By Geoffrey Ogochukwu
There is something increasingly curious, if not disturbing, about the apparent obsession of Norbert Chiazor with Rt. Hon. Victor Ochei, the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) senatorial candidate for Delta North. His latest intervention, titled “Ochei: Standing on Okowa Shoulders to Campaign,” is another instalment in what has become an almost predictable pattern of unsolicited hostility towards Ochei and an equally conspicuous determination to shield former Governor Ifeanyi Okowa from political scrutiny.
Indeed, one is tempted to ask whether Victor Ochei is contesting the Delta North senatorial election against Norbert Chiazor rather than Ifeanyi Okowa. After all, Chiazor is not a candidate in the election. He is neither seeking the Senate seat nor appearing on the ballot. Yet, his interventions increasingly give the impression that defeating Ochei has become a personal political assignment.
Why should a man who is not a contestant exhibit such extraordinary emotional investment in the contest, particularly when his interventions are directed almost exclusively at one candidate?
Chiazor, who has lately become fond of introducing himself with the impressive appendages of a PhD in Mass Communication, scholar and public affairs analyst, is entitled to his opinions. But scholarship should ordinarily impose a responsibility for balance, intellectual honesty and dispassionate engagement. It should not become a convenient academic credential for dressing up political partisanship as objective commentary.
There is, moreover, an important aspect of Chiazor’s public identity that deserves clarification. He serves as an Executive Assistant to Delta State Governor, Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori. This is a public appointment, not a private secret, and it is perfectly legitimate to expect him to be transparent about the political and institutional position from which he makes his interventions.
The question is not whether he is entitled to support Okowa. He is. The question is why a government appointee, whose official responsibility is associated with the administration of Governor Oborevwori, appears so preoccupied with defending the political interests and candidature of a former governor who is now an APC senatorial candidate.
Is this the principal assignment of his public office? Is the office of an Executive Assistant to the Governor now a platform for conducting political battles on behalf of another political figure? These are legitimate questions that Chiazor should have no difficulty answering if his interventions are genuinely motivated by public interest.
His latest article is particularly revealing. He takes exception to Ochei’s decision to challenge Okowa to an open debate on their respective records, experience and capacity to address the development challenges of Delta North. He describes the challenge as a manifestation of Ochei’s supposed obsession with Okowa and dismisses it as personalised political theatrics.
But what exactly is wrong with asking a former governor to account for his stewardship?
Ifeanyi Okowa is not an ordinary private citizen suddenly dragged into an electioneering controversy. He was Governor of Delta State for eight years, from 2015 to 2023. Before that, he served as a senator representing Delta North and occupied other important public offices. He is now seeking another mandate from the same people whose political and developmental fortunes were substantially influenced by his years in public service.
What more compelling reason could there be for voters to interrogate his record?
The Senate is not a retirement home for former governors, neither is it an entitlement reserved for individuals who have occupied high political offices. It is an elective institution. Anyone seeking the confidence of the electorate must demonstrate why that confidence should be renewed or granted.
Ochei’s challenge to Okowa is therefore not an act of desperation. It is a legitimate invitation to democratic accountability. If Okowa believes that his record is as outstanding and unassailable as Chiazor would have the public believe, why should an open debate frighten anybody? Why should asking questions about his eight years in government be interpreted as an insult?
Chiazor’s attempt to portray Ochei’s demand as an unhealthy fixation is particularly infantile. Political campaigns are about choices, comparisons, records and competing ideas. Candidates do not campaign in a vacuum. They explain why they deserve election, examine the records of their opponents and invite voters to make informed decisions.
Indeed, when a former governor who had eight years of executive authority is again asking for a mandate, his previous stewardship is an unavoidable subject of public debate. It would be irresponsible for voters to ignore that record simply because his supporters would prefer a campaign centred on his personality, eloquence and political experience.
Chiazor’s defence of Okowa’s record is equally unconvincing. He points to the Nsukwa/Ejeme Aniogor/Alidinma road as one of Okowa’s outstanding infrastructural interventions and wonders why Ochei would still criticise the former governor in Nsukwa land.
But does the existence of one road settle the larger question of the developmental condition of Delta North during Okowa’s eight-year administration? Is the construction of a road sufficient evidence that the nine local government areas of the senatorial district received the quality and spread of infrastructure they deserved?
Nobody needs to deny that a government may have executed commendable projects to insist that its overall performance should be subjected to scrutiny. A single road, however important, cannot constitute an adequate defence of an entire eight-year administration.
The real question is whether Okowa can demonstrate that the resources, opportunities and executive powers available to him translated into the broad-based development that Delta North deserved.
As one recent critical intervention by Elumelu Felix, titled “Okowa’s Empty Campaign: Failed as Governor, Now Selling the Same Lie as a Senatorial Candidate,” has argued, the former governor must explain why several communities across Aniocha, Oshimili, Ika, Ndokwa and Ukwuani continue to complain about inadequate road infrastructure despite his eight years in office.
This is a question of public accountability, not personal animosity.
More importantly, Okowa must explain why the electorate should believe that he will accomplish as a senator what critics contend he did not sufficiently accomplish as governor, when the governorship offered him considerably greater executive powers and control over public resources.
Chiazor has also sought to present Okowa as a cultured gentleman who is too dignified to engage in what he describes as a fake boxing ring. This is an interesting argument, but it conveniently avoids the substance of the debate.
Nobody is asking Okowa to exchange insults with Ochei. Nobody is demanding that he abandon his supposedly gentlemanly disposition. He is simply being invited to defend his record before the people whose votes he is seeking.
A public debate is not a boxing match. Accountability is not an insult. And a demand for explanations is not an act of disrespect.
If anything, a candidate who believes in his achievements should welcome an opportunity to explain them to the electorate.
There is also something particularly ironic about Chiazor’s admonition that candidates should speak to issues rather than insults. His latest article is replete with personalised characterisations of Ochei, including the comparison with Amalinze, the wrestler in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, and the suggestion that the NDC candidate is a political lion roaring without substance.
Yet, when Ochei challenges Okowa to defend his record, Chiazor sees political drama.
This is the contradiction that undermines his argument. He demands issue-based campaigning while devoting considerable energy to discrediting the personality and temperament of a political opponent. He preaches civility but repeatedly employs language calculated to ridicule and diminish Ochei.
If the objective is genuinely to promote issue-based politics, why not interrogate Ochei’s proposals, examine his legislative agenda, scrutinise his record as Speaker of the Delta State House of Assembly and compare his capacity with Okowa’s? Why the persistent resort to personal attacks?
The impression created is that Chiazor is less interested in examining the competing candidates than in ensuring that Okowa is protected from the uncomfortable questions his political history naturally attracts.
And this is where the description of an attack dog becomes difficult to avoid. His interventions increasingly resemble those of a political hatchet man, a hired gun or a mudslinger whose principal preoccupation is to attack one candidate while providing rhetorical cover for another. Whether he accepts these descriptions or not, his pattern of engagement invites that perception.
His declaration that Okowa deserves a seat in the Senate is, of course, his personal political preference. But he must understand that Delta North voters are not under any obligation to share it. Neither should they be intimidated by the suggestion that questioning Okowa’s record amounts to an attack on Anioma unity or a rejection of progress.
The people of Delta North have every right to ask what happened to the promises and opportunities of the past eight years. They have every right to examine the quality of representation they received, the condition of their communities and the capacity of those seeking another mandate to deliver a different outcome.
This is particularly important because the emerging NDC Reset Agenda being championed by Ochei speaks to the need for a departure from politics built around personalities, political godfathers and recycled promises. It emphasises a new approach to leadership, accountability, competence and the pursuit of development outcomes that ordinary people can identify with.
The issue is not whether Ochei is a lion or a scion, as Chiazor would prefer to make it. The issue is whether Delta North should settle for another round of political promises without first interrogating the records of those who have previously exercised power.
Norbert Chiazor may continue to deploy his academic credentials and public affairs commentator’s platform in defence of his preferred political interests. He is entitled to his political sympathies. But he should not mistake his personal attachment to Okowa’s candidature for the collective interest of Anioma people.
The Senate election belongs to the people of Delta North, not to political godfathers, former governors or their self-appointed defenders.
And if Okowa’s record is as impressive as Chiazor insists, the former governor should have no difficulty defending it before the electorate. There is no need for an army of defenders to turn legitimate questions into political offences.
Perhaps Chiazor should spend less time throwing tantrums over Ochei’s campaign strategy and more time explaining why the people of Delta North should overlook the unresolved questions surrounding Okowa’s years in office.
After all, the contest is between Ochei and Okowa, not between Ochei and Chiazor.
Delta North needs answers, not attack dogs; accountability, not sycophancy; and a new direction, not another celebration of political personalities.
