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Comrade (Engr) Igbini Odafe Emmanuel is a veteran Good Governance, Human Rights, Anti-Corruption and Pro-Democracy Activist, and also a veteran Labour Leader at TotalEnergies EP Nig. Ltd in the 1990s. He later joined active partisan politics in 2006 where he became the Delta State Governorship Candidate and State Chairman of Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), 2007 – 2012. He is still a member of PRP.
In this Interview, he laments how since the year 2022 he suffers cyberbullying, defamation and blackmails because of his adoption of and support for President Tinubu and former Governor Nyesom Wike. It was even shocking to hear how his wife, her younger brother and her lawyer also joined in defaming and blackmailing him and threatening to use EFCC against him because of his support for Tinubu and Wike.
This and more, led to the dissolution of their marriage. He also spoke of his approval of President Tinubu’s decision to put an immediate end to fuel subsidy and dual exchange rates policies but disapproves of the measures taken thus far by the President after the removal of Fuel Subsidy. He condemns the hikes in Pump Prices of Petroleum Products and insists that the Pump Prices should not be more than N50 per Litre across Nigeria and that our Nation’s Petroleum Refineries be back in full operations if the President is given the right advice and supports by those he appointed into the petroleum sectors and the national leadership of PENGASSAN and NUPENG.
Excerpts:
Since August 2011 that you were appointed the Director General of Delta State Direct Labour Agency (DLA) by former Delta State Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan who is a PDP member, you have distanced yourself from the activities of your political party, the PRP. Is it that you have defected unannounced from PRP to PDP?
Oh my God! What a question you asked me which I decode to be more a rhetoric one that needs no answer from me. Why don’t you just put it to me as lawyers do to people in courts of law? Knowing me for so long now as a man who fearlessly speaks on topical and controversial global and national issues no matter whose ox is gored, why do you think I will defect from PRP to PDP or APC or any political party, unannounced and secretly? When in 2006 I joined partisan politics and made up my mind to join PRP under the patriotic and incorruptible leadership of late Alhaji Balarabe Musa, did I not make it public? I did and proudly so. If any day I change my mind and move on to other political party, I will also make it public and address members of the press. But for now, I am still a senior member of PRP.
But it is believed that because you accepted the appointment of DG of DLA from a PDP government you automatically became a member of PDP just the same way some other persons appointed the same time as you by Governor Uduaghan immediately dumped their political parties and joined PDP.
That is why I am Comrade Igbini Odafe Emmanuel, I am different from other people. There was never a day I accepted to pay the monthly PDP membership dues that all political appointees pay let alone attended any meeting of PDP or joined in campaigns for their candidates in elections. I proudly remained a member and chieftain of PRP all through my almost four years tenure as DG of DLA, except that I also refrained from partisan politics to enable me focus on serving all people of Delta State; irrespective of their political affiliations.
I maintained that DLA does not belong only to PDP or any political party in power in Delta state. You can verify what I have said from PDP and former Governor Uduaghan with whom I had a covenant before I accepted his appeal for me to help him fix the roads across Delta state that had collapsed and became death traps to our people. He did not trust any member of his PDP to have the capacity, patriotism and incorruptible record to get the job done using the DLA but trusted me despite my being his years of strong critic and political enemy as many of his PDP members accused me of.
What is your view of the leadership of President Tinubu, particularly given the worsening state of our nation’s economy, roads, schools, security and others? In addition what is your reaction to recent call by the National Chairman of your PRP on President Tinubu to resign due to the increasing state of insecurity across the Country?
Permit me to answer the last question, first. I strongly disagree with the call made by the National Chairman of our PRP on President Tinubu to resign. With due respect to him, such call was misplaced and without sincerity of heart on addressing the sad state of insecurity across our country. What I expect my Chairman to do is publicly present his own idea of what has gone wrong and how to get the situation corrected in a sustainable manner. It is not enough to just criticise, condemn yet not proffer workable and sustainable solutions. I don’t do such and that is not what our PRP under our late National Leader and Chairman, Alhaji Balarabe Musa, was known for.
Well, I may excuse him because he is new to our PRP and may not yet be well knowledgeable about the principles and ideology of PRP. And now to answer the other questions. My view of the leadership of President Tinubu since 2023 remains that he started very well and patriotically from the moment he was sworn in when he declared an end to fuel subsidy and the official dual exchange rates that were the two worst forms of criminality against Nigerians, and perpetrated by very few unpatriotic Nigerian elites who have access to government or were officials of government and staff of CBN and NNPC. They perpetrated these inhuman and unpatriotic evils so long that even when Nigerians like me called on President Buhari to put an end to the twin frauds, he declined to do so because he didn’t have the patriotic courage and didn’t want to incur the wraths of his political associates, friends, and dubious business men and women, involved.
Recall that late President Buhari admitted on a national television station that he did not want to put an end to fuel subsidy even he admitted that it is a fraud, because he did not want to incur the anger of those so-called powerful Nigerians whom he said would mobilise Nigerians to storm Presidential Villa to throw him stones if he does.
Are you therefore surprised seeing these days, increasing number of organised protests in Abuja and some states of Nigeria demanding the sack of President Tinubu or his resignation? While some few of the protests are indeed justified and driven by patriotism some others are organised and/or sponsored by the unpatriotic privileged elites who had stopped benefiting in millions and billions of naira from the monumental frauds called fuel subsidy and dual exchange rates.
This why I call on unsuspecting Nigerians to be very vigilant before joining some street protests against President Tinubu. In 2022, I adopted, campaigned and voted for Bola Ahmed Tinubu to be our President mainly because of his patriotic courage, visionary and all inclusive leadership he displayed as Governor of Lagos state and his right choices of all those who became Governors of Lagos state after him, till date. Can we compare the quasi-collapsed Lagos state before May 29, 1999 and the Lagos state of today that has become the 6th largest economy in Africa and the fastest growing and developing modern city and industrialised area in Africa? Today, Lagos state is one of the most relatively secured place in Africa; the reason it is a destination for foreign tourists and Nigerians relocating from overseas. Tinubu is the man who confronted the deadly surging Ocean at Victoria Island and defeated it turning it today to Eko Atlantic City and Industrial hub for Dangote Refinery and many Petroleum and Allied Companies. If I don’t adopt and continue to support such an achiever and courageous patriot who else should I adopt and support?
Yes, I totally agree that the situation is worse now for Nigerians in the area of economy, roads and insecurity. Our purchasing powers have crashed. I am affected and not happy about it. I hate to see that in my life time, petrol, kerosene, diesel, domestic cooking gas, aviation fuel will be sold at these ridiculous and unjustified high prices. It makes me get so upset each time I buy petrol or diesel for as high as almost N2000 per litre. There is no justification for this, whatsoever. Nigerians have no business buying a litre of any of these petroleum products for more than N50/L. There is no justification for our nation’s four refineries to continue to be grounded and made moribounds after spending trillions of naira by the Buhari regime for so-called Turn Around Maintenance. I repeat what I said many times before, that President Tinubu is being misled to fail by those in his government, particularly many of those he appointed into NNPCL, NUPRC, NMDPRA and the Petroleum Ministry. As a Petroleum Engineer and with my many years of working in the Production Department of TotalEnegergies EP Nig. Ltd and as a veteran labour leader in the company for almost a decade in the 1990s, I advised late President Buhari and now also advised President Tinubu, to appoint themselves, the substantive Ministers of Petroleum Resources in order to identify and root out the criminal elites destroying petroleum industry and looting our petroleum wealth thereby making life miserable and hopeless for Nigerians.
I also blame the National Leadership of PENGASSAN led by my junior colleague at TotalEnergy EP Nig. Ltd, Comrade Festus Osifo, on his understanding of the Nigerian Petroleum Industry, and the way he opposes some good policies of President Tinubu for the Petroleum Industry yet I also see and hear him promoting and laundering the bad image of TotalEnergies that he works for.
I want to remind you that I also granted you an Interview where I made it clear that President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda for Nigerians is dead on arrival if he continues to allow himself to be misled by those he has appointed into the above mentioned Petroleum Sector. Nigeria has no reason to borrow a kobo from anywhere if we have our Petroleum Sector well managed by tested and proven Incorruptible, Knowledgeable, experienced and patriotic Nigerians.
The mismanagement of our Petroleum Industry is also a major reason for the inability of our Armed Forces and other gallant security agencies to confront and smoke out the terrorists from across our country. Hitler lost the 2nd World War because he did not have enough and regular fuel supplies to power his Combat Aircrafts, Armored Tanks, APCs and Vehicles at the front lines.
Regarding the deplorable and collapsed states of many of the roads across Nigeria, I will continue to blame it on my professional colleague, Engr David Umahi, who is the Minister of Works, for wrongly advising President Tinubu and some Governors to believe that all roads should be concrete paved rather than have far cheaper and easier maintained asphalt pavements. The Minister, though a competent and experienced Engineer in road projects, but for reasons best known to him he chose to cause Nigerians to continue to waste trillions of naira for his Concrete pavement which I bet can’t last longer than Asphalt paved roads that are well designed and professionally constructed. Some roads I constructed in year 2012 and 2013 when I was the DG of DLA are still firm and intact till today and would last for more years to come. They look like roads constructed last months.
Some roads I constructed in year 2012 and 2013 when I was the DG of DLA are still firm and intact till today and would last for more years to come. They look like roads constructed last months.