Opposition holds the ace in Delta

Delta State has remained a sole enclave of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) since 1999, but recent events have made the leading opposition APC a rival of note.

Suffice to state that the political class and various structures, irrespective of the shades of interests across the state, have evolved through the PDP over the past two decades.

Virtually all the big political figures were nurtured in the PDP including the majority of gladiators in opposition parties in the state.

In fact, the leading lights of the opposition in the state today like Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, Olorogun O’tega Emerhor, Chief Hyacinth Enuha, Rt. Hon Victor Ochei, Dr. Cairo Ojougboh, former governor, Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan among others, werehad their roots in the PDP.

This development tends to confer on the PDP a sense of infinite dominion and possession over the oil rich, South South state, giving the impression that opposition parties, especially the All Progressives Congress (APC) would have an uphill task overthrowing the PDP’s dominion over the state.

The PDP presidential standard bearer and his running mate – Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi – seemed to cash in on this entrenched sentiment when they thanked Delta State for remaining with the PDP since 1999, noting that every development in Delta State has been PDP. They said this during the PDP’s presidential campaign rally on January 31.

“So why vote another party that has not done anything for you?” Atiku enthused.

“I will renovate all the sea ports in Delta State. I will also complete all abandoned infrastructure projects by the Federal Government because you are opposition state. I promise I will deliver on these promises,” Atiku stressed.

Obi particularly reiterated that all development projects in Delta State since 1999 were done by the PDP, adding that the APC does not like the South South and cannot show anything they have done in the region.

But curiously, former Delta State governor Chief James Onanefe Ibori, the acclaimed Delta PDP leader, was conspicuously absent at the PDP presidential campaign rally for Atiku/Obi, at which virtually the who is who in the PDP were in attendance.

However, at the party’s statewide campaign grand finale on Friday at Owa-Oyibu, Ika North-East Local Government Area of Delta State, home of Governor Ifeanyi Okowa, Chief Ibori showed up to drum support for Okowa’s re-election.

Ibori led political leaders of thought to press that Delta North district should complete its two terms by retaining the governorship through Okowa.

But recent political implosions within the PDP, borne from bitter, irreconcilable differences had led to the defection of two former speakers of the state House of Assembly, Victor Ochei and Monday Igbuya; the former Deputy National Chairman of the PDP, Dr. Cairo Ojougboh and the immediate past governor of the state, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan all  to the APC.

This, to a greater extent, seemed to have rejigged the political landscape and positioned the opposition APC on a seeming equilibrium with the ubiquitous PDP.

This reality dawned on the PDP lords with the unprecedented mammoth crowd that converged on January 18 for the APC presidential campaign rally in support and solidarity for the re-election of President Muhammadu Buhari at the Warri Township Stadium.

Indeed, the APC presidential rally in the boisterous oil city, which hosted over 100,000 supporters that overflowed the 25,000 capacity township stadium, particularly conjured an awesome and enigmatic myth that has etched an indelible mark on the political psyche of Deltans.

An APC chieftain, Deacon Fidelis Chimokwu said: “The Delta State presidential campaign has proven that no matter how much hate and disdain a few miscreants have been parading on the rumour mill and social media about President Muhammadu Buhari, the truth has been constant in his favour as the most popular all round president of Nigeria.

“The only way you know the true feelings of the voiceless is through events like this, not through doctored audio visuals and manipulated technology and other forms of deception, only bought and sold by a handful of gullible foot soldiers of evil men in the society,” Chimokwu asserted.

Former Delta Sate ALGON chairman and four-time commissioner in the state, Dr Tony Nwaka, also exclaimed in similar words on the Warri mammoth APC gathering.

He recalled that the last time he saw anything close to the crowd in Warri was 2007, as the sitting chairman of Aniocha South LGA and the chairman of Delta State ALGON (Forum of Council Chairmen), when then President Olusegun Obasanjo visited to flag-off the state PDP campaign for that year.

The PDP chieftain wondered what could make a fractured Delta APC and a supposedly “unpopular” President Buhari attract such unprecedented crowd, in a predominantly PDP state.

“This is the question that must begin to agitate the mind of every rational thinker. It is not sufficient to simply sweep it under the assumption of ‘rented crowd’ or ‘curious spectators,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Delta State  has said that 465,317 permanent voter cards (PVCs), are currently lying uncollected at its office, whereas the total registered number of voters in Delta Central stood at 1,575,738, which is over half of the total registered voters in the state put at  2,823,161.