A member of the House of Representatives under the aegis of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Serguis Ogun, speaks on the entrance of Peter Obi, a former governor of Anambra State, into the 2023 presidential race on the LP platform, among other political developments, in this interview with BEN OGBEMUDIA

Why are you not seeking re-election to the House of Representatives in 2023 when your other colleagues are?

There is nothing wrong with seeking re-election to start with. There is a colleague of mine, Nicholas Mutu, who has been here since 1999. He just got his ticket to be back for the 7th time. So, most likely he will come. This is parliament; the older the wine, the better. But in my constituency, we do rotation that is, zoning. So, for me, the first person here in 1999 was Hon. Aziegbemi and he did his two terms. Like our late leader, Chief Tony Anenih told us then, that he (Aziegbemi) went to pick his form to go for a third term and he told him to return the form that it will go to the other local government which is Esan South East. So, when he finished his two terms, Itulah did his two terms. When Itulah insisted, he was going to continue, that was when the leader told us this story; that the man before you was told to go and sit down so that it can come to this local government, now you have finished your two terms, you need to allow it go to Esan South East the other local government. Although we all fought you know how that ended up. So, that is how I came. It will be unwise and unreasonable for me to finish two terms and now be insisting that I should continue. I am going to allow it naturally to go to Esan Northeast and work with them to make sure we produce the next person. Although, as it turns out now, the Senate is leaving the second constituency old Okpehbo back to my constituency old Agbazilo. So, the Senate is in the same local government, Esan Northeast, same as the House of Representatives and it is not for me to ask whoever they want to cede it to. My take is that if you want it to come to my local government, well and good. But some leaders in that local government had approached me to say; you need to come out, we are going to zone this to your local government again and zone it to you as an individual. We don’t think we can produce both the Senate and the Representative. Again, in good conscience, I don’t see how I was going to do that because doing that will mean you are setting up structures. That will be against my belief that it should rotate. If it had happened naturally, yeah that would have been the case. But as it turned out, somebody from my local government has gotten the ticket on the legacy PDP side and somebody from the Esan North East which is where it should be zoned to naturally has also gotten the ticket from the governor’s side. So, as you remember now, they had parallel congresses and they are in court. Whoever wins, I will give the person my support.

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What impact have you had on your constituency?

Well, I met a lot of projects ongoing by the former minister, Mike Onolememen, and the then deputy chairman Senate committee on works in the 8th Assembly was Senator Clifford Odia. Then my colleague here was Tobi Okechukwu. So, I wrote a long list of road projects and he told me to let’s be honest, this will not fly that Edo state is overloaded and you can understand what it means to be overloaded. The immediate past minister of works was from Edo state. He told me the best you can do, is just get some of the ongoing projects that are already in the previous budget and maybe try and put monies in those projects. That was what I did. So, I reached out to the honourable minister and he gave the list of most of the projects in our constituency. So, I have been following up on those. Most of those roads; you know the way things have been here, scarcity of funds, but they put little money from time to time. Some of those roads they are completing, and others are ongoing. On my own too, well I have also managed to put money into one or two projects. There is a road linking Esan North East Local government to Uromi, linking my local Government Esan South East too. So, Uromi, Ubiaja is angle 90 Uromi, there is another angle 90 at Ubiaja. It’s not that straight road that takes you out to Ewatto/Ewohimi, maybe takes you to Onitsha-Ugbo or Agbor. So, the main one is angle 90 Uromi to angle 90 Ubiaja. Every year we have been able to put 20 million just for maintenance, so it doesn’t go that bad. I have been able to put solar light almost all through that road, it’s just a small segment between Esandion and a part of Ubiaja- just a very short part. These are projects that are very close to my heart. But for me, both headquarters of my local government, if the people are travelling on that road, they should be at peace, they should feel safe. Then, we have also done a lot of water projects. The things that are close to my heart – my motions and the bills I initiated are on: health, education, children, and women matters. So I have built a lot of schools and then primary healthcare centres and also trying to renovate some existing primary healthcare centres and when I wrote to the minister of Health; Dr Osagie Ehianere, so he said to me that the primary healthcare centre is not necessarily under them. So, you saw me talking about solar lights but I added water to what I had in mind. What I had in mind was the renovation of solar lights because I know women give birth in the healthcare centres and there is no light at the night. They use lamps, lanterns, or touch light. You can imagine the experience of women is given birth to children under such conditions. So, I incorporated a borehole into what I was going to put out there. So, for a year, we did that. I was targeting at least one primary healthcare centre in every political ward because I have more than 23. That would have been 21 as I have 21 wards. But it didn’t quite work. The money available was my zonal intervention and could only cover six. So, I took three from each local government and I built some brand new ones in very remote areas, Ako’ocha, Olushi not Ilushi. Once, I travelled to Olushi with my LGA chairman. I said to him you need to go there and when we were going, it was like where are you taking me to? It was close to the campaign period and they were waiting for me and I said, look chairman, when you get to this place, you will know the effort these people make to come out and vote, and secondly, to attend meetings.

Some of your colleagues in the House have defected to other political parties, what is your view on that?

But you see, unfortunately, be careful who you idolize. I used to see Gbajabiamila on television and I will say, yeah this guy is doing the right thing. He should put the government on its toes and all that. He was my hero. So I went into an election, and I came into Congress as an opposition member. So, that is why I tell myself that we should put the government on its toes. So, if my party wins tomorrow, it’s just that I am not coming back to congress, I would have still been behaving like an opposition member because I believe we were elected to do the right thing, to fix this country; things have gone so bad.

How often do you go to your constituency?

During my first term, I was always home, and the truth is that I was in the hotel all through the first term. It was cheaper for me because I would fly in on Tuesday when we have sitting and immediately after Thursday sitting, I will fly out to the constituency and also see my family because they don’t leave in my constituency; they live in another city entirely and it continued like that for a very long time. Earlier, Leo Ogor, our minority leader then so many years before I even came to the parliament, we were together somewhere driving in town, he was saying something about how people come to Abuja and they don’t go home. They forget about home. So, when they run home during elections, people will be waiting for them. I didn’t know I was going to go into politics then but that stuck.

At what point did you become “Obidient”. We saw a comment two to three weeks ago that you are now “Obidient”. What happened?

But I am not a member of Labour party yet. You need to listen to Obi talk and these are the things that have bothered me for a long time. Some of the reasons I came into politics and some of the things I have not been able to achieve in politics are because of the system. Now I can see a man who is standing for those values to say look we will change this. So, therefore I came into politics. Our ideas have aligned, and this is the man I believe in, I believe I will work for, and then that is it.

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Your constituency people, how did they react to that as they are predominantly PDP?

Most of my leaders didn’t like it, not because they thought I was a rebel, they just said to me calm down because you might have future aspirations, but for me, the country is bigger than that. Look at what is happening everywhere. When I was coming here this morning, a top security officer stopped me within the villa and gave me some security tips; I shouldn’t be driving alone and that I should have somebody with me even if he is not an orderly and all that – you know the way the country is now. We are trying to cut down costs and so, having an orderly with you comes with a cost. When I go to my constituency, I have security, but Abuja is supposed to be safe. So, all that cost, where is the money coming from? That is why when they say National Assembly members are corrupt; they are trying to sustain a particular lifestyle that the salary and the running cost cannot cover. We don’t all have to be that though. I can tell you for free, that I am poorer now compared to when or before I came into politics. There are so many things I cannot do. So, that is why for me, I don’t see the benefits of taking a political office because for me it’s a public service. So, if I have to go and dip my hands elsewhere to live a kind of life then it does not worth it.

People say Peter Obi is only popular on social media. Do you subscribe to this?

Ok, it is on social media and then they are registering. Are they registering on social media?

You never can tell who’s registering; whether it’s APC, PDP, or Labour Party…

Let’s be honest, from when Obi left PDP and said he went to Labour Party that was when this movement started, the spike in the registration. When they go and register, what do they tell you? Most of them that we see on social media… are Obidient.

Is that a social revolution or are we expecting a political revolution?

It’s a movement and it’s going to end up in a revolution. It’s a movement now, if they try and tamper with the result that is when you will see the revolution. I said after the #ENDSARS that it’s not a question of there is going to be another ENDSARS. The question is when is it going to be? And this is the Obi thing. I didn’t see the Obi’s thing coming because, if you see the way the young people conducted themselves then, you will realize that these set of people, want the good things in life, but they can’t get it from the present system. So what Obi is saying appeals to me, it’s also appealing to a lot of young people. They want to take back their own country. That is why whoever that is saying all manner of things about Obi is just out of fear of the unknown.