Delta PDP Says Senator Nwaoboshi Has No Electoral Value

The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Delta State on Thursday said Senator Peter Nwaoboshi who recently defected from the party to the All Progressives Congress (APC) has no electoral value.

Platinum Posts reports that the party also dismissed allegation by APC that Nwaoboshi dumped PDP over the issue of imposition, saying the claim was a wild imagination without any iota of truth

According to the party the allegations “which must have left not a few persons amazed by their resort to this sudden act, has further exposed APC to indecently, since it caught in its net the conceited turncoat Senator from Delta North”

The PDP noted however, that while it will refrain from joining issues with the APC for “winning” to itself, a politician with no followers of value, Delta PDP said that Nwaoboshi became a Senator because the PDP leadership decided to field him as a candidate for the election.

In a press release signed by Delta PDP’s State Publicity Secretary, Ifeanyi Osuoza in response to APC’s recent outburst titled: “Okowa, PDP Plan to Pull down Nwaoboshi, Delta APC Raises Alarm,” said that: ” it was impossible for Nwaoboshi to be a candidate on his own, as Nigeria’s Constitution has no room for an independent candidate.

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“In fact, section 221 of the Nigerian Constitution, as amended, states unequivocally that: ‘No association, other than a political Party, shall canvass for votes for any election or contribute to the funds of any political Party or the election expenses of any candidate at an election.’

“What that section of the Constitution shows clearly is that it is only a political Party that canvasses for votes and it, therefore, follows that it is a Party that wins an election. Thus, a good or bad candidate may enhance or diminish the prospect of his Party winning but at the end of the day, it is the Party that wins or loses an election.

“The point therefore, is that PDP, being the main Party in Delta and Delta being a PDP State, it was clear that having won the election, the individual fielded as a candidate by PDP who emerged winner, just as Peter Nwaoboshi emerged winner in 2019, enjoys the mandate only because the Party sponsored and campaigned vigorously for him.

“It is therefore naive and crude for APC to raise the panicky claims as it did, in its infantile headline and for which it purports to be raising alarm.

“The question APC should answer is, does Nwaoboshi have the electoral value of his own to have been able to win an election in Delta North? This question is even more germane against the backdrop that the same Nwaoboshi contested the 2019 Delta North Senatorial election against an APC candidate, whom he, under the massive electoral presence, influence and strategic electoral brilliance and authority of the PDP in Delta North, defeated comprehensively.

“The answer from us therefore, is as earlier stated that Nwaoboshi rode on the crest of the magnanimity of PDP and indeed, the high electoral value of His Excellency, Senator, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, who was on the rostrum begging Delta Northerners to ensure that in voting for him as Governor, they should also vote for the ungrateful Nwaoboshi, to become a Senator

“Why was it necessary for Governor Okowa to beg the people of Delta North to vote for Nwaoboshi if his own electoral value was sufficient and credible enough, especially against a formidable APC Candidate in that election? It is a matter that we advise the APC to start thinking about seriously, in the coming days.

“Suffice it to say that PDP does not need to waste its time in planning to pull Nwaoboshi down for the simple reason that his Political fortitude was built from the beginning of his political journey by the PDP and except for the paid cheerleaders who are mainly rabble-rousers, disturbing the social media space and massing around him in very infinitesimal numbers, with eyes on what they can get from him, he is not a threat at all to the PDP, for as the Anioma saying goes: ‘An okro stem does not grow more than it’s owner’.

“It is even quite instructive to note that while Nwaoboshi was busy carrying out his defection charade in Abuja, the core of the APC leadership in Aniocha/Oshimili, his main Political Constituency, were massively de-camping to the PDP at the Cenotaph, in Asaba the State capital and Nwaoboshi, as a politician who has been around for quite a while understands the maxim that ‘all politics is local’.

“The very fact that his defection has not attracted any key member or stakeholder from the PDP, in his own Senatorial zone, to join him in his hapless, selfish, greedy journey, shows clearly that Nwaoboshi is a politician without substantial political goodwill or reputational acceptance and these shortcomings, which the PDP Umbrella had been covering for him, have now been glaringly exposed and this should also inform the APC that what they have embraced into their fold is a huge political liability, whose only notable asset is his title as ‘Senator’.

“It is quite inconceivable that the people he claimed to represent in the Senate and who he has categorically and deliberately shunned since the PDP gave him the platform to return for a second term, will treat him kindly again, when he has selfishly refused to give a voice to their plight in the national assembly, to speak up against the horrible onslaught of insecurity and terrible destruction of crops, loss of farmlands, kidnapping, murder and the molestation of Delta North women by AK47 wielding mauraders, suspected to be Fulani herdsmen. Indeed the harassed and brutalized people of Anioma and Delta North will not feel any loss of him.

“In fact Nwaoboshi, as Delta State Senator and recognized leader in the South-South, has been conspicuosly AWOL and suspiciously silent in contributing to the critical front burner issues which agitate the region and which his constituents clamour for and for which they are praising Governor Ifeanyi Okowa and the Southern Governors and leaders.

“Rather, he has been assembling ‘stakeholders’ to bad mouth Governor Okowa and attempt to heat up the polity and cause confusion, engrossed in pursuing his selfish agenda with the kingpins of the ruling Party at the centre, who must be laughing at him behind his back for betraying his People.

“Even his new bedfellows have stoutly and robustly defended their Constituencies in debates and well reported contributions to other fora, where issues concerning the region have been tabled. But Nwaoboshi has sadly been embroiled with the forensic audit and substantive Board of NDDC, for reasons which are very obvious and true to his character. Of course the EFCC has already indicated strongly that his so-called victory at the court, which he and the APC publicists are gloating over will soon be challenged, especially given the pronouncements of the judge that he was discharged for lack of diligent prosecution. Is anyone still in doubt that the people know better?

“As far as Delta PDP is concerned, Nwaoboshi’s decamping to the opposition Party holds no water. It did not affect the people he claims to be representing in the Senate, because it meant nothing to them. For the people of Delta North, his decamping to APC, therefore, remains good riddance to bad rubbish.

“To continue to discuss Nwaobosi will mean casting pearls before the swine. We in Delta PDP will not stoop so low. “