The Supreme Court judgment last Friday, which affirmed The Right Honourable Sheriff Oborevwori, Speaker of the Delta State House of Assembly, as the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in Delta State, has brought some calm and opened two new doors. One to peace and the other to possible fragmentation and implosion. The first door is the possibility that the judgement will strengthen the various attempts to mend the fences of the warring parties and enthrone a mutually beneficial, cohesive peace. The other door is for both sides to stick uncompromisingly to deeply held positions, add fuel to the already flowing bad blood among the two major camps, ignite it and tear the party to shreds.
The two camps, that of former Governor James Ibori, before now the undisputed leader, and demigod of the party in the state; and that of outgoing Governor and former godson of James Ibori, Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa, are at crossroad. They can choose either the part to mutual immolation or mutual survival. The two camps have been in a war of attrition, of supremacy, over who should decide who succeeds Okowa as governorship candidate of the party.
Nevertheless, the door, which it seems, they are currently exploring, from feelers I get from both sides, is that of peace. There seems to be concerted efforts to resolve the agro, soothe bruised egos and chart a common ground, without which the 23 years reign of the party in the state could come to an angry end.
Papered over in the last two years, the misgivings in the party nevertheless blew open, early this year, into a rupture of cataclysmic dimension. First, Governor Okowa was accused of attempting to breach the unwritten rotation agreement among the three senatorial zones in the state. Rotation of the governorship seat had started with James Ibori from Delta Central. Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan, from Delta South took over from Ibori and eventually, Ifeanyi Okowa, Delta North, who is the outgoing occupant of the office. Though an Urhobo, the majority ethnic group in the state, Ibori, who instituted the rotation, had felt that without such an arrangement, other zones of the state might find it difficult to become governor of the state.
In the seething, suspicious atmosphere in the party, the first open threat was when the Ijaws of Delta South, with the seeming, tacit support of Governor Okowa, started a campaign to have one of their own as governor. Their claim was that there was nothing like a written rotation agreement. This was a-later-day position which Governor Okowa was also trying to canvass. The Ijaws said if there was anything like a rotation agreement, it should be among ethnic groups and not senatorial districts.
The arrowheads of this was four times Senator, James Manager and the Deputy Governor to Okowa, Kingsley Otuaro. Both of them Ijaws were early entrants into the race. There are precedence to this: other ethnic groups, despite the rotation agreement have always contested for the position. But the unwritten agreement usually triumphs because whoever the governor is, his support is usually for the zone whose turn it was. Okowa, however, was seen to be against the majority Urhobo ethnic group who constitute Delta Central and whose turn, by the unwritten agreement, it is to produce the governorship candidate of the PDP.
But the kernel of the quarrel and the division which emerged in the party was Okowa’s resolve never to support David Edevbie, the preferred candidate of James Ibori. His reasons I can reveal are many. The major one, however, is a lack of trust. Ibori’s attempt to persuade the governor fell on ears already made up. Ibori too was uncompromising. For him, it is either Edevbie or it is Edevbie. Okowa decided to be his own man and chose to support Sheriff Oborevwori, an Urhobo effectively enthroning the rotation but on his own terms.
Seen as an affront, and a demystification of Ibori as the leader of the PDP in the state, the die was cast. Attempts by the Urhobo Progress Union, UPU, leadership aligning with Ibori to have Edevbie as the preferred Urhobo candidate, a snub on the Speaker, Oborevwori; and other attempts by some groups favourable to Edevbie’s candidacy, met a brick wall. Even the externalisation of the quest and rivalry to the national level, into national PDP and the Atiku Abubakar group, yielded no immediate beneficial results to have Edevbie as candidate. The resort to the courts, with more than 15 court cases, to thwart Oborevwori’s candidacy on the unproved allegations that he was an illiterate who parades certificates that are not his have all failed. It was one victory after the other for Oborevwori.
Then the Supreme Court judgement which finally laid to rest the opposition within the party. Two divergent pathways opened. And the Ibori and Edevbie camp have offered an olive branch in the congratulatory message by Edevbie to Oborevwori. His support groups have all also extended congratulatory messages. But of course this seeming about turn is not a surprise. It is the open arm of the hidden reconciliation meetings that have been going on. Before the judgement, both of them had, through back channels of mutual communication, agreed on the path of peace and reconciliation. It had been agreed that no matter the outcome of the Supreme Court judgement, both teams will sheathe their swords, put aside their personal disappointments and work in the interest of the party.
Knowing that Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, the Deputy Senate President and governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress, himself a god-son of Chief Ibori, is waiting in the wings to reap from the fractious goings on in the PDP, and given that both Ibori who is a very close ally of the Presidential candidate of the PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and Governor Okowa, the vice presidential candidate to Atiku Abubakar would not want to lose the state in both the presidential and governorship elections, the path of reconciliation was the only viable option.
Commended is His Royal Majesty, Orhue 1, the Orodje of Okpe, the foremost traditional ruler in Urhobo land and chair of the Delta State Traditional Rulers Council.
Mideno Bayagbon: [email protected]
![[Video] INEC Staff killed, as unknown gunmen attack Imo Community](https://thenewsguru.com/jepsysec/uploads/2022/04/Unknown-Gunmen-120x86.jpg)
