By Pius Okokoh
A group of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) delegates from Delta South Senatorial District have called on their counterparts across the state to be determined to join hands to rescue the party and Delta state from impending disaster in the governance of the state by rejecting Sheriff Oborevwori at the PDP gubernatorial primaries scheduled for May 23.
Leaders of the group made the call in a chat with journalists after a clash with party officials following intimidation and discrimination against some delegates in Oleh.
They insisted that while Governor Okowa keeps saying he is not particularly supporting any aspirant, his body language and the intimidation of delegates by government and party officials to support Sheriff Oborevwori shows glaringly that the process of the primaries has lost truth, credibility and honour.
Describing Oborevwori as a terrible choice which will set Delta state decades backward, one of the ward executive members from Isoko North who asked for anonymity in view of the on going aggression, urged PDP delegates to be determined to roundly reject him at the primaries to safeguard the overall interest of the development of the state.
“Governor Okowa has denied that he is supporting Oborevwori, that he will provide a level playing field for all aspirants but the actions of his aides and state PDP officials speak differently.
“I cannot quarrel with the governor having a choice, my problem is Oborevwori is a bad choice which does not portend well for the good future of Delta state and the conduct of both state government and party officials in trying to force him on the delegates is very objectionable.
“Besides their use of force, we know Oborevwori well and we all can see that he lacks the level of knowledge and personal comportment needed for office of the governor. It was okay for him to be Speaker by which he could rubber stamp anything for the executive. That was why he was put there anyway.
“We have all heard about his identity and certificate scandals. Even as they are trying so hard to cover up and no matter how many affidavits they swear and how many back door processes they use to clear him, all Deltans have seen that many things around him do not add up to the least iota of integrity. Our party and our state cannot afford to gamble with such an aspirant.
“He himself knows and that is probably why he tried to talk down educational qualifications, skills and competence in his campaign messages and hang on the deceit of street credibility.
“They say he has street credibility yet they are using intimidation and victimisation to force delegates for him. That shows it is all scam.
“One of his spokesman, Latimore Oghenesivbe, said street credibility means popularity and likened him to Buhari whose secondary certificate was also in question in 2015 but was elected as president. I take it that Latimore is admitting that Oborevwori’s brain is like Buhari’s own, and Deltans know that Nigerians made a huge mistake electing Buhari.
“Morning shows the day. Like we are now questioning Oborevwori’s identity and certificate, that was how we questioned Buhari’s own in 2015. People took it as mere politics and all Nigerians have seen the backwardness and suffering that mistake has landed us.
“Today, the unemployment number is going to 60 million people, foreign exchange is at all time high, they lied about reducing price of petroleum, subsidy is now about N4 trillion per annum, banditry and insecurity have diminished the value of life, inflation is galloping, our poverty index is among the highest in the world, poor electricity supply keeps killing industries as diesel is now about N700 per litre.
“Federal university students are at home because of ASUU strike, aviation companies are crying over high cost and scarcity of aviation fuel, telecommunications companies have alerted that they might be folding up over multiple taxation and insecurity of their assets. The woes go on. Clueless, they keep borrowing and mounting debts for future generations, yet no progress.
“That is what you get when you choose people with little knowledge, poor skills, zero exposure and low capacity to govern.
“That is what we have been suffering for the past seven years plus. How can we now choose a similar kind of person with questionable qualifications and certificates to lead our state for another eight years when we are still suffering the damage of our bad decision for seven years now and possibly longer?
“I don’t know what is driving Okowa into this but Deltans don’t deserve the punishment he is trying to bring on the people.
“We know that in addition to the intimidation of delegates, they also manipulated the process of electing ad-hoc delegates and are now inducing the councillors that they had neglected for the past seven years with little money just for them to have their way.
“We know that they are planning to camp delegates and continue to threaten and intimidate them through day and night until they take them to the congress ground, but they cannot defeat the will of the people.
“You can fool some people sometimes but you cannot fool all the people all the time. The councillors, the delegates know what is at stake and I want to encourage them to rise up against this bad choice, no matter the tactics of molestation.
“A few people should not be allowed to destroy the entire future of the state for their pleasure. We must tell them that enough is enough.”
