The Governor of Bayelsa State, Douye Diri has disclosed how former President Goodluck Jonathan successfully impacted his political journey to the National Assembly and eventually his present office.
Diri recounted how the former president’s decision altered his political ambition at some point but became a blessing in disguise.
He made the disclosure in Yenegoa, at the service of songs in honour of late Madam Ani-Gunn Rhoda Ikiogha, mother of a former Chief of Staff and Commissioner for Agriculture in the state, Chief Diekivie Ikiogha.
He stated that Ikiogha and himself had been political sons of Jonathan even before he became president and worked together until their political interests failed to align.
According to him, “I have come a long way with Chief Ikiogha. We worked together at some point when he was Chief of Staff, Government House and I was Deputy Chief of Staff. We have been in politics over this period mostly working together.
“But there was a time he left me because we had a conflict of interest. We were very clear on what we wanted, and then our leader was in Abuja as president. So we plotted our political graph with the former governor, Senator Dickson, who was our boss here.
“We agreed that I should go to the Senate and Chief Ikiogha to the House of Reps. We even bought our party’s nomination forms. But we knew that our boss in Abuja will have his own agenda, which we cannot stop and can only collapse ours into his plan.
“Eventually the former president came with his agenda and it consumed all of us. We had agenda number two and that was when my friend, Ikiogha, disagreed with me and for the very first time we parted ways.
“That agenda was what paved the way for me to be elected as a member of the House of Reps (in 2015) by virtue of the Senate position being zoned to Yenagoa, and Ikiogha could not get the ticket.“
Diri, however, noted that Ikiogha contributed greatly to his re-election in 2023 to the point of being a target of the opposition, who attacked his residence because he left their camp to work for him.
He stressed that in all that transpired, the late Ma Ikiogha was a rallying point for her son and his political associates, including those in the opposition, noting that she was always accommodating.
He urged the family to take solace in the fact that she left glowing legacies as a devoted Christian and that her life was being celebrated for touching lives in different ways.