 The senator representing Iqqot Iqmanes Senatorial District in Aqaibam Northwest and former deputy governor of Aqaibam State, Chris Iqmayong, has announced that God has also revealed to him that Senator Basi Iqman will be the governor of the state. This is in contrast to Governor Udumi Manuel's earlier claim that God had revealed Pastor Omoeno as his would-be successor come 2023. But Iqmayong, who is one of the chief tains of the People's Democratic Party in the state during a consultative visit on him over the weekend by Senator Iqman, dismissed Governor Iqmayong's vision, saying instead his colleague in the red chamber, Senator Iqman, has been revealed to him by God as the next Aqaibam State governor. Well, joining us to discuss this is Ezekiel Nyaituk, and he is a political analyst. Thank you so much for joining us, sir. Thank you for the pleasure and the privilege of being with you. Great. Let's go to the genesis of this conversation. Now, a picture made, it went viral on social media of a man kneeling while the governor placed his hand on him. And so many captions. A lot of us were confused as to what it was. Many people said, oh, a man of God was kneeling to a governor. But a lot of people had to ask questions for us to be able to get the real picture. So this was the governor anointing his next successor. But is that how it's supposed to be within the PDP in Aqaibam State? Just curious. Two things. The very first thing is that we need to draw a line between the office of a man and his faith and how he acts or does not act. There are two things that we are putting together which may not quite exactly be. The first is that the said commissioner is a commissioner to the governor. What that means is that he is an appointee of the governor. So his relationship with the governor is that of my boss and myself. And somebody has the liberty to react in any way he feels when he is in the presence of his boss. The second is maybe they are religious inclinations where the boss happens to be a deacon and that the employee happens to be a pastor. So people were like, can a deacon anoint a pastor? But that really isn't the case in this case because it isn't a religious right. It is about a man who feels a certain debt of gratitude to his boss for finding him worthy to occupy an office. Now, I think if we interpret it within that context, then it is usual for a lot of times for people to kneel down before their boss. I have seen several occasions where Mr. L. Rufai has had to kneel down if I'm not mistaken before Elders or his boss. So to that extent, let's keep that aside and then look at what really is playing out politically. So just what I wanted us to do is to draw a line between the politics where an employee or an appointee defends to his boss as different from faith where you have a man having a higher office as a pastor kneeling down for a man who is a deacon, which is a lower office. Now, within this context, to the best of my knowledge, it wasn't within the religious context, it was more like the relationship between an appointee and the boss. Talking about relationships here, there are people who are known to be also, let's not use the word favorites, but close. Have a great relationship with the governor. I'm going to reel out some names. We have the likes of Udomi Noyo, who is a very good friend of the governor, who's interested in being the governor. We have the likes of Senator Albert Oba, where a lot of people have also been campaigning for saying, oh, well, this is the person that we want. I mean, I have a long list. We also have the very interesting Honorable Onofi Agliouk, who is also a member in the National Assembly. We have the likes of Michael Leung. I mean, it's an endless list. And these are very interesting men who have great character. I mean, I don't want to go into reeling out all of their CV, but the first name I mentioned, I posed that question in terms of relationship with the governor. But then should the governor be the one who picks and chooses, who should succeed him? Where does the voice of the people within the party and the delegates within the party, where does their voice come in? I'll tell you something that people just get mixed up and I really can't understand. There are processes to election and electioneering. The first is that a man sits down and says, I will like to be a governor, a personal decision. The second situation is people go to a man and say, we will like you to be our governor. And you find the person seemingly yielding to the demands of the people. The third scenario is a man on the seat, a governor, saying, I will like this person or that person to succeed me. I have a personal preference. Or he says, I really don't have a personal preference. I have a template. Whoever meets the template will become the person I will support because as an individual, I'm entitled to my vote. Now, that is one part of the bargain. The second stage is that there is a political party. That political party is vested with the responsibility of coming up with a candidate for the party. It is a failure of that political party if they do not have control over their system and their machinery and they allow one man to choose. The man has every right to say, I want this, but then he has to be subject to a party who must be bold enough to say, we have a process. We have a procedure. Everybody goes through our procedure. As are today, to the best of my knowledge, PDP in Akwaibom said, and in Nigeria as its way, they have a process and a procedure. And it goes with the electoral act. That electoral act says if you want to be a governor, number one, go to a political party. Number two, get a form as an expression of interest. Number three, be screened by that party. Number four, stand election on the primaries. Either you are going to be a firm or endorsed, accepted as a sole candidate or they are going to be other candidates. And the current electoral act makes it clear where there is more than one candidate and that more than one candidate, two or three or even one out of five says, I don't accept these consensus. You must go down to the field. So I don't really see what all this noise is all about. If you are popular, let's go and test your popularity at the field. I like how very, you know, convincing that you sound. But then we know what happens within political parties in Nigeria. The House of Assembly, the party in itself is at the whims and caprices of most governors. They have a great hold on these parties. Take, for example, the governor of Akaiba State, the governor of River State. I mean, we can start naming them. We might take us all night. But as much as you'd like to paint a picture, we know what the modus operandi should be. But we continuously see these kinds of acts continuously replicate themselves across the country. So who's to say that the party would not cave? I'm not in any way trying to preempt, but I'm saying again, who's to say that this would not play out as usual? Come 2023. In life, you do the crime, you do the time. That's just the way it is. What is happening today is didn't start today. It's something that has been in the offing. I want to ask you if you were the preferred candidate of the governor, will you complain? You will not complain. Why do we allow a process knowing that you are going to meet something somewhere? They were all expecting that one way or the other, they will be the preferred candidate. If not so, they would all have prepared to meet at the field. Either that or they would have before time, make sure that the party sits and takes the control and lets the people know that this is what our processes and procedures would be before time. If any of those people were picked by the governor, how many of them will tell the governor, no, don't pick me. I don't want your endorsement. I want the people to pick me. That's just the way it is. And I think that the time has come when we must come to terms with the fact that we take responsibility for the things that we lay today. I feel sorry for my brothers and sisters in the PDP. I feel sorry for them because they've worked very hard, but they were working very hard in my opinion to get the endorsement of the governor. Unfortunately, the man has started early enough to say, this is where I want to go. And the momentum is riding on that side. But there is a round two. The round two is that if the people know, if you know you really, really, are the preferred candidate of the people. I have been in a process where the people turned their backs against the governor's preferred candidate. It happened in 2007. I happen to have been one of the aspirants then. And clearly, the governor wanted his son-in-law to be, to succeed him. It was a clear thing. And the people unanimously said, no, we don't want. At Papio was not the preferred candidate of the governor. But the people felt, look, this family matter should not be taken too far. And as a result, the governor's candidate was roundly rejected in a quiet bomb state. I don't know if that is going to be a case this time around because this time around, I can tell you that there are a lot of favorite candidates in different ways. We have my brother, Oba. He's got a lot of support. I can tell you that for free. We have my brother, Onofio. He seems to resonate a lot with the young people. There is another man that is called Babantan. He seems to be a grass-rooter who has sown some seeds. Over time, I had a personal discussion with him. And he told me some things that I cannot say on air. But he shows you a man who started working long time ago. He saw it coming and started laying the foundation. And then we have so many other people. The current commissioner of, you know, he was from a commission of finance, that's Akanokon. We even have a big businessman, Akanodofia. There's a lot of people going out there on the field. So it's not like in 2007 where there was just one man that was like a favorite of the masses. Each of these people, they have a chunk. And the only way that they will be able to match, in my opinion, the governor's person, is for them to come together and say, look, guys, if we go fragmented, we will just have 10, 10, 10, 10%, and all the governor's person needs is 25%, which he can get. And you become the next candidate of the party. Because let me tell you, we should not assume that the fact that you've gotten the ticket of PDP makes you the governor of the state. No, no, no. There's yet another huddle to cross. And some of us are waiting for that huddle and we're just smiling. And we're just waiting for them to burn out. And it's unfortunate that the PDP has not been able to put it out together so that they don't burn out. Because each of the bullets you are firing, you are weakening the process for the opposition when they come in on the final onslaught. I mean, it's interesting that you brought this on. I'm more curious as to how grown and come, or how the Aqaibom state politics has come of age, because Aqaibom, just like Cross River and a few other states like rivers, have always been a one-party state. And I'm saying, if they're PDP, they're PDP all the way. And for the case of Aqaibom and Cross River, it was because a certain person crossed over to another party. And that's why the flag of the party changed. But as Aqaibom got into that point where it can decide to say, well, let's pick somebody from the other side because these people are not playing the kind of politics that we want. Or is Aqaibom still very sentimental about the party and the logo that's on that particular ballot paper? I would tell you this for free. The sentiment has been lost and lost for good. I can tell you this for free. You know, you have a sentiment to the extent where you are having fun. But when there is an emergency, you think of yourself first. We've been through this process. We have been party men. And people have sat down and asked themselves a very fundamental question. Nigeria today, the price of diesel, you will be shocked what it is. The price of fuel. Everything is going down the lane and everybody's getting desperate. So the luxury of, oh, I am a member of this. Oh, I belong to this. Those logs don't come up anymore. People are thinking of survival. Who is going to tell me what I want to hear? Secondly, I'll tell you the secret of the PDP. I've been in the PDP. I keep telling people I was the chairman, world and local government congress committee of the PDP to one of the states. That's one of the highest responsibilities that a party can vest you with. And you are only going to be 36 plus one of you that will do that for the party across the whole country because you take one per state and lay the structure and the foundation of that party. Whatever is not at the world level, the world congress cannot go to the chapter, cannot go to the state, cannot go to the national. So for me to have occupied that position means I understood PDP like the back of my palm. PDP, I want to be careful not to demarcate my state because it's a national television. But I want to tell you that PDP members know how they win election in the state. It's not about popularity. We all know. And that game is up with the current election. What exactly is it that you know would like to hear it? Well, when I say PDP is general, let me tell you how elections work. In a polling booth before today, it was 1,000 people. We are going to send down about the materials for about 3, 400 people. You do whatever you want to do at the polling booth. They just look at you. That's your business. As soon as the materials leave the polling booth, between the polling booth and the coalition center, the game takes place. The game takes place in the sense that new forms are brought out. These forms are... But all that changes. We have the beavers. We have the electronic transmission of results. All that is going to be trumped. Thank you. So for the first time, we are going to have a election because that nonsense as usually done is gone and gone for good. That is why I am one person. Whatever the crime that President Buhari has committed, I have forgiven him. Just for that one action. Because for the first time, when you win on your polling booth, your figures are going straight to the national and nobody is going to manipulate your figures. This is the time we are going to know who has been winning the election and we are all ready for it. OK, well, you just told us at National TV that the People's Democratic Party reeks every election that they have in the state. Well, I want to say thank you. Ezekiel and Yatuk is a political analyst. Thank you so much for being part of the conversation. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. All right. Well, thank you all for staying with us. We'll round up today's show with a package on Governor Wike speaking about Governor Godwin-Obaseke's relationship with the PDP in a dough state. I'm Mary-Anna Cohn. And plus, politics returns tomorrow, same time at 7 p.m. Have a good evening. Governor Wike said he ought the Farmer National Chairman of the Our Progressive Congress, APC Adams Oshomale, an apology for opposing him when he insisted that Obaseke is a treacherous and ungrateful man. He said Oshomale was right then and had been vindicated given the recent display of ingratitude by Governor Obaseke to the People's Democratic Party, PDP, and to those who had helped him to secure his second tenure as governor. We have voted for PDP since 1999. Asked Governor Obaseke, has he done anything for PDP? Has he voted for PDP? The only election he voted was his own election when we gave him umbrella. So who has more stake in PDP? I have more stake. Because I have supported people always. You have never supported PDP. Rather, it was when your Godfather chased you away and you came begging, kneeling down, people came with pressure and were allowed you, ordinarily a tenant. You came to beg a bully for you to have a ticket. A bully was a DG campaign and the bully bullied you into government house. Wike said Obaseke is not his match where character matters because he is consistent, sincere, and a farce rights team player. He explained that the problem in Edo State stems from Governor Obaseke asking the national leadership of PDP to dissolve state party's executive when the leaders had been elected before he joined the party and had provided formidable structure for him to win the election. If you watch and if you ask anybody, if you want to check the DNA of Governor Obaseke, what you see in that DNA is betrayal, serious betrayal and ungratefulness. The DNA of Obaseke is what? Betrayer, serious betrayer and ungratefulness. Inaugurating the project from a minister of information, Professor Jerry Ganna described Governor Wike as a courageous leader who is focused and dedicated to service. He expressed the optimism that the PDP will take over power in 2023 to restructure the Federation and transform their economy. You've been a partner, you've been someone who has really shown the kind of integrity, the kind of capacity, the kind of courage, the kind of wisdom, the kind of dedication that we love to see. Well, therefore, we are very, very proud of you.