Two months and some days to the March 2, 2018 governorship election in Nigeria and days after President Muhammadu Buhari flagged off his electioneering campaign and that of Chief Great Ogboru in Warri, Delta State, which was highly successful, fresh crisis seem to have hit the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Ogboru, its candidate for governorship election in the oil-rich state.
Though, a faction of the party led by the state’s former speaker, Hon. Victor Ochei is still in court contesting the emergence of Ogboru as the party’s governorship flag- bearer, this time another splitter group spear- headed by Amb. Joel Okolie is kicking against the choice of Ogboru as the candidate of the party.
Okolie in a no holds bare, told newsmen that Chief Great Ogboru is not a legitimate candidate of the APC in Delta State.
Amb. Okolie who described himself as a leader in the Prof. Pat Utomi’s faction of the party stated that there was indeed no legitimate gubernatorial primary of the party in Delta State.
He said the processes that gave birth to the controversial candidacy of Great Ogboru was skewed and manipulated.
According to him, while preliminary preparations were on going at the venue of the primaries, there was a heated argument over which delegates’ list to use for the election as there was over three different delegates’ list being paraded at the venue of the election.
He said, while the argument lasted, the Delta State Commissioner of Police coincidentally arrived the venue and helped to find away around the multiple delegates’ list issue.
In his words, “While accreditation was on going, Chief Ogboru arrived the venue of the election in a Gestapo style with armed thugs and ordered his thugs to flung the gate open, allowing hundreds of his hired and unaccredited supporters to flush into the venue, hijacked the process and got himself declared winner with the help of the already compromised electoral panel”.
This development, Amb. Okolie said led to protest and litigation by other aspirants thereafter.
While condemning the nihilistic approach he stated that Ogboru haven emerged in such an unscrupulous, illegitimate and corrupt manner cannot be accepted as a legitimate candidate of the party despite the flag given to him by the President.
He continued, ” we in Pat Utomi’s camp of the party does not see Ogboru as our candidate. Instead of voting for him, we have directed all our supporters across the state to vote and support Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa for a second term, after all the governor has proven himself to be a worthy ambassador of development.
His footprints in terms of development can be seen everywhere in the State”.
He concluded that Governor Okowa is unmatchable, as his developmental strides speak volume.
