OF DESTRUCTIVE POLITICS AND CON ARTISTRY - By Fred Edoreh

Recently, Senator Ned Nwoko released bad blood into the polity of Delta State by seeking to create ethnic division among the people.

Sitting with a section of his constituents, he alleged that while Governor Sheriff Oborevwori is developing Delta Central and South, he is neglecting Delta North. He predicated his thesis on the allegation that the Governor refused his request to provide N35 billion for the contractors handling the Okpai Power Plant Step-Down project which is projected to provide electricity for a substantial part of Delta North.

According to him, the Governor said there is not sufficient fund because he was repaying the debts incurred by the administration of former Governor Ifeanyi Okowa, and he argued that the Governor cannot plead paucity of funds, being that the state has so much money deriving from increased federal allocation which he said dwarfs those of the South East states combined. 

Expectedly, it was surprising that a sitting Senator of the Peoples Democratic Party would choose the path that Ned has chosen but, through his media reinforcement works, we can begin to understand what he is trying to achieve.

In a piece entitled "AS PDP TAKES NWOKO ON A DEFINING BATTLE", my friend and former comrade, Basil Okoh, gave us an insight.

"This matter is much deeper and is DEFINITELY NOT ABOUT STEP-DOWN TRANSFORMER AND EARTH DAMS...except Ifeanyi Okowa gives up the near absolute control of PDP in Delta North," he wrote.

"The media men have no sense of the plots and counter plots going on around and within PDP in Delta North... The underlying source of conflict in all the drama is a plot to remove Ned Nwoko as senator and replace him with Okowa... The consequence of this quarrel will go deep into the founding fabric of PDP in Delta State," he stated emphatically.

In another write up entitled "Delta Gov Oborevwori A Figurehead, Okowa Is The One Pulling The Strings," one Fred Akpevwe explained further.

"The ward, local government and state PDP congresses were firmly in the grip of Dr. Okowa. Major Political stakeholders had no say as many of them could not even produce their ward Chairman. The 2024 local government elections followed the same pattern...The entire political structure of Delta North was sequestered and dominated by Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa alone to the chagrin of major political stakeholders. We know he has 2027 Senatorial ambition. Let the ambition of one man not destroy the development of Delta State", he wrote.

Assuming but without conceding that these assertions are entirely true, they therefore obviously suggest that Ned is driven not by the interest of Anioma people or Delta North but merely by personal need to safeguard his senatorship, under the suspicion and fear that Okowa might want to take the PDP ticket from him in the 2027 Senatorial election, and that he possibly did not succeed in installing some of the ward, LG and state party EXCOS to guarantee his return ticket.

Thus, Ned is only fighting for his personal political survival, and in doing so, he decided to adopt the strategy of formenting the Anioma sentiment, ostensibly projecting himself as fighting for their interest, and inciting them against both Governor Oborevwori and Okowa in an early build up to 2027.

He started by claiming to be single-handedly pushing for the creation of Anioma State, which he said he wants excised from the South-South to be joined with the South-East, perhaps calculated to appeal to the Igbos in Delta State.

Smarting from that, he now came with the issue of the Okpai Step-Down and tried to draw blood with the accusation of partiality against Delta North in the siting of projects, appointments and the maintenance of a Governor's Lodge in Warri.

The whole essence is to secure himself with the Anioma sentiment, discredit Okowa in the eyes of Deltans, dislodge his leadership influence in Delta North, and threaten Oborevwori with the possibility of denying him Anioma votes in 2027. 

The idea serves two purposes: to force a negotiation for the retention of the 2027 Senatorial ticket, and, in the advent of his loss of the ticket, use the sentiment to pull Anioma people to achieve his return through another political party.

While he is entitled to his political strategy and calculations, it is however worrisome to see that he can pursue personal survival by creating divisive tribal, regional and ethnic sentiments, brazenly destroying the historical and cultural heritage of oneness which all Delta nationalities share, and disregarding the unity, social cohesion and stability of the entire state, and with such half truth and illogic.

Interestingly, all the issues he raised are determinable. On the electricity step down project, for instance, it is well known that the Okpai Power Plant is an independent company under the control of the Federal Government through the NNPCL, and other venture partners. Ned himself admits this in his revelation that he had met the Minister of Budget and Planning to allocate funds for its continuation for which he said the Minister promised to do so next year. 

On the other hand, the project has been a matter of contention, for which the House of Representatives had to institute a probe on it, on the allegations that there is ambiguity about the contract sum, and there is lack of accountability and transparency in the execution of the project.

Senator Ned Nwoko 

The questions that arise are: If the Minister has promised to allocate funds for its continuation, what is the basis of Ned's haste, to the extent of disrupting the social and ethnic cohesion of the entire state? Seeing all that has been said about the ambiguity of the contract sum and the lack of accountability and transparency in the execution of the project, why is Ned pressuring Oborevwori to blindly throw N35 billion into it? Why was it so easy for Ned to accept the response of the FG and failed to put further pressure on the NNPCL, as a Senator of the Federal Republic, but decided to heap the burden of blame only and pointedly on the State Governor? How did he arrive at the project cost of N35 billion, by what Bill of Quantity and Bill of Engineering Measurement and Evaluation? Why has he not brought the project owners and the contractors to formally engage the state on the continuation of the project, rather than singularly requesting the fund from the Governor in such a middleman manner?

By the way, given the deregulation of the power sector by which states can now independently generate, transmit and distribute electricity to its citizenry, who says the only way to provide electricity in Delta North must only be for the Governor to throw money into the NNPCL/NAOC project which contract sum is ambiguous and its execution lacking in accountability and transparency, as the House of Reps has been told?

Why does Ned feel that with the Deputy Governor and such top government officials, like the Commissioner of Finance, from the area, these issues have not been carefully examined? Can it be said that they also do not want the good of their people and  are thus compromising against their people before Gov Oborevwori?

It is also disheartening, indeed, that Ned would raise bones about the Warri/Effurun flyover projects. All Deltans know that the Warri and Sapele axis are major business and commercial hubs, and that they have suffered serious infrastructure deficit through successive administrations. In fact, at the end of Okowa's tenure, he accepted that there was not much development in Warri area, especially on roads, explaining that he wanted the storm water drainage system to be done there before roads can be reasonably constructed so that they can last, as was done in Asaba. 

The storm water system in the area was however only started towards the end of the Okowa administration, and he clearly put the task of constructing the roads to the incoming administration. It was on this ground that Gov Oborevwori assured on his inauguration that he will give Warri a facelift and proceeded on the promise as was planned.

It should noted that while Warri suffered the infrastructure deficit, the people did not bring down the state, neither did Oborevwori, a "Warri boy" whose leadership of the House of Assembly approved Okowa's appropriation bill for about six years, fly off the handle.

The immediate past State Chairman, Kingsley Esiso, is from Sapele, but he also kept faith and did not destroy the party nor the cohesion of the state when not much was done in Sapele. Why should anyone bear grudges if the present administration decides to pay some attention there? 

From Warri, Effurun to Sapele, the people did not remove the roof. They understood that government moves development projects around to reach the unreached, from time to time, axis to axis, and that not all needed projects can be done in all the towns, communities and districts of the state at the same time.

While the Warri/Effurun projects are agreeably huge, it does not mean that the government has not or is not carrying out projects in Delta North. In fact, most of the inherited projects completed and commissioned by Gov Oborevwori in his 100 days, in office were in Delta North, over 29 roads and drainages.

That was not the case in Delta South nor Central. 

There are also other projects like the Okpanam/Ibusa Bypass, Isheagu-Ewulu Road and bridge, Beneku Bridge, Ute-Ukpu road, Ibusa Road in Asaba and many other rural roads and streets, some completed, some ongoing.

It was the same in the education sector in which a number of projects have been completed at Dennis Osadebey University, Anwai-Asaba, and University of Delta, Agbor. The other was University of Science and Technology, Ozoro. 

Interestingly, there is no state university nor even polytechnic in Warri, Sapele and Ughelli, as big, as commercial and as old as they are. Perhaps, no one is seeing that.

But do we actually need this comparison? No, we don't. The administration of Oborevwori is only about a year and half old. There is so much to be done across the three Senatorial Districts in the remaining years of his first tenure, and in his sure second tenure, as God has ordained.

Lastly, it is  unbecoming of a distinguished personality to falsely state that the Governor has paid Julius Berger N100 billion upfront for the Warri project. In the first place, the contract sum as widely publicised is N78 billion, not N100 billion. Secondly, it is well known that the state only paid 25 percent of the contract sum while the remainder is spread over the 27 months of the projected construction period through ISPO. 

What was the purpose of the lies? Just to create discontent, disaffection, resentment, hate and conflict to achieve personal political survival? That speaks volumes for credibility...