Defending The Righteousness Of Nwaoboshi’s Cause And Case

Distinguished Senator Peter Nwaoboshi was suspended by the Delta State chapter of the Peoples DEMOCRATIC Party (PDP) today.

Ordinarily, this ought to be PDP’s exclusive business, but the reasons for the suspension make it rather too troubling to ignore or leave for PDP alone. When good conscience is involved, then all good men ought to be involved.

In the main, Senator Nwaoboshi’s sin is that he dared to tell Governor Okowa to live up to the huge multi-ethnic leadership responsibilities and demands of the high Office of Governor of Delta State. As it should be, Nwaoboshi does not believe in Okowa’s clannish, small-minded and hate-filled ‘Owa-Alero State’ agenda or policy.

Nwaoboshi has also been charged for choosing the politics of unity, maturity and enlightened self interest in the Senate for the good of his constituents by working fruitfully with his brother and friend, the Deputy President of the Senate, His Excellency, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege – though they are in opposing political parties.

Indeed, there is a broad, growing consensus that they suspended the Senator for wisely securing the DSP’s unqualified support to sponsor a promising bill to establish the Federal University of Agriculture and Technology, Aboh (FUATA). They think by that, Nwaoboshi deliberately exposed their hate for his Ndokwa Ethnic Nation constituents who are not part of Okowa’s Owa-Alero State.

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It is sickening that Nwaoboshi was suspended for daring to speak up and against a government’s brazenly insensitive abandonment of virtually all of his (Nwaoboshi’s) Delta North Senatorial District except Okowa’s own Owa-Alero village. Seeking to kill a leader who is doing his utmost best to ameliorate the wholesale underserved ill-treatment of a vast majority of his constituents in cold and crude politics of underdevelopment is nothing but salvage tyranny.

It is Nwaoboshi’s right to be Pan-Deltan, even as another has chosen to be clannish and sow seeds of ethnic hate. He is right to oppose the extremely primitive clannishness and nepotism that make Okowa’s Owa-Alero village the only place that deserves government’s developmental attention.

Let’s be clear. Owa-Alero no doubt deserves high quality development, but it is not the only place in Delta. It makes sense to give attention to other places too, even if Okowa has to pretend for once. Spending almost all of Delta’s budget in one village is village-like primitivity. Suspending people from a party because they state these simple truths is a replay of the episode of the biblical Pharaoh whose heart was hardened to glorify God.

The Senator’s conviction is righteous. It is totally unacceptable for any man, no matter what he thinks of himself, to recklessly sow seeds of long-lasting ethnic hate in our State unchecked. Those who tried such in the past are already regretting their actions.

Okowa’s terribly hateful actions and inactions in the governance of a complex, multi-ethnic state as Delta do not represent our enlightenment and decency as a people. We are not primitive. It is satisfying beyond measure that the Distinguished Senator Peter Nwaoboshi chose to be a true Deltan by drawing attention to what we are not.

Finally, Okowa needs to be reminded that President Muhammadu Buhari didn’t suspend Saraki and others for opposing and criticising him in APC. He did not kill those who even were elected to sabotage his government. He simply allowed the normal course of electoral democracy to prove the the electorate’s disapproval of their unpatriotic schemes against him and his government. That is how to be a democrat rather than a tyrant.

Okowa’s tyranny has a known constitutional expiry date, but he is advised to learn some basic rules of democratic tolerance, no matter how tasking it must be for him. This will help him to govern beyond Owa-Alero State and earn some respect even in Anioma where the people are quite unhappy with his selfish ways. Suspending leaders who talk about his bad governance only projects him conclusively as a new Adolf Hitler.

Written by Efe Duke