Rather than abating, the battle to succeed the Delta state Governor Emmaneul Uduaghan in 2015 among men and women jostling for the plum position has assumed a dangerous dimension.
Though, the race is still far off, the contenders and various interest groups and camps have started to plot the surprises that would characterize the race next year.
While Delta Northerners – comprising the Ibo speaking axis of the oil rich state are saying ‘it is our turn and will never share our slot with any other ethnic nationality in the state, other districts, comprising the Urhobos, the Ijaws, the Isokos, the Itshekiris of Delta Central and South are of the opinion that since the Ibo axis does not constitute the majority group in the state, the governorship seat can therefore go to any district.
The verbal war that ensued thereafter threw the powers-that-be in the state into confusion, leading to an attempt on the life of the former Speaker of the state’s House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Victor Ochei, a multi-billionaire Engineer, who narrowly escaped being lynched during one of his ‘mosquito’ campaigns at Obomkpa in Aniocha North Local Government Area of the state.
The dust raised by that had not settled when again, the chairman of the state chapter of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Peter Nwaoboshi and the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Comrade Ovouzerie Macaulay, declared war on each other over which of the three senatorial districts of the state would produce Governor Emmanuel Eweta Uduaghan’s successor in 2015.
Prior to this, Chief Clark banged the governorship door against two powerful contenders – his godson, Elder Godsday Orubebe and former Speaker Ochei.
Although, Ochei immediately played cool when the elder statesman pass a vote of no confidence on him, accusing of stealing billions of naira belonging to the state, he however received the reward of Clark’s accusation last month when he lost his position as the Speaker of the state in an orchestrated hi-tech politics of the state.
The latest is that ‘if care is not taken, the newly formed and registered All Progressives Congress (APC), being led, sponsored and financed, by the former Governor of Lagos state, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, which appears lukewarm in the state, may gain in-road in the state in 2015.’
No thanks to the fact that many supporters and loyalists of PDP in the state are ready to spill the bean by hobnobbing with the rival party ahead of 2015 governorship contest.
Since the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) released the time-table for next year general election, those jostling to succeed the incumbent Governor, who hails from the Governor’s Delta South Senatorial district, have suddenly become desperate in their conspiracy game.
Whether you like it or not, elections in Delta state are strictly a game of conspiracy. Hence, “conspiracy” and “game” have again become useful theoretical frameworks for scoring political goals among the “Big Three”, as they are fondly referred to – ex Speaker Ochei, former President Goodluck Jonathan’s Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Elder Godsday Orubebe and the Senator, representing Delta North Senatorial district, Dr. Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa, who are now wearing coats of many colours for the battle.
Since Nigeria reverted to democracy in 1999, when the former helmsman, Chief Ibori, was in-charge, the conspiracy was skewed by the founding fathers of the ruling PDP in the state to favour the Urhobo ethnic nationality. Hence, Ibori ruled the state for eight years, having succeeded his kinsman, Olorogun Felix Ibru, who was later kicked out of office through power hijack by the military.
Although, the “Big Three” have since locked themselves up in hi-tech subterranean moves and are yet come up with a blueprint for the development of the state, faceless groups, corporate organizations, socio-political pressure groups, women affairs and community development commissions, who have laid claim to the wind of positive change in the state, have started drumming support for their preferred aspirants, even as the Chairperson of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSTIF), Chief Dr. (Mrs.) Ngozi Olejeme, an aspirant, is leading the battle from another end to “to politically salvage the plights of women in the state.”
While the ex-Speaker’s unfathomable politics ahead of the race, the Eagle Online gathered, has thrown the camp of Senator Okowa into confusion, Orubebe’s full-scale challenge, laced with Abuja might, to pose challenge from Uduaghan’s senatorial district, has further threatened PDP togetherness.
Ochei, now a force to reckon with in Delta politics, boldly decamped to the ruling PDP after winning the Aniocha North Constituency seat in 2003, on the platform of the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP). Because he is level-headed, human and delivered on his campaign promises, his people re-elected him in 2007 under PDP umbrella. That saw to his rising profile in the politics of the state. The mantle of leadership of the House fell on him shortly after Okowa resigned as the Secretary to the State Government (SSG) in the build up to 2011 general election to contest for Senate.
Okowa soon defeated the wife of the former National Chairman of the PDP, Mrs. Nneamaka Ali, the Enyi-kpakpando (Elephant with shining stars) of Asaba. The victory was not without Ochei’s full support, who allegedly calculated that his chance has come to become the Speaker. Before Okowa left for Abuja, Comrade Macaulay, now Nwaoboshi’s arch-enemy, was appointed by Governor Uduaghan to replace Okowa as the SSG. Since Macaulay hails from the Governor’s Delta South district and the state’s deputy Governor, Prof. Amos Utuama (SAN) is from Delta Central, the Speaker was therefore, zoned to Delta North, being the number three man in the state. – That was how Ochei became the Speaker. Having assumed the seat, like Oliver Twist, he needed more. He is now aspiring to be the next Governor of the state. After all, he has a great sense of aesthetics, judging from the way he turned around the dilapidated face of the state’s Assembly complex within his first two years in office. Will he realize his dream? His rejection by the elder statesman (Clark) who described him as “unclean” owing to his involvement in the N27 billion state’s Independent Power Plant (IPP) money at Oghara, Ethiope West Local Government Area of the state, has further weakened his chance. The Speaker has since denied the allegation but the ghost keeps tormenting him.
Yes, Elder Orubebe said he resigned from President Jonathan cabinet to do the governorship battle. He has since declared his intention to slug it out with others in 2015. He recently fell out with his godfather, Chief Clark, having engaged him in war of words over who should succeed Governor Uduaghan in 2015. His utterances then earned the former Minister a suspension from the PDP in his home town – Burutu Local Government Area of the state. Who knows whether it was upheld or has been lifted? Clark told Orubebe point-blank to stop parading himself as governorship aspirant of the state because he won’t get there.
Orubebe incurred the wrath of the elder statesman when he allegedly, according to Chief Sunday Iyawa, a member of the Forum of Delta State Elders, Leaders, Stakeholders, in a “thievish and treacherous way deleted the names of the nominees Clark forwarded for the tripartite reconciliation / harmonization exercise that would sanitized the state’s chapter of the PDP”, a development, Iyawa said “eventually threw the Minister into a state of nature where anything goes.”
Instead for Orubebe to be quiet as Ochei did when the elder statesman accused him of stealing IPP money, he engaged him in a dagger drawn. He hurled printable and unprintable words on Clark through his media aide, one Ekwagbe, who Chief Iyawa, later described as “a man who has ignoble privilege of serving as the Minister’s Special Adviser”, regretting that Obubebe “obviously morally beleaguered Minister, came out of obscurity to make vituperative representation against Chief E.K. Clark, a nationalist, Statesman, former Hon. Commissioner for Education, Midwest state (1962-1972), Hon. Federal Commissioner of Information (1972-1975) foremost Ijaw National Leader, who has not spiced up firm belief in the self-affirmation of the Ijaw, with pettiness and irredentism.”
According to Iyawa, “the banal privilege of counselling Orubebe for the unfortunate duration that he served in the undeserved pomp and platitudes of unmerited ministerial office”, wondering why Ekwagbe, failed to white-wash how the ex-Minister) “acquired more than 20 houses in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) outside his monthly emoluments.”
He said, “and by tragic ventriloquist accident, his former boss, Godsday Orubebe, in the foot with his bolt from the blue, an unmistakable whopper-snapper blunder, couched, as it were, in the opprobrious dress of cheap hero-worship, self disdain and a tragic misjudgement of intricacies of the political firmament. In the light of the weighty allegations of corruption against Mr. Orubebe, coupled with his many sins and failure to deliver on his mandate we demand for his immediate resignation as cabinet member. Besides, we call on anti-graft agencies to commence the immediate investigation of all allegations of corruption against the minister in the interest of fairness and justice. As for his unbridled 2015 governorship ambition, we wish to maintain that the Oracle (Clark) has spoken. There is no way he can make it. He can never be the governor of Delta state.” Orubebe is unperturbed; he has opened a self-imposing Delta Peoples Forum (DPF) secretariat, along Government House road, in Asaba, where he declared his ambition to contest in 2015, maintaining that the good people of Delta state are calling on him to contest. Will he win or what political platform will he use?
While Ochei and Orubebe posters have littered the streets of the state, Senator Okowa, Ibori’s Commissioner for Health before he became Governor Uduaghan’s SSG, has not stopped permutation. If not that he was prevailed upon by the national body of the PDP, former President Olusegun Obsanjo and his political godfather – Ibori in 2007, when he engage Uduaghan in a run-up election after the party’s primary election at Ogwashi-Uku, in Aniocha South Local Government Area of the state, he would probably be the Governor of the state now. He has since incurred the wrath of his teeming supporters for ‘selling out’ the chance of a Delta Northerner (the Ibo Speaking axis of Delta) from becoming the Governor.
The ghost of the chance he lost that year is still tormenting him. Although, he became the “Ekwueme of Delta North politics” thereafter, gained favour in the sight of Ibori and was recognized as a ‘loyal party man’ by Uduaghan and PDP national body, he has since portrayed himself as an unpredictable politician to his supporters. Yes, thousands of followers are still behind him, the massive consultation he is doing with the inner caucus of his campaign organization has not seen the light of the day. Ochei who would have worked for him has the same ambition even as 90 per cent of his supporters are yet to recover from the way he chickened out of the race in 2007.
Besides, he is yet to fully pacify the way he molested Mrs. Ali, the wife of the former national chairman of PDP (Senator Ahmadu Ali) during the 2011 senatorial race, despite the fact that the state chairman of the party, Chief Nwaoboshi, was fronting for her. Already, his stickers for 2015 gubernatorial race have flooded the state, such that, his loyalists now wear stickers on their cars but will he make it? Aside that Ochei has indicated interest in the race, he has since been endorsed by an Isoko bloc at Chief Abel Ubeku’s house in far-away Lagos state, a development which later torn the unity of Isoko leaders into shred, or is Ochei simply showcasing Okowa’s face in disguise?
It is clear that Okowa is not in the good book of Nwaoboshi, judging from the way he maltreated his godmother (Mrs. Ali). The Governor’s SSG whose Isoko bloc has endorsed Ochei, allegedly through the instrumentality of the SSG, has since engaged Nwaoboshi in war of words, which may have damaged Ochei’s image before Nwaoboshi, such that the only person left Orubebe whose happens to come from Uduaghan’s district. Nwaoboshi, a Delta Northerner, will definitely prefer to die than to hand over PDP flag to a Delta Southerner again. The crisis has forced interest groups to lash out at the SSG, even as opposing groups have called for the immediate resignation of Nwaoboshi.
Besides, the heavy-weight contenders, -Chief Godswill Obielum, a retired Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) during the tenure of the former Governor of Rivers state, Chief Peter Odili, is in the race. He contested the position during the 2007 PDP primaries but lost to Uduaghan. He brandished Abuja might in 2007. He must have learnt his lesson. He was forceful before he was made to bow to the grassroot forces by Ibori. Before he failed the party’s primary election at Ogwashi-Uku, he told anybody that cares to listen that he would succeed Ibori, until he became the scapegoat of the ‘give-and-take’ politics between the former President Obasanjo and Ibori, when they both substituted former Senator Francis Osakwe, who they planted in the Accord Party against PDP’s Nneamaka Ali and Obielum for Uduaghan. A PDP source in the state said “the caucus of the party will soon spring its surprise as Ibori did in 2007.” What did Ibori do? He waited till the 11th hour before anointing Uduaghan. The source however said the pendulum is gradually settling for a favoured candidate. Now that one-time Commissioner for Health, Commissioner for Information, under the defunct administration of Ibori, former Director of Protocol under the present administration of Governor Uduaghan, and now, the Chief of Staff of the state, Dr. Festus Okunbor. Okunbor, the Eagle online further gathered, has distinguished himself as a party man and more importantly during the rerun and 2011 elections when he delivered as the Director of Uduaghan Campaign Organization, is in the race, who will stop him? He has since embarked on statewide consultation.
Are all roads now leading to APC? It is being highly speculated across the state that the fight for APC ticket in the state has thickened among aggrieved PDP aspirants, now tagged as “would-be PDP defectors”. While it was said that Okowa, who tops the list of Nwaoboshi’s “enemies”, has since secured APC ticket to realize his ambition, and Ochei who recently experienced the big-stick of the powers-that-be in the state was said to have been sighted in the rival party at “night”, Orubebe and Ochei were recently said to have again trailed him to the party, what can the just in PDP in the state do?
Although, the “Big Three” have all served under Ibori, the tension being generated within the party in the state have compelled pundits to opine that ‘if Abuja exerts too much power on who holds the PDP ticket in the state, other aspirants may be forced to run under opposition parties and use grassroots power against the federal might.’ Meanwhile, APC is patiently waiting for PDP money-bags to come.