LAGOS AUGUST 12TH (URHOBOTODAY)-Chief James Ibori, the former governor of Delta State has advised that aspirants must look for their delegates to get their support instead of relying on leaders or godfathers to impose them on popular candidates after bypassing the delegates.
Ibori made the declaration on Saturday in Ugiliamai, Ndokwa West Local Government Area of Delta State, during the 70th birthday celebration of Senator Patrick Osakwe and the grand reception held in his honour.
Ibori decried the situation where politicians and aspirants abandoned their people for long only to come back when election was close and begin to look for leaders who would write their names and impose them on the other aspirants.
“I am saying it openly now. I have many children. If l do for one, l must do for others. I cannot do for one and leave others. Go to your delegates. Even the governor cannot help you in this situation. Go and look for your delegates. Your people will vote for you, not me. I cannot help those foreigners,” he said.
On the reception for him, he emphasised that his relationship with Senator Osakwe dated back to their days at the University of Benin, saying he had since then continued to be a loyal, reliable and dependable politician.
He commended Osakwe for not allowing the lure of the National Assembly to carry him away, just as he praised him for agreeing to step down from his fourth term ambition for the Senate when he advised him to do so in favour of Senator lfeanyi Okowa.
Ibori advised politicians to learn to subsume their personal ambitions, and instead consider the welfare of the people, their upliftment and the interest of the state at large, to accommodate a better society.
Earlier, Osakwe described Chief lbori as God’s gift to Delta State, stating that he had been on Sabbatical since, pleading that his presence now should unite former Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan, Okowa and others to continue with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governance in the state.
The Senator likened the occasion to a payback time to Chief Ivorian, Uduaghan, Governor Okowa and Deltans as a whole for their contributions to the upliftment of the state.