2023: My Time To Become Governor Of Delta State – Gbagi

By Miracle Enuji

As the odds of who becomes the next Governor of Oil rich Delta State favours a candidate from the Central zone of the State, a former Federal Minister of Education, Olorogun Kenneth Gbagi has declared his intentions to succeed incumbent Governor Ifeanyi Okowa come 2023.

Olorogun Gbagi, an indigene of Oginibo community in Ughelli South Local Government Area of the Delta State, who many Deltans and political watchers have described his early carnival bid as a distraction of the present government, told a retinue of Journalists on Tuesday, November 12, 2019 that, he doesn’t need state resources as others, who might be waiting for it, to kick-start his destined ambition.

He said, “I have planned for this over the past 24 years and I did not plan to fail. I don’t need to collect allowances from government before I can declare my intention to run. Those who may be nursing the idea but cannot come out to declare can continue to remain in government to collect their allowances.

“I said I want to be governor and I have begun consultations. I have the bullets to face this battle. I am talking about the financial resources to contest for the position of Governor. At the appropriate time we shall separate the men from the boys because in this business, there is no room for children who are still using diapers.”

Responding on the clamour by a section of Delta Central; Okpe, Sapele, Uvwie Federal Constituency to produce the candidate of the region for 2023 governorship contest, Gbagi said, “We did not zone the governorship of the party to tribes. We zoned it to senatorial districts. Now that it is the turn of the Central we shall go for it. There is time for everything. I am going to contest my governorship election on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP”.

“My chances are bright. I was born in Sapele, which consist of Sapele, Uvwie and Okpe Federal Constituency. My father is from Ughelli that is, Udu, Ughelli South and Ughelli North Federal Constituency and my mother is from Ethiope East and Ethiope West. So, all the three Federal Constituencies that makes up Urhoboland, my hands, my legs are there. I was brought up in Sapele. When I go to Sapele you can’t beat me. I am the biggest investor in that constituency.”

He however noted that the people of Delta Central alone cannot make the governorship happen for them, saying, “we must work together with other senatorial zones in order to make it.”

As the contest becomes a family affair within the Urhobo Nation, Olorogun Kenneth Gbagi pointed out that, the Urhobo Progressive Union, UPU had no place in deciding who becomes governor but to protect Urhobo culture. “In the build up to 2015, the UPU had taken a decision that Okowa can never be governor. At that gathering, I told them it’s Okowa or nothing. 72 hours thereafter, UPU dissipated till date. They are still finding their feet and Okowa is finishing his second term very strongly. UPU are not politicians, they are custodians of Urhobo people. We are politicians.”