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‘I’ll Be A Good Representative Of My People’

By Hendrix Oliomogbe, Asaba
24 April 2015   |   11:39 pm
Michael Diden, a former Chairman of Warri North Council of Delta State, chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), popularly called Ejele, is a former member of the Board of Delta State Oil Producing Areas Commission (DESOPADEC), who was recently elected member of the state House of Assembly for Warri North State Constituency and founder of Delta Political Vanguard, spoke on his vision for his constituents.
Diden

Diden

Michael Diden, a former Chairman of Warri North Council of Delta State, chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), popularly called Ejele, is a former member of the Board of Delta State Oil Producing Areas Commission (DESOPADEC), who was recently elected member of the state House of Assembly for Warri North State Constituency and founder of Delta Political Vanguard, spoke on his vision for his constituents.

What is your impression of the governorship and House of Assembly elections?
To me, the elections have come and gone. An election, to me, is to show goodwill to the people of your area. It is also for the people to reciprocate.

If you are bad, they will give it back to you by not voting for you. But if you are good to them, they will give you back by voting for you.

I want to tell politicians, especially those seeking political positions, to move closer to their people.

What does the victory of the PDP mean to you?

I knew I would win, because I am very close to my people and my mandate is the people’s mandate.

I had x-rayed all the people contesting against me, in terms of their closeness to the people, and I knew I would win, because I am closer to the people than them.

My thanks go to the electorate, especially the way they reciprocate by coming out massively to vote for me without even reaching out to some of them to tell them to vote for me.

In their homes, they did a lot of campaigns, just to show that they love me.

There is nothing on earth without the presence of God; the presence of God is more important and if God says yes, no human being can say no.

There is no doubt that God has ordained this thing. That is why this reality has come to play.

How do you intend to reciprocate the mandate given to you by your people?

I pray that God should increase His mercies on my life, so that I can increase the mercies I have on my followers.

I strongly believe and am very hopeful that I will represent them well.

How do you hope to carry the youths along?

There is no good man on earth that would ignore youths. If people carry you along and you don’t want to carry the people along, then the problem is yours.

When I was a youth, I learnt politics from my elders and they carried me along.

I am going use that same tactics to carry them along.

What is your secret, as a politician?

If you occupy a position you know that does not belong to you, a position you know that belong to another person and that any qualified person can occupied, but God now gives you the opportunity to occupy the position, you should allow the people’s interest to uppermost in your mind.

Some of these people do not need your money; all they just need is to have a chat with you.

I make sure that no matter how small or big you are, I listen to you and do the little I can.

What advice do you have for the losers in the contest?

To accept the result and remember that we still have a fight ahead and we must all come together.

Enough of the mourning and grieving. Let us get on with the business; Deltans are waiting for us. God is in this government and when one door shuts, another door opens.

The truth is that there is so much to do within PDP and they still have a lot of roles to play in the challenges ahead and our appeal to them is that they have done well.

Looking back, it was speculated that a clique in the party hoodwinked the governor to taking decisions on Tony Obuh and David Edevbie during the primary. What actually happened?

It is true! The governor told me severally that a clique in the party wanted him to alter the initial plans, which he turned down.

But I do not know how he later succumbed to the pressures mounted on him.

The governor gave me a specific mandate to work with Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, which I did from the bottom of my heart. I did not make a U-turn, because a king who knows his onions does not speak twice.

Even though I was working with a group, the governor was behind me and he gave me all the support I needed to succeed, and I updated him from time to time.

You and I know the governor to be a man of peace, who accommodates all shades of opinions, despite provocations by those who see politics as a do-or-die affair.

Even as some of the hard-line politicians mounted strident attacks on him, he had never openly admitted that anybody was against him. His deliberate policy of promoting peace and advancement of state integration and cohesion can be seen in the spread of his political appointments across ethnic or party lines.

It also goes without ado that Delta remains one of the few states in Nigeria without reported cases of political witch-hunting by the powers-that-be.

This is brought about by Uduaghan’s high level of tolerance as a man of peace.

What do you have in store for your people as you go to Asaba to represent them?

The purpose of sending me to Asaba is to represent them, and I am going to represent them very well.

If I have done well before, I am going to do better. MACROBUTTON HTMLDirect I will be a good representative of my people.

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