Micheal Chikwudi
The recent defection of over 5000 members of All Progressives Congress (APC) in Delta South Senatorial District to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as claimed by the Delta State government is a piece of news that should be viewed with all seriousness it deserves, if it is true.
It should be viewed with all seriousness by all, especially the leadership of the APC both at the state and national levels, because the defection might be sending a signal as to what might befell the party, which recently caught a big fish in the state in the person of the former Governor of the state, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, as we approach 2019.
The defection, which took place during a mega rally organised by the PDP to welcome the defectors into its fold in Ughelli, the headquarters of Ughelli North Local Government Area, which is also one of the major cities in the heart of the district that is supposed to be the catchments area of Senator Ovie Omo- Agege, Olorogun Emerhor O’tega and many other APC heavy weights in Delta State, speaks volume of APC members’ readiness to sweep Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa and PDP out as occupants of Government House, Asaba.
The rally which might have been deliberately taken to the home base of the two prominent APC members, Omo-Agege and O’tega might have been to tell the world that the two politicians are paperweights contrary to the impression they have sold to the world that they are in full control. It might also be to show that APC is not as popular as the chieftain’s claim it is in the state and especially the district, which has an APC member as a sitting senator.
Whatever might have been the mission of the organisers of the rally, the fact remains that the huge defection means that Okowa is doing a job in the state and might not be a walk in the garden for APC in the state next year.
On the contrary, some observers are also of the opinion that the defection might be the peoples signal to the leaders of the party that they are tired of the leadership crisis rocking the party in the state; a crisis that has lead to the emergency of two parallel executives in the state.
O’tega, a founding father of the party in the state and who was its gubernatorial candidate at the 2015 election, in particular, has been at loggerheads with the then Prophet Erhue led executive for the soul of the party.
The publicity accorded the rally and the purported defection by the state government and the party, others believe, is in line with the government’s desperate move to stamp its foothold on Ugheli and the entire Delta Central, which is perhaps the bastion of opposition parties. Though, Chief James Ibori, the acclaimed godfather of Delta politics hails from Delta Central, his party has struggled to shared the votes from the area with other opposition parties – no thanks to the caliber of individuals from the district that are in the opposing camp.
Delta Central or Urhobo land, despite the intimidating political clouts of Ibori has always fallen into the hand of opposition party. Since the opposition took hold of the area in the days of the late Senator Akpor Pius Ewherido who contested on the platform of the Democratic Peoples Party (DPP) with Ogbru then as its gubernatorial candidate that fought the election of that year to the tribunal when Uduaghan’s victory was quashed and a rerun election ordered, the district had remain a harvest ground till date for opposition.
Though, at the 2015 election, PDP narrowly won the senatorial election in the district with Amori Ighoyota as its candidate but that victory was short-lived as the tribunal in a decision in the case brought against the party and its candidate agreed that the election was rigged in favour of Ighoyota and ordered that Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, then of the Labour Party (LP), was the winner of the election. That has been the case in the district with APC and PDP on a balance of terror scale with each trying to outwit the other to control it 100 percent.
The PDP had done everything including outright rigging to gain the soul of the area from opposition parties to no avail but the recent defection, which observers believe took its root from the crisis of leadership that has torn the party, almost into two equal parallel parts, may offer the party an upper hand, except the Adams Oshiomhole led national leadership of APC steps in to correct all the perceived wrongs and cool the frayed nerves of founding father of the party in the state like O’tega.
And in the words of a member of APC in the state who refused to allow his name in the print, “Ugheli and the whole of Delta Central is very important to us. We must not allow it to slip off our fingers, not now. It is too strategic for us; all the who is who is Delta politics who are in APC hails from here, Urhobo land, it should serve as our springboard to lunch attacks on others but the senseless intra-party crisis is making a mess of that gain. We need to close ranks so we can carry our battle to Delta North and South which are the base of PDP and which is the home base of Governor Okowa and his deputy and also Leo Ogor and James Manager respectively. Our leaders in Abuja should call the warring factions to order. We cannot go to the 2019 election as a factionalise part,” the source said.
