Three years APC baggage messier than the worst of PDP – Okolugbo

Political Editor Politician, pundit and property purveyor, Ken Okolugbo was in his elements that Friday afternoon at a long-planned rendezvous in the Lekki area of Lagos. In his mid-forties, Okolugbo had achieved fame and maybe notoriety in the perception of his traducers well beyond his age. He had started as a political rebel in 2002 with his adventure with Chief Great Ogboru when the fish merchant made his first political intervention in Delta State. He has since then come a long way. In fact, he has repositioned and is today even though still a rebel, but then a rebel within the dominant Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. Okolugbo It was in through the same party that he served for two years as a commissioner in the interventionist agency, Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission, DESOPADEC. As we settled down for a discussion he spoke of how he made lasting impacts upon his people in the Ndokwa/Ukwani axis in Delta State, and now aspires to raise the stakes with a bid to represent the Ndokwa/Ukwani Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives. He based his aspiration on what he claims as the ineffectiveness of the present occupant of the seat who he said wants to go for a third term. “He has failed us woefully. First, he was a member of the House of Assembly and rose to become the majority leader and you can ask him if he can pinpoint to any project that he has completed in the Ndokwa nation. He has no such project, the only thing is that he keeps saying, “I will,” “I will, “I will put,” “I will bring in a bridge,” and all that. If he had done well, I wouldn’t even be putting myself forward,” he said. Giving his experience in office, he said: “My people have already seen me, what I am capable of doing. Today, I am the only commissioner in the history of DESOPADEC to have facilitated a Glass House. That Glass House has a School of Technology which is one of the things we are talking about in terms of developmental objectives. I also facilitated an I.T. Centre equipped with over 50 computers. I did these because I realised that education is one key to get people to develop an area.” “So, I want to use the opportunity in the House of Representatives to consolidate on the things I have done.” One of the areas he is aiming to consolidate on is on increasing the returns to the area from the oil and gas potentials which according to him is greatly suppressed. Do you mean that your production is deliberately suppressed, I asked him? “Yes, …it would interest you to know that 480Mw is being produced from Okpai.” On account of that feat, Okolugbo takes pride in ensuring that the people get a direct benefit through free electricity supply. “Today in the Okpai and all the environs, they don’t pay for electricity and this happened because we insisted that they must step down, and I was one of those that fought because we said that Obasanjo should not come to commission that project until…” “I certainly will not be in the House of Representatives and not make a case against the short-changing that we have been made to bear. I will bring it to light and engage the government, certainly, I will.” One matter that really energises Okolugbo is the failure of the federal administration to implement constituency projects. Even before he stands for the election, he seems to have made a prescription to tackle the issue. “One of the things that must be done is that we must make amendments because there are no strong laws that are backing constituency projects and this is where the Federal legislators are getting it wrong. “I cannot be in the House and be an onlooker. I refuse to be an onlooker. I cannot be representing 20 wards of the Ndokwa Nation when by God’s Grace I get into the House of Representatives and I just become an onlooker and be clapping for the Federal Government. I didn’t come to clap,” he asserted. “What we will have to do is to bring laws that will make it mandatory for every Representative and every senator have a certain amount for projects that have value in the Federal budget. Once we do that the Federal Government cannot continue with this blackmail.” Given Okolugbo past experience as an unauthorised spokesperson for the PDP, he was asked his reaction to assertions that the failures of past PDP administrations contributed to stop the Muhammadu Buhari administration. In reacting, he pointed at the recent book authored by former finance minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to puncture the defence of the APC administration. “The book puts paid to most of the lies that the PDP reign was a calamity. In it you will see how governor’s who are today in APC were those who said they would ensure that the Sovereign Wealth Fund does not come to fruition. They never wanted any savings they saw the excess crude account as one to feather their political aspirations and entrench themselves. “I will not say that the PDP did not have its baggage, we had, but it wasn’t all sad tales. We brought in the TSA, EFCC, ICPC, 12 universities, Almajiri schools completed, rail between Abuja and Kaduna. If you say that we failed, how come everybody including the akara seller all have phones. “We said oil subsidy was a fraud and that we would remove it, but today we know better! “PDP had its baggage but the baggage that APC is carrying in these three years is worse. They should stop saying that you cannot compare three years to 16 years; a child that wants to excel in school, you start knowing it from KG One. By the time he gets to KG Three, you will know whether he is going to be a dumb child or not.” Okolugbo makes a strong rebuttal to assertions of non-performance by the PDP administration in Delta State, saying that even if the Ifeanyi Okowa administration had a delayed take-off, but that it was performing smartly…
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