Former Delta State governor, James Ibori, the incumbent governor, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, Senator representing Delta North and former Chairman, Peoples
Former Delta State governor, James Ibori, the incumbent governor, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, Senator representing Delta North and former Chairman, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Chief Peter Nwaoboshi, Senator Ighoyota Amori, Chief Strategist to the Delta State Government, Chief Paulinus Akpeki and other PDP leaders in the state, especially members of the Ibori political family, have unanimously asked the former governor of the state, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, to stop his supposed arrangement to leave the party for the All Progressives Congress, APC.
APC, which recently welcomed the ex governor of Akwa Ibom state and former Senate Minority Leader, Godswill Akpabio, from the PDP, was already clinking glasses in advance for Uduaghan’s entry into the party when Ibori, Okowa and other party chieftains in the state moved in to terminate the festivity. An APC leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity to Vanguard said, “It is a foregone conclusion, I can tell you that it is just matter of days, Uduaghan is with us. Our Delta South senatorial ticket is for him. We have also restored his security paraphernalia, which they withdrew from him. He is coming from the national, not state level, so I do not think there is anything that can stop him.
“Since they are maltreating him in the party he joined to build, we know the havoc he can do to them if he is on our side and APC wants to take over Delta state. With him, we would know how to chase out PDP; after all, he won election two times as governor of the state. He knows the ins and outs, you cannot tell me that with somebody like him, we cannot win Delta,” he ecstatically said.
Sources familiar with the issues that nearly threw spanner in the work, hinted that Uduaghan was basically gnashing his teeth over the mind-set of his successor, Okowa, towards him since he handed over to him in 2015, largely on the subject of his political ambition and necessary entitlements. It was gathered that Okowa was still bitter with Uduaghan over his choice for a different candidate in the primaries that he (Okowa) finally won. Despite Uduaghan’s latter support for him, he did not bother to accept his handover notes and there was a cold war between them for nearly two years.
“Uduaghan threw everything in for Okowa to win but Okowa was still bitter that Uduaghan did not support him before the primaries. Uduaghan was financially emasculated as his entitlements were not paid and he was basically reduced to a minion in the new dispensation under Okowa, where he could not even hold sway in his local government area, Warri North, let alone get the governor’s ears for his senatorial ambition.
The elaborate plan by Uduaghan to move to APC jolted Ibori, who, all the while, just thought that the animosity between Uduaghan and Okowa would soon fizzle out. In the words of a top PDP chieftain: “It was then that he (Ibori) woke up from his slumber and decided to call Okowa to order before things would go out of hand.”
Series of meetings were convened between Ibori, Uduaghan and Okowa, while Okowa and Uduaghan also held a private meeting. The Ibori political family also met over the matter severally. Meetings were held at Oghara, Asaba, Lagos and other places in the country with a caveat that Uduaghan must not be allowed to go. But some of the intercessors also took side with Okowa, saying that he was only paying Uduaghan back in his own coin.
However, the former governor, who evidently managed more elections than many of his peers during his time and was tagged an election expert by APC at a time, was so furious in one of the meetings that he warned that it was unwise to undermine anybody’s capacity to wreak havoc to the PDP, alter and mutilate the political picture in the state. “That was when they saw that he meant business and they started begging one to reconsider his stand,” the source added.
