Ijaw, Isoko, Itsekiri, Ndokwa, Ika, Oshimili or Aniocha rose up in one accord to salute Emerhor’s emergence as his party’s flag bearer. Emerhor has since the last two months taken his message of renewal, hope and development to every corner of Delta State.
What then is responsible for Emerhor’s popular acclaim and appeal? The answer is that Deltans are tired of misfits ruling them and they see in Emerhor an alternative to vagrancy and recklessness. Emerhor is not a politician of the common run, but a development mind in the mould of the Singaporean Lee Kuan Yew. Deltans see in Emerhor what Raji Fashola is to Lagos and Rabiu Kwankwaso is to Kano. In truth, only Emerhor among the candidates aspiring to be governor of Delta State has a working manifesto aimed at taking Delta and Deltans out of the woods. Emerhor does have the potentials, capacity and drive to re-work Delta State and make the state live up to the dream of its founding fathers.
A Delta State government under Emerhor will be a dream come true for all Deltans. Reputed to be Nigeria’s foremost turn-around expert Emerhor will put to good use his managerial skills and turn Delta State into a viable economic hub. In truth, Delta State does need a good manager of men and resources right now. In the face of dwindling oil prices many states in Nigeria will go bankrupt if a seasoned technocrat in the mould of Emerhor is not in charge of affairs. This is where Deltans are lucky in the emergence of Emerhor, a first class brain who can make straw without bricks. Delta needs Emerhor’s expertise to survive the looming economic crises. Emerhor should brace up not just for the burden of actualizing the UVWIAMUGHE DECLARATION, but for the burden of reconstructing Delta State and making life more meaningful for all Deltans.
Umukoro wrote from Effurun.
