This, of course, is on the platform of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Delta Central has produced two governors — Olorogun Felix Ibru and Chief James Onanefe Ibori for three and eight years, respectively, while Delta South produced incumbent Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan, whose eight-year tenure of two terms of four years will end in 2015.
That leaves Delta North as the only zone that has not presented a governor since the state was created. But in a move, which may signal a stiff opposition to power shift in the state, chieftains of the PDP are at war an alleged arrangement on moving the governorship to Delta North.
Incidentally, a member of Governor Uduaghan’s cabinet and Secretary to the State Government, Comrade Ovouzourie Macaulay stirred the hornet nest last week. Fielding questions from reporters in Asaba, the capital city of the state, Macaulay said that before now, he had thrown his full weight behind the emergence of a candidate from the Igbo-speaking part of the state, which makes up the Delta North senatorial district.
However, he said he was beginning to be sceptical about the agenda, even as he denied the existence of an agreement for power shift among the three senatorial districts in the state.
But in a swift reaction, the Chairman of the Delta State chapter of the PDP, Chief Peter Onyeluka Nwaoboshi, faulted the SSG’s vehement denial of an agreement for power shift among the three districts in the state.
Stung by Macaulay’s recent revelation, Nwaoboshi, an Anioma from Ibusa, Oshimili North Local Council of the state, said that the government scribe was not a founding member of the PDP in 1998 and so, he was not in a position to speak on the authenticity of the accord.
Still, a top member of the PDP, Chief Felix Anirah, joined the fray, backing Macaulay’s assertion, and engaging in a verbal duel with Chief Nwaoboshi. Anirah, a staunch member of the Urhobo Political Congress (UPC), told The Guardian in a telephone interview from his Sapele home that nobody would succumb to such baseless agitation by the people of Delta North “who have been drumming support for power shift to the senatorial district.”
The Urhobo leader faulted the PDP chairman, saying politics is a game of number, “which needs suitable candidate, and not mediocre under the guise of power shift to rule the state.” But Nwaoboshi has dismissed Anirah, insisting that those who took such a stand were political neophytes, as “they were not there when the unwritten agreement was made.”
Macaulay, a close confidant of Governor Uduaghan and a member of the G-3, which campaigned vigorously for Uduaghan’s enthronement in 2007, explained that he would have preferred a candidate from Delta North, who has a pan-Delta agenda. He decried what he termed an ethnic-based campaign with all the cacophony of power shift, “which almost all the candidates from the district are currently engaged in.” He pointed out that, as the only the senatorial district that was yet to produce the governorship of the state, as the Urhobo of the Central senatorial district have had it twice in the person of Senator Felix Ibru and Chief James Ibori while Uduaghan is from Delta South senatorial district, “the Anioma people truly deserve the support of the other districts.”
Macaulay faulted the Anioma candidates’ campaign slogan of equity and fairness, advising that the proper thing for them to do is to mount a campaign through out the length and breadth of the state, outlining their dreams and vision for the state.
He said he was turned off by the negative campaign of marginalisation being labeled against the past rulers of the state by Anioma candidates.
“This smacks of an intention to engage in vendetta against the people of South and Central districts should an Anioma person become governor in 2015,” he said. He charged:
“I was initially very enthusiastic about an Anioma governor, as Delta North is the only district that is yet to produce the governorship of the state. “But I am afraid that they may not get the support of the other districts if they don’t change their style. There is no need for this strident cry of marginalisation.
“It is a pointer that the Anioma are out for a revenge mission against the other parts of the state should they win in 2015. “I think the proper thing for them to do is to campaign and sell their agenda for transforming the state to the people.
“With the way they are going about it, I am afraid that people like us will not support an Anioma person for the governorship, as we are scared.”
The Government Secretary insisted that as an insider, he was not aware of any agreement between the Anioma and other parts of the state for a power shift, adding that, even if there was one, it was crystal clear that the people and leaders of Delta North never faithfully adhered to it.
Macaulay noted that during the last elections in 2011, the votes of Delta northerners were shared between Uduaghan of the PDP and Chief Great Ogboru of the main opposition Democratic Peoples Party.
He stressed that this was the reason Ogboru won convincingly in four local councils in Delta North and ran neck and neck with Uduaghan in the other five. He said: “If at all, there was an agreement, the proper thing to have been done for the agreement to be valid was for the people of Delta North to vote massively for Uduaghan.
“Since nothing like that happened in the election, such an agreement is not valid. For the avoidance of doubt, the opposition had 12 members in the House of Assembly.”
Macaulay remarked that he was yet to take a political decision for the forthcoming elections but would support “any candidate who has a vision of taking the state to a higher level instead of a narrow selfish and ethnic agenda.” But begging to differ, the PDP chair, Chief Nwaoboshi, said Macaulay, an Isoko from the town of Owhelogbo in Delta South, was a practicing journalist way back in 1999 when the military handed over power to civilians. “And so, he (Macaulay) is not in a vantage position to comment on the political arithmetic of the state,” he said. Continuing, Nwaoboshi remarked that the SSG was only appointed, as commissioner, towards the tail end of the first tenure of Ibori’s administration and so, was a neophyte “when it comes to party administration.” Nwaoboshi said:
“Macaulay is not in a position to know if there was an agreement on power shift or not in the state. “He wasn’t there in 1998 when we founded the PDP and was only bought in towards the tail end of the first tenure of Ibori. “He was a practicing journalist in 1999 and does not understand party administration. His views are personal and of no consequence.” Still in his attempt to set the record straight, Nwaoboshi let it be known that Ibori won all the nine local councils of Delta North in the state in 1999 and 2003, a fact, which he insisted Macaulay should have taken into consideration instead of dwelling only on the re-run governorship between Uduaghan of the PDP and Chief Great Ogboru of the opposition DPP and the election of 2011.
Having had over 10 years stint in government, Nwaoboshi conceded that Macaulay may be an insider in government but that he was an outsider as far as party politics was concerned in the state. “It is on record that he (Macaulay) lost his home council of Isoko North in the re-run election of January 2011,” Nwaoboshi said. Meanwhile, Chief Anirah has recalled that all the elections in Delta State were contested, too, by people from Delta North, wondering why a part of the state would want an exclusive right to the Government House in Asaba.
He demanded clarification, as regards the so-called agreement paper on power shift to Delta North, “the names of those who wrote it, signed it and those who represented the Urhobo nation in the drafting of the agreement.”
According to Anirah, the issue of power shift was a gimmick by some politicians, “who feel that they must govern the state forever and hold it to ransom.” He said: “In fact, that insinuation (power shift) emanated from a beer parlour talk that must be discarded with a wave of (the) hand. “He who comes to equity must come with a clean hand.
A part of the state undemocratically got the capital of the state to Asaba, which is the extreme end of the state and nobody complained about it. “Democracy does not tolerate power shift; whoever emerges from a free and fairly contested election becomes the governor.
Why should they be crazy for power shift if they are good enough?”
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