Immediate past governor of Delta State, Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan, has cautioned members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to beware of how they confront issues with the government.
Uduaghan, who stated this while reacting to the released looters’ lists by the Federal Government, said it was wrong for the PDP to have dared the APC-led Federal Government to mention the names of alleged looters of the nation’s treasury.
Uduaghan, an aspirant for Delta South Senatorial District, while granting an audience to select members of the Warri Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), in Warri, said with the release of the alleged looters’ list, the PDP put itself under unnecessary pressure.
“PDP started the trouble. You said the government should mention the names of those who looted the treasury and they brought out the first list, second list and the third is being awaited.
“We’ve given work to ourselves and people are now struggling to go to court to clear their names. We’re now the ones busy, trying to defend ourselves and the government is just laughing; APC is just laughing.
“So, whatever list you’re publishing, saying this is APC’s list of corrupt people, you’re just wasting your time.
“I always advise people to be careful when you’re confronting the government, because the government has access to a lot of information.
“There are things you might have taken for granted or forgotten and somebody has recorded it and it’s in the hands of the government.
“I don’t think the PDP should have challenged the FG on the list issue; it was a big mistake and we’ll suffer for it,” he averred.
Uduaghan also said that was the reason for his refusal to confront the Delta State government when he was accused of leaving behind a huge debt of about N600 billion.
According to him, even though he knew the figure bandied around was largely incorrect, he decided not to confront the government of Ifeanyi Okowa, because he had health challenges and could not set machinery in motion to research into the veracity of the claim.
However, he said he was eventually vindicated at other fora by the governor and his finance commissioner that he actually left behind a debt of N187 billion and not N600 billion.
“I don’t want to really comment on this. But the lesson we must learn from there as PDP members is that we must be careful when confronting the government in power.
“If you noticed when I was leaving office, they said my government left N600 billion debt behind. I had two options then: either to confront the government or pull back.
“First, I had to deal with my health issues, so I didn’t have the time to do a lot of research to contend with them. So, I pulled back.
“Two, if you noticed, I’ve not talked about that issue till today, but the governor himself and his finance commissioner, on two occasions, had tried to explain what the current situation is.
“He now said the bank debt is about N110b and the contractual debt is N77b. In total, all the debts on ground when I was leaving office was N187 billion and it was restructured in such a way that most of it would have been paid by this year. It was well-structured. I didn’t leave behind any N600 billion debt,” Uduaghan said.
Meanwhile, on the suspension of Senator Omo-Agege, the senatorial aspirant, who was wary of making a comment, averred that there was more to the issue than met the eye, warning politicians from the Niger Delta region to be wary of being used and dumped.
“I’m reluctant to talk about the case because the issue is deeper than what we see. Anyone looking at it on the surface does not know what’s happening around him.
“My take is that as people from this area (Niger Delta region), we have to be very careful, because we can be used and dumped,” he stated. (Nigerian Tribune)
