APC IN DELTA WILL FIZZLE IF OMO-AGEGE NO LONGER LEADER

Basil Okoh

MaTaZ ArIsInG
Dallas, Texas

The Delta State chapter of the APC is on the broil-pot again, this time with enough condiment of intrigues, rivalry, backstabbing and conspiracies to cook for the entire members of the party in Delta State. And truly this time, the elite conspirators of APC Delta are committed to cook poisoned food for the entire party, in order to lead the party to self-destruction. The intent is to bring down their rising star by destroying the party. They believe that in order to kill the annoying rat you have to burn down the house. So to force Ovie Omo-Agege out of APC, you have to find ways to make the party flounder and fail in the 2027 governorship election in Delta state. To kill a mockingbird bird …….

All the intrigues, conspiracies and backstabbing’s in Delta APC are directed at taking him out of reckoning and power in APC and to achieve this, they are poisoning the atmosphere with old wives’ tales of frustration, particularly about their “governor’s” inability to secure jobs and empower the boys in Tinubu’s government. They have campaign talking points, that Ovie is too rigid, too strong, unbendable and principled. What they do not realize is that these are the very same qualities his followers love him for and the reason also that the electors of the state should be allowed to make him their governor.

In public however, they accuse Ovie Omo-Agege of staying aloof about hunger in the party ranks and making believe that he owns the party. The nail biting part they say, is that the candidate is not forthcoming with plans for further integration into the national caucus of the party in order to bring benefits to members. These are elite concerns for appointments and contracts, not the everyday survival concerns of party men and women in the state.

And what they won’t tell you is that among the conspirators, Victor Ochei was mobilized to hold the grounds for APC in Delta North in the 2023 governorship election, but he went instead for a personal negotiated settlement with PDP at the last moment and fled his command post, abandoning his troops, leading to the defeat of his party, APC in Delta North. The treacherous man after the APC loss in the state but victory at the presidential elections, was bribing his own party man with a million dollars to be the chairman at NIMASA. He was seeking reward from the Federal Government for his treachery at the state election.

What they won’t also tell you is that if you make any of these traitors leader or governorship candidate in the state, the other conspirators will gang up against that person. Most of them were staunch members of the PDP and still are fifth columnists loyal to PDP but cowering in APC. They run back at critical times to have their bread buttered in the PDP.

Festus Keyamo seems to conveniently forget that he became Minister only because Stella Okotete could not pass senate screening and was dropped for him to be nominated. He is waxing lyrical now, spreading the lie that as Minister from the state, he himself and nobody else aught to be leader and fulcrum of APC in Delta state. He forgets so easily that Victor Ochei, the man he proposes for running mate will sell him and the party down the river any time the journey gets rough as it sure would. Party men and women in Delta state don’t know Festus Keyamo and he has no name recognition in the state. To nominate Festus Keyamo and Victor Ochei for governorship will be a zero sum game assuring APC loss in Delta State.

The conspirators are getting badly hit by the massive blow-back from members of the Party in the state and are now having a rethink even while conjuring new strategies. These conspirators are cowards, down to their quivering phallus and will never dare to take on the members of APC across the state in a congressional vote to test where the crowd stand with Omo-Agege.

They have their long knives ready but they are all jittery wimps, hiding behind surrogates like Paulinus Akpeki to accomplish their failing plots. Intrigue is the name of their war here. And the self-effacing but strong willed Ovie Omo-Agege has come out of endless plots in APC before and still remains in charge.

Now in frustration, the plotters have gone to yank the chairman of the party, Chief Omeni Sobotie, our favourite preacher man, back from an overseas hospital bed, just because they must accomplish the plan to seize control of the party in the state without the say so of party congress.

These conspirators must be ignorant of the overriding power of personal popularity in public movements. The historical fact is that the man of popular acceptance personifies the public movement. Every sociopolitical movement bears the name of it’s leader. A Popular candidate raises the enthusiasm of the movement and drives its pulsating heartbeat, propelling every members passion to work for successful outcomes. Ovie Omo-Agege controls the pulse of APC in Delta State. If you remove him, the party fizzles.

The popular candidate raises members keen commitment to make the party win. A dour and unpopular candidate like Festus Keyamo loses elections and destroys the party. Emerhor, one of the gang, was the Delta state governorship candidate of APC in 2015. The party did not win a single seat in both the executive and legislative branches. Not a single House seat. Emerhor lost his governorship bid in his local government and everywhere else. It was in the same election that Ovie Omo-Agege won his own senatorial seat. So APC should learn it’s lesson now to back popular and tested candidates.

Donald Trump, for all his jiving, could whip his crowd into frenzy. Though twice impeached, he has been the candidate of the Republican Party in three US presidential elections and once boasted that he could shoot someone at Times Square in New York and his crowd would not leave him. Time has proven that to be true.

Ovie Omo-Agege is the soul and heartbeat of APC in Delta State and the elite of the party must admit this fact as a basis for the resolution of the smoldering conflict. Changing him in the yet burgeoning party will destroy the popular base of the APC in Delta state.

Some of the aspirational candidates have dubious backgrounds in the party. Some helped to sell the election of 2023 to the PDP in the state, believing that their members have no knowledge of their transactional politics. Others, like Festus Keyamo, refused to identify with the party in the state during its troubled foundational years, preferring to be identified in the national arena rather than in the state.

Ovie Omo-Agege has stayed the course through troubled waters and stormy seas and is the man who now holds the conch in the APC. No conspiracy of the elite can successfully remove him without first tearing down the political party in the state altogether. Just as there cannot be a Republican Party today in the US without Donald Trump, even when many of the elite don’t like him, there cannot be a surviving APC in Delta State today without Ovie Omo-Agege even as the elite don’t like him as well. With two senatorial districts as outcome of his last election effort, Ovie Omo-Agege controls the greater land area and bigger population of the state than even the sitting governor Sheriff Oborevwori of the PDP, who enjoys the endorsement of only one senatorial district.

The party system is dead in Nigeria, so we promote the outstanding individuals who can make the difference and bring progress to our state.

Omo-Agege has built an enduring followership and a machinery that although not yet perfected but has been far more effective in chasing down the ravaging PDP into a cul-de-sac. The party does indeed need a better funded, agile and tactile grassroots mobilization, particularly in Delta North, but to remove Omo-Agege from the equation is to destroy the gains made so far in building and structurally adapting APC to Delta state.

To deny the truth of Omo-Agege’s popularity in Delta APC, the conspiring Legion has gone for help to the National Chairman of APC Abdullahi Umar Ghanduje instead of working to win the hearts and minds of party members of APC in Delta State. And this has raised anger within the party in the state. The party men ask: “What do these men and women want? For the National Chairman to seize the party machinery in the state and hand it over to them?

Senatorial executives, local government chapters, prominent Party members and many pressure groups in the party have been riled and have come out in anger to publicly reject Chief Paulinus Akpeki, the talkative demagogue brought in to stand as interim leader of the party in place of Chief Omeni Sobotie. The APC public has shown without a doubt that if the plan to remove Ovie Omo-Agege is to succeed, the APC in Delta State will implode and that will be a gift to the PDP.

Victor Ochei is the aspiring lord of the manor who lives only by one principle: the smell of money is good by whatever means it is gotten. It’s power and influence justifies its rottenness.

Victor Ochei, after a long animus with Omo-Agege and a later reconciliation, was entrusted with organizing and implementing the election plan of the party in Delta North for the 2023 governorship election. Ochei did not implement any plan. He ran away, abandoning his troops. That gave reign to the PDP to run riot on election day. It can be validly said that Ochei is the singular culprit responsible for the APC loss of the governorship election in Delta North and consequently, the entire state. Delta North became the only senatorial district out of three that the PDP won outright, all because of the failure of a man trusted to command the APC troops.

So for Ochei to insist on holding any leadership positions in APC which he hitherto betrayed in the governorship election is testing the will and anger of the party men and women in Delta North. APC Delta holds it true that Ochei willfully gifted the governorship seat to PDP by his deliberate AWOL on election day. Now, what do you do to a commander who flees his duty post, leaving his troops in disarray? Send him for Court Martial or reward him with the deputy governor post?

Doris Uboh is a woman that was once wickedly stretchered out of the chambers of the House of Representatives and has never been able to make a return to that chamber since. Thrown between her and political acceptance in her own constituency, is a big boulder rolled in there by her own family which has caused her the electorates disaffection and denied her votes. Until her family makes amends with their king, she remains a kind of pariah in her constituency and will be denied votes. Her alleged bribery of N300 million, gifted to win an appointment in Tinubu’s government may not have been necessary if she was at peace with her king. To align now with conspirators will not auger well for her prospects in APC.

Stella Okotete is the high flying lady who was nominated Minister from Delta State but blew it when the senators encountered too many unbelievable entries and inconsistencies in her résumé. The senators, many of them carrying the same burden, could not be persuaded to accept sordid stuff from Stella Okotete and she had to be shot down for Festus Keyamo’s star to rise and become Minister. But now it is looking like Festus Keyamo is the aspiring Lord of the APC even as Stella Okotete had to take the fall for him to rise. You will recall the beautiful picture she posted standing between Ovie Omo-Agege and State chairman of the party, Chief Omeni Sobotie to commemorate her ministerial nomination. The question is why does she have to shoot herself by joining up with Keyamo now to upend the party?

Festus Keyamo is the man who does not believe that charity should have a home. He lives on his wits in the national arena, honed by a self-serving atavism and the rootlessness of a rolling stone which defies gravity but tries to gather moss. The point is not just to have money but to have the charity to bring the money to work in a home Keyamo did not have until Tinubu’s government taught him the need to embrace his roots, a home and an identity which should establish his claim to being Nigerian. He has spent a lifetime running around the national arena without a local identity. Now he wants to make a grab for the top job in a state where he hitherto refused to identify with.

The truth which somebody should tell Keyamo is that many do not know or love him here in Delta. We know he is our brother from Uvwie, but he has been fighting like an unloved orphan in the national space. He must not, for the sake of good order, stake any claim to governorship candidacy in APC in Delta state until the people know and identify with him, not as Kenyan but Nigerian. he must also back his stake with his contributions in building the party. Otherwise, he will fall flat in any test of popularity in Delta state. The practice of using connections at the national level to claim relevance in a political party is long gone. A politician must have and show roots and acceptance in his locality to be nationally relevant.

So who among these ambitious men and women conspiring in APC can rally the masses and be accepted as leader of APC in Delta State? APC in Delta State has stayed too long in gestation, It must win the coming election, so it has to be mobilized to do a better job of holding down the PDP rigging machine than it did in the last election. Only a popular and known candidate can be able to do this for the APC. The party must therefore work to remove the influences of a destructively lethargic but forever conspiring elite legion.

@basilokoh

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