Delta PDP Governorship Candidacy: The Simple Truth

By Uchenna Ugboma

The nomination of Delta State PDP governorship candidates has never been as challenging as it has become this time around.

The 2006 primary seemed easy with Governor James Ibori’s management of the process, though it resulted in some acrimony as evidenced by the confession of elder statesman, Chief E K Clark, that Ibori’s support for Dr Emmanual Uduaghan against their preference led him and some of the leading aspirants then to compile and present incriminating documents against Ibori to President Olusegun Obasanjo and the EFCC which sparked off the travails of the highly regarded former governor.

The 2014 primary also had its difficulties but the party stakeholders, including Ibori, were able to stand their ground behind Dr Ifeanyi Okowa against Uduaghan’s attempt to impose a different candidate on the party.

The 2022 primary, however, carries a complication. While Governor Okowa seized the party machinery to impose his preferred candidate, contrary to the spirit under which he emerged in 2014, there is a strong objection to the qualification of the candidate as has been declared by the Federal High Court, Abuja, but Okowa seems to be insisting.

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While Okowa is insisting on Sheriff Oborevwori, the Speaker of the state House of Assembly, whose documents are being challenged in court, the governor and his camp are angry with Olorogun David Edevbie for bringing the suspected defects in Oborevwori’s documents to judicial scrutiny. This has left members of the party sharply divided.

In examination of the conflict, it should first be recognised that there are laid down qualifications provided in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and the Electoral Act, for contesting electoral positions. Both legal authorities also provide for any aspirant to challenge any suspected false submissions by other aspirants in claim of such qualifications.

This, obviously, is in the interest of informed good governance of the nation and also in the best interest of political parties who field candidates to be sure that such candidates meet the constitutional requirements to avoid the situation that occurred in Bayelsa, for instance, in which the APC lost its victory in the governorship election to the PDP due to disregard of alleged inconsistencies about the identity of the deputy governor-elect.

In the case of Delta PDP, the alleged inconsistencies in Oborevwori’s certificates are with regards to multiple names and dates of birth which, from various documents in public display, he seems to have been making efforts to resolve with several court affidavits for several years now. More some, it is alleged that his submissions about identity for the 2022 primary are markedly different from his submissions to INEC for the 2018 general elections.

The alleged inconsistencies could be pure cases of forgery and falsification or mere errors, negligence or shoddinees in documentation.

While he had contested and won a couple of elections without any challenge of his documents before now, the alleged inconsistencies were brought to the fore at the Delta PDP South-South Gubernatorial Candidates Screening in Port Harcourt. Though the PDP panel at which the observations were first raised and the Appeal Panel cleared him to enter the primary, which he won, the defects were challenged by Edevbie, who returned the first runner-up.

•Ugboma is resident in Asaba