By Adeleye Kunle
Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, Deputy Senate President and Delta APC Governorship Candidate, has appointed Elder Godsday Orubebe, former Minister of Niger Delta Affairs under President Goodluck Jonathan regime as Director-General of the Delta All Progressives Congress, APC, Gubernatorial Campaign Organization, TrackNews reports.
Omo-Agege said Orubebe is bringing a towering wealth of experience, and will oversee all ramifications of the campaign for the mandate of Deltans in the 2023 governorship elections, in a statement made available by Director, Communications and Media Strategy, Ima Niboro for Delta APC Gubernatorial Campaign Organisation on Wednesday.
“Orubebe will lead critical engagements and drive consultations alongside me, and his renowned toughness will up the ante for the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.” “We will show the PDP the way out of Government House on May 29, 2023, along with the rest of the team,” he said.
He noted that the choice of the Ijaw-born politician was simple, given his knowledge, capacity, and pedigree. “Bringing him on board immediately strengthens the campaign organization and creates a strategic redoubt of key stakeholders at the grassroots for the upcoming campaign.”
“When news of Elder Godsday Orubebe’s resignation from the PDP filtered in, June, our campaign organization applauded him for toeing the path of progress and enjoined him to pitch tent with progressives in the APC, and assist in the task of taking over Government House come 2023,” he said.
‘I am proud to announce that he answered that call and joined our party, the APC, in his Burutu Local Government Area ward.”
“Having been a supervisory councillor and chairman of local government, a state party chairman, and a two-time minister of the federal republic, he will bring to our campaign organization his vast reach at the grassroots, as well as at the state and federal levels,” Omo-Agege said.
Orubebe was born on June 6, 1959, at Ogbobagbene in Delta state’s Burutu Local Government Area. He earned a B.Sc. in Political Science from the University of Lagos in 1985. He later earned a master’s degree in International Relations from Ambrose Alli University in Ekpoma.
Orubebe served as a supervisory councilor and later as the chairman of the Burutu LGA. President Umru Musa Yar’adua appointed him Minister of Special Duties in July 2007. When the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs was established in December 2008, he was appointed as Minister of State for Niger Delta Affairs.
When he eventually became a full-fledged minister in that ministry, one of his major accomplishments was to expedite the construction of the East/West Highway. Under his leadership, the ministry built 38 of the 42 bridges and over 900 of the 1000 culverts designed for the road.
Orubebe was also at the forefront of negotiating peace with Niger Delta militant groups, who had reduced crude oil production in Nigeria from over 2.5 million barrels per day to less than 400,000 barrels per day in protest of perceived social, economic, and environmental injustice in the region.
He shares credit for establishing the Niger Delta Amnesty Programme, which successfully won the hearts and minds of most Niger Deltans and brought peace to the region, with then Vice President, and later President Goodluck Jonathan.
Orubebe resigned in February 2014 to run for governor of Delta State in the run-up to the 2015 general election.
Remember that Orubebe was a staunch supporter of former President Goodluck Jonathan, pausing the announcement of election results on national television in 2015 when it became clear that President Jonathan was losing.
