In Delta, Endorsement is the Name of the Game
It does seem the chances of the governorship candidates in Delta State lie in their endorsements. Omon-Julius Onabu writes
Since the litany of governorship aspirants in Delta State was pruned down following the primary elections by the various political parties late last year, the race has been drastically narrowed to a two or three-horse race at the most. Not unexpectedly, it could be said that the state governorship race in March would be between Dr Ifeanyi Okowa of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the others.
While many observers especially those outside the state would list Olorogun O’tega Emerhor, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate as a major contender apparently on account of the waves being generated nation-wide by the APC, an old horse in the game, Chief Great Ogboru, vowed that the battle would rather be a two-horse race, just as it has been since 2007.
As a matter of fact, he argued that it is going to be between his new party, the Labour Party (LP) and the PDP.
Speaking at his country home in Abraka, Ogboru stressed that his recent endorsement by the UPU has practically put paid to whatever challenge the APC or Emerhor posed. However, the Emerhor camp disagreed with Ogboru’s position.
Emerhor, as the candidate of the APC is the anointed of the UPU by virtue of the formal political resolution of the UPU, which position many believe is synonymous with that of the Urhobo ethnic nationality in its entirety.
This has since become the bone of contention between Ogboru and Emerhor and by extension, between the supporters of the PDP presidential candidate, President Goodluck Jonathan – who has been adopted by Ogboru – and his APC counterpart, Gen Muhammadu Buhari.
Thus, a fierce political battle has been raging between two factions of the otherwise influential socio-cultural group, UPU: the Chief Joe Omene-led backers of Ogboru and the Chief Tuesday Onoge-led breakaway UPU group.
The Uvwiamuge Declaration
On November 4, 2014, the UPU, the sociocultural organisation of the largest ethnic group in Delta State publicly threatened to work against the second term ambition of President Goodluck Jonathan. Why? The organisation’s leadership argued that the president’s party, the PDP, had slighted the Urhobo nation and disregarded its interest by failing to select a governorship candidate of Urhobo ethnic extraction.
The UPU said its stand to have nothing to do with any party without an Urhobo as gubernatorial candidate was in the spirit of “Uvwiamuge Declaration” made earlier by the body in the interest of Urhobo. The public restatement of the Uvwiamuge Declaration took place at the Urhobo Cultural Centre on Okere Road, Warri.
President-General of the UPU, Chief Joe Omene stressed that the body would accept from the political parties nothing short of an Urhobo governorship candidate, and that it would mobilise the Urhobo nation to vote for the presidential candidate of the party that fields a governorship candidate of Urhobo ethnic extraction in the general election.
To drive home its point, some Urhobos believed to be in concert with Dr Uduaghan or backing non-Urhobo governorship aspirants were being “sanctioned by the Urhobo Progress Union until they purged themselves of their anti-Urhobo stance”.
These included Chief Ighoyota Amori, then senior adviser to Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan on political matters and now PDP senatorial candidate for Delta Central; Mr Monday Igbuya, who is the majority leader in the state House of Assembly and Chief Olori Magege, a top-notch of the PDP and a senior member of Ifeanyi Okowa campaign group.
At the time, the organisation, via a communiqué from its previous meeting, noted that Governor Uduaghan and the PDP appeared determined to put forward a candidate from Delta North senatorial zone despite efforts by the union to persuade the governor and the party’s leadership in the state to the contrary.
Omene said the seemingly rigid stand of the UPU was based on the fact that although the PDP has always drawn its political strength from the huge population of Urhobo voters, the Urhobo was often marginalised.
Current appointments into key political positions at the federal level are allegedly lopsided in favour of Delta North zone, the UPU had argued while defending its position on the governorship demand.
The UPU therefore advised President Jonathan to wade into the matter or face mass rejection by Urhobo people at the polls. It noted that “whereas Urhobo in 2011 gave Jonathan over 820,000 votes, Delta North gave him less than 150,000 votes and, the figure from other ethnic groups put together was less than 500,000 votes.
“We profusely appeal to Mr. President and indeed the national leadership of the PDP to consider and accede to the humble request of and demand by Urhobo nation to kindly give the governorship ticket of the PDP to an Urhobo person for there lies true equity, justice and fairness,” the UPU had entreated.
The foregoing obviously set the tone for the spirited but fruitless attempt by the UPU and sympathetic to its course to swing the votes for one of its sons and erstwhile finance commissioner in the Chief James Ibori administration, Olorogun David Edevbie, an apparently late entrant into the race during the PDP governorship primary election.
The UPU once jettisoned its earlier antagonistic disposition towards Governor Uduaghan at the prospect of the emergence of an Urhobo PDP candidate. An Urhobo aspirant and Governor Uduaghan’s deputy, Prof Amos Utuama (SAN) promptly “stepped down” for Edevbie.
Needless to say, with the serving senator representing Delta North, Dr Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa, emerging the PDP governorship candidate, the objective of UPU’s Uvwiamuge Declaration could not be realised on the platform of the PDP.
Nonetheless, two prominent Urhobo sons eventually emerged governorship candidates in the persons of Great Ogboru, who is having a fifth shot at the exalted position having consistently contested it since 2003 and renowned banker and former aspirant, O’tega Emerhor.
However, at a recent executive meeting presided over by the UPU president-general, Omene, the endorsement issue was deliberated upon. The decision allegedly favoured Ogboru, who is regarded as a political heavyweight owing to his popularity but Omene’s deputy, Onoge led a walkout in protest.
Eventually, Onoge announced the alleged expulsion of Omene as the UPU leader and subsequently declared himself as the new chosen president-general of the UPU. He hinged his argument on the Uvwiamuge Declaration, saying Ogboru could not be the beneficiary of the declaration because of his endorsement of President Jonathan of the PDP – which failed to give Urhobo the state’s gubernatorial ticket – and secondly, because of the limited spread of the Labour Party.
Onoge faction’s position has been hailed by APC members with Buhari’s running mate, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, and several individuals and groups paying Onoge solidarity visits at his Effurun residence.
Conversely, Ogboru insisted that “there is no faction in the UPU” saying his endorsement remained sacrosanct because it has the support of “more than 85 per cent of Urhobo sons and daughters.”
He said his chances of emerging victorious have never been brighter especially with the UPU endorsement, which he believes almost automatically guarantees him and the LP the majority votes from ten out of the 25 local government areas of the state.
Ogboru also believes numerous cardcarrying members of the PDP would eventually vote him, stressing that it would be boosted by his maternal connections with Delta North and possible large protest votes due to the apparent political disharmony between the Ijaw and Itsekiri, the major ethnic groups in Delta South senatorial zone.
Meanwhile, observers have continued to be treated to series of political drama, by the grace of the UPU factions. Amid the battle for the soul of the organisation, a new twist has been added to it with a statement by an Urhobo youth activist, Mr Rex Anighoro, accusing the APC’s vice-presidential candidate, Prof Osinbajo of attempting to disparage the Urhobo nation and undermine her socio-cultural honour.
According to Anighoro – a close associate of the leader of Niger Delta People’s Salvation Force, Mujahid Dokubo-Asari – the visit of Osinbajo to Onoge “is an open invitation to anarchy” as the man now regarded as the UPU factional leader stood suspended from the organisation.
In a text message to THISDAY in Warri, Anighoro argued that by visiting Onoge after an earlier visit to the UPU president-general Omene by his principal, Buhari, amounted to Osinbajo “joining forces with those who have collectively undermined the determination of Urhobo people to assert its sovereignty at making choices in its best interest.”
Regardless, the “battle” of endorsement rages on as the Onoge group responded to Anighoro’s outburst pronto, saying it stood more for the collective interest of the Urhobo to have Onoge as UPU mainstream leader.
In his reaction, the Media Campaign Director to APC candidate, Dr. Fred Oghenesivbe, who has since doubled as spokesman for both the APC as well as the Onoge’s UPU group, Lamented that “Anighoro has veered off the part of equity and truth, which is why he made a sudden U-turn from the part of justice and good conscience to compromise his dignity and sincerity”.
He stressed that “Urhobo youth can neither be forced nor coerced into accepting Chief Great Ogboru of the Labour Party, who could not win three straight governorship elections plus a re-run.”
Oghenesivbe also denounced Anighoro for the seven-day ultimatum issued to Osinbajo to sever ties with the Onoge faction of the UPU, claiming that Anighoro was part and parcel of the decision by the Urhobo organisation to dissociate itself from the political scheming of the PDP towards 2015.
He alleged that “Anighoro during the UPU Youth interaction with governorship candidates, which the APC candidate, Olorogun Emerhor attended (but Ogboru was absent), told the huge crowd that the Urhobo nation was no longer interested in doing business with PDP for failing to give Urhobo a gubernatorial candidate. Anighoro’s utterances and declarations at the event are on tapes, both visuals and audio.”