Tonye Okio, who hails from Ogbia Community as President Goodluck Jonathan, is Bayelsa State’s Organising Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC). In this encounter with Assistant Editor (North), CHUKS EHIRIM, Okio assesses Jonathan’s administration, accusing him of not providing democracy dividends to his people.
Relationship with President Goodluck Jonathan
Tonye Okio
I am from the next village with President Jonathan. We speak the same dialect called Ogbia. Ijaw nation has some sub-tribes. Ogbia happens to be one. President Jonathan and I come from Ogbia.
Prison experiences
I am one young man who believes that there must be a change. God has so loved us as a people and bestowed so much on us. We are about the richest country in the world. That is, of course, due to natural endowment. But on the contrary, to the amazement of all, we are about the poorest country in the world because we lack leadership.
There is actually no leadership in our country. So I believe there must be change. I am trying to be an advocate of that change that Nigerians are clamouring for, and I am trying to go against anybody who is not an agent of change. For now, I have seen my brother, President Jonathan, as not being an agent of change. He has not done what I expect him to do as president. So, I have been very critical of his administration.
I have criticised his administration; I have criticised the puppet he installed in Bayelsa State, Governor Henry Seriake Dickson, severally. So I was shocked one day; I was picked up from my Abuja house and driven blind-folded, to Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, where I was thrown into the dungeon and ended up staying in prison for about three months. Thanks for my late friend, Bamidele Aturu, and other legal professionals, who came to my rescue. I was released on January 28, 2014. That was when I came out of imprisonment, for criticising the government of Jonathan and that of Dickson.
The charge was seditious publication. I was accused of making a publication that a particular sitting governor was arrested overseas with $5 million. And for that, they came to my house in Abuja, drove me blind-folded to Yenagoa. I was in police custody for about a week. When my lawyer went to court to seek legal redress for me to be released, they rushed in at about 6am, took me to one kangaroo court. A case of seditious publication had been ruled out in our constitution, but I was still charged for that same offence, and the magistrate, unfortunately, was on their side.
He sent me to the prison. I was locked up in prison. I was granted bail on very funny conditions – to produce a permanent secretary from the state. He must be a Bayelsan. The offence was categorised as misdemeanour, yet I was asked to produce a permanent secretary who was answerable to Governor Dickson. It didn’t stop there. He went out to ask all the permanent secretaries in Bayelsa not to take me on bail. That was how I ended up in prison custody for three months.
I am not regretting. I am so happy about the detention. Somebody must pay the price and that is the price that we, all Nigerians, must be ready to pay for the change. You don’t get anything on a platter of gold. Victory is never achieved, you struggle for it.
Running against the dominant tendency in Niger Delta
I beg to disagree with you. It’s just like you saying the whole of South South are supporting Jonathan. I am from the South South. It is not all the South South people. And I can tell you, if you go to President Jonathan’s village, so many of them are very angry.
Angry not because he is being stopped from coming back, but because he has failed in his duties as a president. The Ijaw man has suffered so much. We are the goose that lays the golden eggs. Today we still produce the oil that sustains this country’s economy. Of course, we have always been complaining of marginalisation by other tribes.
And today, God gave us the presidency of Nigeria on a platter of gold, with all these abundant resources under the control of an Ijaw man. Yet we can’t even take care of ourselves. President Jonathan has been in office for the past 15 years, as deputy governor, governor, vice president, acting president, and president, yet he has not constructed any road in Bayelsa.
He promised us a petrochemical industry; there is none. Even the federal university that he took to his village is still an illegal institution. The National Assembly is yet to pass the bill establishing that university.
Everything that has happened in Nigeria has presented the opportunity for President Jonathan to develop the Ijaw man. Boko Haram, as far as I am concerned, is a blessing in disguise to President Jonathan, to develop his people. But he hasn’t.
The solution to stop Boko Haram is to take development to other parts of Nigeria, where there is peace. There can’t be development in the absence of peace. But we can’t get it. President Jonathan has, first and foremost, failed his own people, even before the rest of Nigerians. This is not what we expected.
Role in 2015
I will be on the part of change. I will play a role to change our leadership. We have everything in this country. The only place where we are lacking is leadership. I will be on the part that expects a change, a leadership that you can be proud of, a leadership that has record to show. I will be on that part. On that train I will be and I am sure we are going to succeed.
Our party is on the ground in Bayelsa. I am the Organising Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Bayelsa. We will go to Bayelsa and campaign. I tell you, the disenchantment, even in Bayelsa, is much. People are angry as a result of Jonathan’s failure in Bayelsa, in Ogbia where he comes from.
Ensuring that votes count in Bayelsa
It is for us to have our party agents there. What happened in Osun? They were ready to rig in Osun, but could not because our people stood their ground. So all we need do is to have our committed members as party agents. As they are counting the votes, we are transmitting them directly. The era of writing results in one bedroom or another is gone.
