‘Delta APC Leaders feel entitled’

Dr Festus Okubor, chief strategist in the Delta State Government, has flayed what he described as the sense of entitlement behind the aspiration of many of the supporters of Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, the All Progressives Congress, APC governorship candidate.

Speaking in an interview on Arise News on Tuesday, Okubor drew attention to claims by Prof Rukevwe Ugwuba who served in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP government of Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan that she and some others were chased out of government.

“I wasn’t very happy with Okowa’s government. I was a special adviser to Uduaghan, they pretty chased all of us out of the government,” Prof Ugwuba said on the Arise News interview on Tuesday.

Responding to her, Dr Okubor said: “You heard her, she was in the PDP, (that) they were chased out of government in the assumption that being in government is a right. In a state of over four million people, you can’t be in government every time.

“If you are glory be to God. But once in a while, opportunities are given to other people and that’s what inclusiveness is all about and then because someone is included and you are not included…that’s the problem with Nigeria. Husbands and wives, homes are breaking up at the slightest inconvenience, people are jumping ship, that’s not the way to live.

“As a party, we believe in hard work and we kept saying throughout the campaigns that the APC as a party were not prepared for election.

“Every time they opened their mouth it was a lie. But the people are the judge and I keep saying that if you look at the outcome of the presidential election and see the vote distribution between PDP and APC, you will see a near replication of it at the gubernatorial election.

“So, the gubernatorial election outcome was a true reflection of what is or what was on ground electorally speaking. If you also look at the gubernaotiral election, the only place where you had violence in Delta were in Orogun in Ughelli and in Ethiope West.

“Orogun, Ughelli South, that’s where Rukky comes from, that’s where their gubernatorial candidate comes from. So, they may have expertise in rigging, but how do you rig when the people do not desire to make you the victor in that election and that’s the only explanation that the PDP beat them very clearly at the federal elections and beat them very clearly at the state elections.

“Out of the 12 federal seats that were up, PDP took seven and the rest were shared by all the other parties. Is that not a reflection of what happened in the gubernatorial? I can’t understand why they cannot let these issues go and stretch out hands and be sportsmen.

“What is very clear is that the PDP for reasons more than one, got the support of the people and the confidence of the electorate in Delta and then won the election.”