Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, the Governor of Delta State has, as one of his cardinal three point agenda, the now popular peace and security initiatives. Dr. Uduaghan believes that without peace and security no meaningful development can take place in Delta State.
To this end he devoted his time as Secretary to the Delta State Government (SSG) to tackling the security challenges in the Niger Delta and the Warri crises that almost tore the State apart.
As governor in 2007, he consolidated on the gains of the existing peace process by playing a pivotal role in the Federal Government’s Amnesty Programme that led to the rehabilitation of ex-militants, some of whom have become pilots, engineers and first rate artisans.
He also tackled the hydra headed security challenges of armed robbery and kidnappings which stared his administration in the face. Uduaghan could have conveniently shared the Nobel peace prize with late President Umaru Yar’Adua had they been nominated for the Stockholm Prize.
At the height of the anti-terrorism and anti-kidnapping bill by the Delta State House of Assembly which stipulated death penalty for offenders, Dr. Uduaghan stood his ground and refused to give his assent to the bill on the grounds that as a medical doctor he swore to the Hippocratic Oath and was trained to save lives and not to take them. Also, Governor Uduaghan had, during the fierce struggle by the Ijaws, to claim joint ownership of the huge site with the Itsekiris earmarked for the gas city project at Ogidigben opted for peaceful resolution of the crises. He, as an Itsekiri man refused to take sides with his kith and kin.
Of course he had powers to do otherwise but he refrained from being drawn into an ethnic struggle that would label him as a sectional leader. He renamed it the Delta City Gas Project to maintain neutrality.
Such is the mark of a great leader. Many politicians may have mistaken Uduaghan’s love for peace as a sign of weakness and therefore took him for granted by stabbing him at the back several times but posterity will be kind to Dr. Uduaghan for not deploying all the powers at his disposal to get what he wanted.
As a prelude to the primaries, Governor Uduaghan gave the governorship aspirants a level playing ground by allowing them to have inputs into the delegates list. In the face of widespread criticism that Dr. Uduaghan had anointed a successor he continued to maintain that he had anointed no one.
True to his words, Dr. Uduaghan’s provision of a level playing ground led to the emergence of Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa as the PDP Governorship flag bearer in transparent and free primaries, contrary to the speculations that he was solidly behind the governorship aspiration of Sir Tony Obuh.Even at the Governorship primaries venue at Asaba, it was reported that he was approached by some of his friends to scuttle the primaries but he declined and allowed the process to go on.
Today, he is the chairman of the campaign council for Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa just as he has invited all former governorship aspirants in the state to join the campaign as one big united family. Dr. Uduaghan remains the only Governor I know who has remained unscathed by political bickering. He relinquished his senate ambition just for sake of peace and for him not to heat up the polity.
One lesson he has for all of us is that politics is not a do or die affair and that one’s personal ambition should not be driven to an inflammable or combustible level. Some people may term this as weakness but that is one endurable legacy that this gentle and peace loving politician will pass on to political scholars and historians for study.
Unuafe, a Public Affairs analyst wrote from Asaba. (vanguard)
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