I was privileged to encounter the enthusiastic environmental and human rights activist and
politician when I first gained admission into the once-prestigious Unity School Agbarho (USA).
Comrade Sunny Ofehe, now the governorship candidate of the Young Progressives Party (YPP) in Delta state, was one class ahead of me. We had a long tradition of calling out the best students for
honors and awards and the more deficient for dishonor and mortification at the end of every term during the release of the results. This school tradition made it possible for the passionate and goal-oriented Comrade to be quickly known to almost all the students of our school. Comrade Ofehe becomes well-known to both junior and senior students of the school for always taking the first position in his class and overall first of his set.
His scholarly prowess became known to both educators and students alike. Olorogun Sunny Ofehe represented our school in various debates across the then Bendel state and won many awards for himself and the school. He was a high-profile member of the school's Literary and debating society.
He was a good debater, and I can't remember any debate he didn't win during those glorious days.
Olorogun Comrade Sunny Ofehe graduated with distinctions and later cruised to the University of
Benin, where he studied Industrial Chemistry and became an activist. He was amongst those that
organized students to protest and resist the brutal military regimes of dictator Gen. Ibrahim
Babangida that annulled the June 12 presidential election believed to have been won by MKO
Abiola. And the ruthless dictator Gen. Sani Abacha, who ordered the execution of Ken Saro Wiwa and eight other environmental activists from the Niger Delta region, widely referred to as the
''Ogoni Nine''.
Comrade Sunny Ofehe later fled Nigeria to the Netherlands, the home of Royal Shell Dutch and a
multinational oil company responsible for the massive pollution of the Niger Delta region and a
collaborator in the sudden and swift execution of Ken Saro Wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists.
He did not hide his dissatisfaction with the nefarious activities of Shell and other oil multinationals operating in the Niger Delta region.
He quickly sprung into action and took the fight for environmental justice to Shell in their backyard.
He did all that by constantly organizing protests at Shell headquarters in the Netherlands.
His non-governmental Organisation, Hope for Niger Delta Campaign (HNDC) in the Netherlands,
has played a foremost part in bringing the predicament of the People of the Oil rich Niger Delta to the International community.
The Hope for Niger Delta Campaign (HNDC) and the Niger Delta Initiative Austria (NDIA) are the
only Niger Delta Organizations raising international awareness about the Niger Delta in the whole of Europe.
The Hope for Niger Delta Campaign also enabled the visits to the Creeks of the Niger Delta in 2005
of Pranay Behari, Lara Lee, Jan Andre Groenendijk, and David Smith to visit the Militants in the creeks of the Delta to foster peace and convey the dilemma of our people to the world.
Comrade Sunny Ofehe is the publisher of ''Inside Niger Delta Magazine''. This first-of-its-kind
magazine has helped to raise further awareness about the predicaments of the Niger Delta people
and the region.
Ofehe believes in a nonviolent approach to resolving the problems of the Niger Delta. As a peace advocate, he has helped secure the release of kidnapped Europeans in the Niger Delta at a time.
Comrade Sunny Ofehe has produced and directed so many documentary films about the Niger Delta
region that has helped put the Niger Delta on the world map at a time when almost no news media
is emphasizing the plight of the Niger Delta people.
Comrade Ofehe has been calling for the pipelines in the Niger Delta to be well protected to guide
against oil theft and pollution. He has constantly drawn the attention of the government and
stakeholders to the recent discoveries made regarding oil theft in the oil-rich region. For Ofehe and some of us, this is nothing new.
In 2010, Comrade Sunny Ofehe and Alhaji Asari Dokubo visited me in Vienna-Austria, and their
visit led to the formation of the Niger Delta Initiative Austria. He came in 2012 for its Inauguration and again in 2017 in the company of the then Commissioner of Local Government Affairs Bayelsa State, Hon. Berry Negerese. Both Special Guest Speakers in a Conference tagged, ''Empowering
Youths for Good Governance In Nigeria'' organized by the Niger Delta Initiative Austria in the
prestigious hall of the Political Academy of the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPO).
Comrade Sunny Ofehe has invested almost 20 years of his life raising international awareness about the Niger Delta region. Here is the authentic case for EMILOKAN. Indeed, it is the turn of
Olorogun Sunny Ofehe and the turn of the ordinary people of Delta state that have sacrificed so
much yet stripped of the basic social amenities that make life worth living by some greedy and
unscrupulous political class of the state.
Delta state receives the highest allocation from the central government, but the state has remained sizably underdeveloped. The future of the next generation of Deltans has been mortgage due to the massive borrowing by the state governor and his rubber stamp House of Assembly.
Now that politics is back in full force, the struggle for positions and relevance may be too alluring
that we may forget the past. The people of Delta state must reevaluate their history and avoid
replicating the same mistakes that have brought them into acute deprivation and impoverishment.
Delta state people must realize that the time has come to put away party loyalty for real change. We
must put away absurdity for sanity and recognize that the state belongs to every man and woman.
Delta state is not the exclusive property of some dubious politicians.
Olorogun Comrade Sunny Ofehe of the Young Progressive Party is offering himself to serve the
ordinary people of Delta state. The young, dynamic activist and politician have the knowledge needed to evoke the potential and affairs of the state and turn things around for the people of Delta State.
Comrade Sunny Ofehe's connection and closeness to European politicians and business moguls
place him in an edge position to deliver on his electoral promises. He brings on board the extensive knowledge he has acquired over the years from his diaspora base.
The ruling party in Delta state has been in power for 22 years with nothing to show for it. Despite
he cash-on-hand gotten as allocation and derivation, the state remains very poor and indebted with all the cash in the purses of some politicians here referred to as ALIBABA.
The candidate of the main opposition party in the state has also been part of the ruling party. There
is hardly anything that he will do differently. The candidate for APGA is exhausted and depleted,
and a deserved rest is what the people of Delta state should recommend for him. The candidate of SDP is a disgruntled member of the ruined ruling party. He is only in the race to seek unmerited
political relevance.
Chief Sunny Ofehe is the only candidate in the race without lacerations and defects. He alone
deserves the support and votes of the good people of Delta state. Deltans must venture despite the arm-twisting and pressure from these failed politicians and retake their destinies in their own hands by voting only credible people to fix Delta state with Comrade Sunny Ofehe as governor.
Nyherovwo Ochuko Ohimor-Eriema
Founder/CEO, Niger Delta Initiative Austria (NDIA)