DELTA 2015: THE BIG BATTLE FOR UDUAGAHAN’S SEAT BEGINS

For all the efforts being put in by various aspirants in Delta State for the 2015 governorship election, the main obstacle today is Chief Edwin Clark, leader of the Ijaw nation and a minister in the First Republic. 

The elder statesman, regarded as the godfather of President Goodluck Jonathan is showing anybody within sight that he is in charge. But for how long can Clark hold the state?  DOMINIC ADEWOLE in Asaba reports that Delta, like in previous elections, revolves on a web of conspiracy. Result: The answer might be in a different direction.

The intrigues that trailed the 2007 governorship election in Delta State is rearing its head again. That was when the erstwhile Governor of the oil rich state, Chief James Onanefe Ibori, in collaboration with former President Olusegun Obasanjo, in what looked like a give-and-take politics, anointed and delivered Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan as  the governor of the state.

This time, the crisis is not between the faction of Ibori and the foremost Ijaw leader and former Minister of Information in the First Republic, Chief Edwin Kiagbodo Clark’s faction. Far from that, it is the elder statesman’s camp that is in disarray. 

His godson, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Elder Godsday Orubebe, has engaged him in war of words over who succeeds Uduaghan in 2015.

Clark did not only take Orubebe to the cleaners for eyeing the governorship seat of the state, come 2015, but told him point blank that the seat was not meant for “political rascals” like him.

Orubebe, the Nigerian Compass gathered, incurred the wrath of the elder statesman when he allegedly deleted the names of the nominees Clark forwarded for the tripartite reconciliation / harmonisation exercise that would sanitize the state’s chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) family.

Between 2007 and late 2010, it was a serious political war between Clark’s faction of the state PDP, under the auspices of  the Forum of Delta State Elders, Leaders and Stakeholders, which Orubebe belongs, and Ibori’s faction of the party, which Uduaghan and a host of others at the corridor of power in the state, belong to. 

Although, Ibori defeated Clark politically, the elder statesman was instrumental to his journey to jail after he left office.

In a new twist ahead of 2015 governorship election in the state, the Ijaw Leader rejected Orubebe, laying to rest the rumour that he(Clark) was behind his 2015 governorship. Clark is now at daggers drawn with Orubebe, calling him all sorts of, printable and unprintable names, even as Orubebe has allegedly blacklisted the elder statesman.

Although, a political analyst has described the development as  the usual conspiracy game ahead of 2015 general elections”, others said “it was the will of Governor Uduaghan that Clark and Orubebe should not have peace and part of his moves to realise his ulterior motive for 2015, “having suffered grievously in the hands of the elder statesman after Ibori anointed and single-handedly installed him as Governor in 2007.”

Following the demise of his boss, President Musa Yar’Adua in 2009, Clark’s faction of the party, swiftly forwarded Elder Orubebe’s name from their faction to President Jonathan to be appointed as a Minister from Delta State. His name immediately received Presidential nod because President Jonathan himself acknowledges the South-South leadership (where he hails from) of Clark, as he was once under the elder statesman’s tutelage. 

The choice of Orubebe allegedly destabilised Ibori’s camp and pissed off Governor Uduaghan, whose list of ministerial nominees was eventually dropped. 

The Governor allegedly felt jilted. Angered by this, the Governor, the Nigerian Compass, gathered, mobilised his boys at the Senate to disown him during screening, which informed why no Senator from Delta State, even his brother from the same Senatorial district, James Manager, volunteered to clear him on the floor of the Senate when he was called up for screened.

The refusal of any Senator from Delta State to speak in Orubebe’s favour was responsible for why he was not cleared the first time he appeared for screening. 

Senate President, David Mark, politely turned him back when he said, “Elder Orubebe, please, go back to your state and put your house in order.” 

It was clear that Governor Uduaghan was aggrieved at what became of his list and the state he is over-seeing. Much as Clark and his group – Forum of Delta State Elders, Leaders and Stakeholders, heaped blames on the Governor, coupled with the salvoes thrown at him by the elder statesman, who told those who care to listen then that “Uduaghan likes it or not, Orubebe will be sworn in as a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria”, the Governor declined comment. 

He  broke his silence after much taunting, when he subtly responding through his Chief Press Secretary (CPS), Mr. Sunny Ogefere, that, “My boss should be left out of Orubebe’s predicament. He (Orubebe) is on his own.”

Time to heal the broken cord between the Governor and the elder statesman came in 2011 when President Jonathan was canvassing for votes to be elected as President. In an anticlockwise way, the healing grace of President Jonathan re-election settled the old scores between the Governor and Clark, which now backfired on Orubebe. 

The Minister soon fell out with his godfather (Clark) and stuck to Uduaghan.  That was for reasons that he was nurturing a governorship ambition. The reunion between Governor Uduaghan and Orubebe came barely few months after the Governor also reunited with the elder statesman. In other words, Uduaghan appears to be laughing last.

The politics that played out thereafter immediately threw Clark’s political empire into disarray. It did not only weaken the once formidable forum of Delta State Elders, Leaders and Stakeholders, on which Clark leans, but revealed the aftermath of the conspiracy game against Ibori and Uduaghan, and informed the unrestricted disownment of Orubebe for Governor, come 2015, by Clark. 

Why the question of “who laughs last” rages round the Big Heart state, the Speaker of the state’s House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Victor Ochei, an Engineer, who had laid siege to succeed Uduaghan, fumed over the “uncomplimentary” statement by Clark against him that “he (the Speaker) embezzled over N27b, the total sum meant for the fixing of turbines and its accessories for the Independent Power Plant (IPP) being financed and sponsored by the Delta State Government and therefore not qualified to join the state’s governorship race”. 

Clark’s  big stick on Ochei  came the same day he washed off his hands from Orubebe’s ambition to succeed Uduaghan. 

Apart from Orubebe, who hails from Governor Uduaghan’s Delta South Senatorial district and Ochei, who is from Delta North, over six contenders have indicated interest in the 2015 race.  Two former Commissioners under Ibori’s administration, the incumbent Senator, representing Delta North Senatorial District, Dr. Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa and Chief Clement Ofuani; former Commissioner for Economic Planning who was later appointed as a Special Assistant by President Jonathan, have indicated interest.

Okowa was one of the 2007 PDP’s governorship aspirants. His chance of engaging Uduaghan in a run-up was allegedly cut-short by the powers-that-be in PDP in Abuja that year. As Ibori’s Commissioner for Health, he harkened to voice of his master, stepped down for Uduaghan and was swiftly appointed as Secretary to the State Government (SSG). Determined to aim higher, in 2011, he picked the Delta North’s Senatorial ticket, slugged it out with the wife of the former National Chairman of his party, Mrs. Mariam Nneamaka Ali whom he defeated before losing the seat to Senator Francis Osakwe. Osakwe was planted in the Accord Party (AP) in a  political arrangement that played out between Obasanjo and Ibori. 

Okowa, the Nigerian Compass gathered, decided to settle for the senatorial seat to boost his profile when he would come out in 2015 and to give his governorship ambition the necessary national outlook it needed. 

While he was permutating on how to gain an in-road to the Government House, Asaba, a political pressure group, Delta Focus (DF) advised him in a statement signed by its chairman, one Comrade Joshua Egun Okoh, and Comrade Sunday A. Ohwoyigho (Secretary) to extend his magnanimity again to Speaker Ochei by staying put in Abuja, step down for Ochei, in 2015. 

They hinged their plea on the surprises that engulfed partisan politics between 1999 and especially 2011 in the state when Ochei was Okowa’s ardent loyalist and worked tirelessly for him to realise his senatorial ambition. They made allusion to tensed politics that finally nailed Mrs. Ali, who stormed the state with Abuja might with the support of the state chairman of the PDP, Chief Peter Nwaoboshi, during the Delta North Senatorial district’s PDP primary election .

The group said, “The role played by Hon. Ochei to ensure that Senator Okowa became victorious in the election was unquantifiable. We are all aware of several times the primary election for the senate in Delta North Senatorial District was conducted before Okowa eventually won. 

The strong opposition during the general election was not easy to conquer. In all these, Hon. Victor Ochei stood behind him to ensure total victory. It would be wise if Senator Okowa musters support for Hon. Victor Ochei who has brighter chances of clinching the PDP governorship ticket in the state, come 2015. When it comes to the general election, electorates from the three senatorial districts will vote for him more than any other candidate.”

The Speaker, who has now become a factor to reckon with in the build up to 2015 election in the state, following the leadership qualities he exhibited with the facelift he gave to the state’s Assembly complex, recently told the Anioma Agenda (a political pressure group, fronting for an Anioma governor in 2015) when they consulted him, that the struggle to succeed Uduaghan “is a collective family affair”, even as he said the race would not be that of the highest bidder.

Aside Ochei, the Presidential Adviser on Project Monitoring and Evaluation, Prof. Sylvester Monye, who hails from Onicha-Ugbo axis of Delta North, is also said to be warming up, alongside the former Acting Governor of the state, Prince Sam Obi, who is banking on his experience as former Speaker and the 90 days he enjoyed as Governor when the Court of Appeal ousted Uduaghan out of office on November 2010, before he bounced back in 2011. Who knows whether another of Ibori’s aide, now Governor Uduaghan’s Commissioner for Special Duties, Ide Tony Nwaka, would express interest as it was being speculated?

But pundits are of the opinion that the insiders’ game being orchestrated by the incumbent Governor may not favour any of the aforementioned contenders but a Government House man, who the Nigerian Compass gathered, was currently occupying a vantage position at the Government House, Asaba, and also former Commissioner for Information to Ibori’s administration.

Okowa is not the only Senator eyeing the seat anyway. Pius Ewheirdo, representing Delta Central Senatorial district on the platform of DPP, who is unperturbed that his kinsman (Ibori) has done it for eight years but under PDP, is waiting patiently to slug it out with the above named contenders from the Upper Chamber. Although, Ewherido, , has coasted to victory virtually in all his endeavours, he may not enjoy the same in 2015 as his party (DPP), which Chief Great Ogboru, financed and sponsored for 10 years but failed, recently rejected him for anti-party activities. The “new face of Ogboru”, which he has brandished for two years at the Senate may experience setback as speculation is rife across the state that his party slammed him with suspension because he was hobnobbing with the controversial All Progressive Congress (APC), initiated by the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). 

While Ewherido has kept mute on the crisis surrounding his suspension, Orubebe is threatening fire and brimstone over anybody who wants to be a stumbling block to the realisation of his dream in 2015. The Minister, who reacted through his former Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Ekenwan Ekwagbe, wondered why the elder statesman has continued to embarrass President Goodluck Jonathan via his utterances and disrespect for constituted authority. He threatened that whether Clark likes it or not, his boss (Orubebe) will contest the governorship seat.”

The Minister went ahead to indict Clark for his unguided comment on Delta 2015, maintaining that “Clark is not in the position to decide who becomes the next Governor of Delta state.” 

He said Clark embarked on vindictive mission, having sponsored his son, Ebikime, for the House of Representatives in 2011 but failed. While saying “who has Clark not embarrassed”, he urged the teeming supporters of the Minister to discountenance the comment of the elder statesman, regard it as one of those damning declarations of his, and continue with the political structural adjustment campaign of the Minister.

But, associates of Clark would not let Orubebe get away with what they described as “unguarded vituperations” he hurled on the elder statesman through his former Special Adviser, one Ekenwan Ekwagbe. What did they do? In a three-page statement, ably signed by an elder statesman, Chief Sunday Iyawa, a staunch member of the Delta State Forum of Elders, Leaders and Stakeholders,wondered why Ekwagbe’s “ignoble privilege of serving as the Minister’s Special Adviser” permits him to “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, foremost Ijaw National Leader, who has not spiced up firm belief in the self-affirmation of the Ijaw, with pettiness and irredentism.”

According to Chief Iyawa,  “In the light of the weighty allegations of corruption against Mr. Orubebe”, Iyawa continued”, 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.

Iyawa categorically said “in line with the state PDP fracas, Mr. Minister reverted to the state of Nahue”, and more significantly, that he appealed to His Excellency, the Governor Uduaghan, to “wash his hands, free of any malicious footnote to the development”, and urging “caution, self-respect and respect for age and wisdom that is the cultural heritage”, on the part of the Governor, and has vowed that there is no way Orubebe can succeed Uduaghan, the same way Clark said of Uduaghan in 2007 but now he is the Governor, will Orubebe shelve his ambition or pursue it to logical conclusion? Let the battle begin.

Source: Compass