S’South Govs Joining APC Have Made My Work for Tinubu’s Re-election More Easier – Chief Ayiri Emami

By Adesuwa Tsan

In this interview, All Progressives Congress (APC) stalwart in Delta State, Chief Ayiri Emami, speaks on the political climate in the south-south region, defections by governors in the area and other burning issues affecting the region.

Excerpts:

There is a sudden gale of defections into the APC by governors in the south-south region. What is responsible for this? Is the ruling party taking over of the region in 2027?

On the issue of the taking over of South-South by APC, before today, you know I’m a true supporter of Asiwaju. I don’t just support because of money; I support because of my conviction that Asiwaju will turn things around. Because the way the nation was going, some of us knew that the nation was going to sink. So, some of us were the low voices. We were almost crucified in the Niger Delta region when we were supporting Asiwaju but we thank God.  The most important thing in life is when you are convinced and you have a belief; you follow that belief. You know, a lot of people don’t have ideology in terms of political leaning and how they live. But some of us still manage to have our own personal ideology and belief. So, I believe in the man. I believe in his person and I believe in his virtue because as a young man, I have sat with him. I have listened to him and I had seen him performed as governor. But then in our region, you know, people just believe in who will give to them.

A lot of people were fighting Asiwaju, not that Asiwaju was not a good person but they were fighting him that he knows too much. I have several conversations with a lot of people from my region. They will tell you, oh, we prefer people from the north because they don’t know more about our area. But I don’t think that there’s any story we want to tell Asiwaju about our region that he won’t understand. So, I now find out that those of them fighting that they don’t want Asiwaju, if you ask them what Asiwaju actually did, they don’t have one reason. They will tell you let us be with northerners they don’t know much about our area.

However, I am happy today with his impressive performance in our region. Some of the promises he made to us that he will make Warri Port work and you know, from the Buhari era, we had been going to the Villa but you can see, in two years, he has voted money for the Port now and even the Omadino- Escravos roads that will pass through Gbaramatu.

So, a lot of work are going on now. And when people see that, he actually had our interests, I think those are the convictions about his policies that made the governors from the South -South to say ‘no, if we didn’t support him before now, now the man is doing what is going to favour us, so there is a need to support him.’ I think his performance, gave the conviction to those people. So, for me, I’m happy that they are coming because the type of work I was doing in 2022, 2023, I’m going to be more relaxed now that the governors are with us.

(Originally published by Daily Sun)