TRANSCRIPT: SR: Chief Edwin Clark, I was with Dr Raymond Dokpesi, we had an interview with him, and he feels he is being threatened left right and centre, especially by the people of the Niger Delta. Don’t you think that is not a fair thing to do to someone, simply because he holds a different view from that of the President you are supporting?
EC: That is not true at all. He has been trying to use his media , AIT, to criticise us, to abuse some of us, mention my name from time to time, and what is Dokpesi that anybody wants to kill? Dokpesi was one of those who championed the cause of a President for the South-South, and we went to Calabar. He was in charge of administration, that we must have a southern President, a south- south President, and we took, we had what we called a Calabar declaration, of which he was a signatory. When we returned, we put into his hands, the administration of the south-south people’s assembly. It was as a result of this declaration that the people, er, er, Sir peter Odili decided to contest. Err. Obong Attah, Donald Duke, Akhigbe and so on and Dokpesi, in order to carry out his mission turned his office in Abuja here, which was the office of the south-south peoples assembly into Odili’s campaign organisation, and he was the leader of Odili’s campaign organisation, director general of Odili’s campaign organisation. M T Ibu, with em, people like Senator Okon.
SR: …but one of his grievances is that he said President Goodluck Jonathan is not a man of honour. He was no 35 on the list of those who agreed to zoning and he felt disappointed…
Edwin Clark: That again shows how dishonest the man is - he is morally bankrupt. Take he mentioned that, that was an enlarged caucus of PDP which took that decision. It was attended by about 53 or forty something people. Err if Jonathan represented his governor, a deputy governor is not a member of the PDP caucus. He came to represent his governor. That decision which was taken in 2002 was not, was breached by people. In the first place, if there was an enlarged caucus, like the recent one they did it must go to NEC, the National Executive Committee of the party, from NEC it must go to convention, it will be approved. Let them show me where that decision was, was er, completed, it was not completed.
SR: But, but…
Edwin: Look, as I told you, the constitution, the recent constitution of the party which was amended at the last convention, merely stated under section 7 (2), that there will be zoning and rotation of offices in the party to make room for equity and equal representation and so forth. What happened thereafter? In 1999, there was no zoning. In fact it was four generals, retired army generals that put Obasanjo there. They financed him, the man came from prison, he had no money, so in order to please the Yorubas, that was what happened.
SR: but still, er , chief
Edwin clark: And again, when it happened like that, Onuh, the man who has just been elected the national party chairman of ANPP wanted to contest the presidency. They said leave it for the Yorubas, so Falae became the presidential candidate
SR: Now Chief, back on Dokpesi, when MEND issued, er, either MEND, I want to make sure I am correct now, one of the Niger Delta movement, issued a statement saying Dokpesi is banned from the south-south I am, we are wondering why, or (declared) persona non grata in the Niger Delta, you did not come out to condemn the position of …
Edwin Clark: Listen, Dokpesi is just playing under. The same Dokpesi said there was another MEND which counteracted that - that the MEND that issued that statement does not exist. Did he not say that? At my age, I should go and join hand? I say Dokpesi wanted, he is a dishonest fellow. He wanted to cheat the Federal government. The under 17 world cup, Dokpesi played on the federal government, deceived the federal government, deceived everybody, that he was able, that his AIT was able to cover the whole thing, and submitted a bid…
SR: That is one of his complaints, that they did not pay him his money
Edwin Clark: they are not owing him. He is a cheat. They are not owing him any money. The Federal government has set up a committee, they’ve looked into those cases, Dokpesi wanted…and he had known Nigerians, NTA covered the thing, so if your money is not paid to you, therefore you have thrown overboard what you were asking for for your people. Let me say this, Professor (inaudible)…..is one of the directors, he is from Delta state, south-south, working for him. Dokpesi, Afegbua and Senator Legogi, former deputy senate president, they are all from the mid-west or the south-south. Have we sacked them? It is because Dokpesi is not sincere. It is because Dokpesi is dishonest, and he is unpatriotic, that is why we took a decision to suspend him and to remove him form the position he was holding. If you are the president or the leader of a group, that is fighting, take the Afenifere for example, they call the leaders of the Afenifere is not doing what he wanted the government to do for him, he is prepared to jettison the Yoruba tribe, he is a dishonest man , and as far as I am concerned, Dokpesi does not exist. When his AIT was facing trouble, I was one of those who asked my former governor Ibori to inject money, he was facing bankruptcy. He was owing almost 1 billion naira at that time, far away. I went to be interviewed and told this story, I came back and told my governor, please bail him out. At that time he felt the Yorubas were conspiring against him because he was successful and they don’t want him because he came form the south-south, that is why the Yorubas wanted to eliminate him from the media. Odili went to help him , these two governors helped him. Today Dokpesi, the shares owned by delta state government and the shares owned by rivers state are still there. If those shares are not there, Dokpesi will not exist. AIT will not exist, but we are now seeing that both Ibori and Odili have converted those shares into their own shares. They have to be investigated, we are coming. Dokpesi is not an honest fellow, and he felt because by going to Babangida, he will now prevent the south-south people from having the presidency of this country , he is lying and he will be disappointed
SR: Thank you very much , sir