Ned Nwoko: Prof. Darah Tackles Zik Gbemre

By Daniel Dafe

The chairman of Pan Niger Delta Forum, PANDEF, in Delta State, Prof. Godini Darah, has taken a swipe at Zik Gbemre over his writeup that condemned his take on Senator Ned Nwoko’s campaign for Anioma State.

In a statement, Darah said Zik Gbemre’s comment on his response to Sen. Ned Nwoko’s campaign for the creation of Anioma State “represents the nadir of insanity typified by Gbemre.”

He continued: “This is the background: Last week Sen. Ned Nwoko of Delta North Senatorial District addressed an open letter to his constituency appealing to them to support the cause. Sen Nwoko gave the impression that he could single-handedly pursue the creation of Anioma State. His letter was published in several social media.

“As usual, Zik Gbemre cloaked his vituperation against me under the guise of defending Sen Nwoko. At the 2014 National Conference, I was secretary of the sub-committee that worked on the Delta requests for the creation of states. All the delegates from Delta State and Niger Delta unanimously supported the creation of Anioma from Delta State. I explained this process in a post on this platform about a week ago.

“Well, all that Gbemre has said against me may be fair in media mudslinging for which he is notorious. As an Urhobo adage says, every community needs an insane person, but no family wants to harbour a mad relative. So let it be with Gbemre.”

Furthermore, he went on to correct what he described as “a few gaffs in Gbemre’s ill-motivated and illogical comment.”

“First, I was the only UPU-endorsed Urhobo delegate to the 2014 National Confab; there were two other Urhobo persons in the Confab, one lawyer and a journalist who represented the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) respectively. Neither of them presented a memo on Urhobo matters. I presented the UPU-approved memo for the Urhobo. Therefore, Gbemre should swallow his verbal Pidgin vomit in saying that “Urhobo no send Darah message”. The Urhobo mandated me to represent them and I did so to the best of my ability. The UPU was satisfied with what I did on their behalf. This explains why the UPU Convention of 2017 adopted the positions I advocated at the Confab, endorsed them and published them in a two- page advertorial in the Vanguard Newspaper of February 28, 2018. This can be verified,” he said.

In his words, “Gbemre should note that the disease of foul-mouthedness (ogbeta) which he suffers from does not excuse the use of lies and wrong facts. Barrister Bernard Jamaho was not a delegate to the 2014 Confab. Rather, he served on the Niger Delta Technical Committee set up by President Shehu Musa Yar-Adua in 2009, five years before the Confab.”

According to him, “Zik Gbemre is not from Owahwa or Jeremi Ward 4 of PDP. (Owahwa people are grateful to Almighty God for sparing them the birth of a character like Zik Gemre).”

Furthermore, he said: “When the campaign for the impending LGA elections visited Otor-Owahwa on June 17, we compiled a list of eleven projects/requests for the eleven communities in the Ward. The list includes a request for the completion of the Okwagbe-Otutuama-Esaba-Ophorigbala-Ighwreogun Road that was started by the Gov Ibori regime in 2006, neglected by Gov Uduaghan from 2007-2015, and revived by Gov Okowa in 2019. On the Owahwa-Otor campaign grounds, we urged the Delta PDP government, not the LGA chairman as Gbemre misrepesented, to complete the project. It is our legitimate right to make the request.

“It is, therefore, rude and reprehensible for Gbemre to have impugned that “Today Esaba town can’t be accessed on land with cars during the raining season. A man who couldn’t use his closeness to Ibori and later Uduaghan to construct the Okwagbe-Otutuama-Esaba-
Ophorigbala-Ighwreogun Road to his community is expecting an LG chairman to turn his community he abandoned to eldorado”.

“Half-education, they say, is worse than no education at all. Being an armchair critic, Gbemre thinks Esaba is neglected and abandoned; it is not. Esaba has primary and secondary schools, it has a health centre, piped water scheme, and erosion control embankment. Esaba, with two Professors and several University lecturers is a major educational centre in Ughievwen and Urhoboland. A medical doctor from Esaba is the oldest, foremost and richest medical practitioner in Ughievwen, nay Urhobo. He owns FOUR first-rate hospitals in Los Angeles, USA.

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“Further on the curse of half education, Gbemre’s archaic and inflexible mind makes him believe it is the presence of all-season roads that defines development. The British who colonised Nigeria for about 60 years did not come to Nigeria by road, they used the waterways. The road that passes through Gbemre’s Ighwreekan community was built by Gov Ogbemudia’s government about 1972; it was destined for Udu communities, Ighwreekan benefited from the road by sheer geographical accident.

“It is now nearly five years that Zik Gbemre has mounted a campaign of calumny against me because I served in Gov Ibori’s government for four years (2003-2007). The achievement of the Ibori administration are yet to be equalled by any State in Nigeria. In spite of this glaring fact, Zik Gbemre has persisted in raining abuses at Chief Ibori and me. But I know that all Gbemre’s pugnacious jibes at Gov Ibori are clear signals of cowardice. I can bet on it, if Zik Gbemre meets Ibori “live” Gbemre will quake and will lose courage to look at him and ask questions. (The Urhobo express this in figurative language thus: odidi je mu obi: fright disables one from clutching a black mamba).

“If Gbemre”s unprovoked anti-Darah diatribes were in the context of the legendary Udje satirical songs, then we can regard them as part of an artistic game. Unfortunately, he pretends to be throwing missiles at the hats of Ibori and mine. His real intention is to destroy our hard-earned public image. Gbemre’s mission will end in fiasco like that of the proverbial dog hoping to overthrow an elephant.”

“My final note is a lament for the ruin that Gbemre’s senile tantrums portend for the survival of UHS as the global intellectual platform of the Urhobo. Whenever Gbemre plans his media assaults he never uses his personal platform; rather he pollutes the universally acclaimed UHS platforms. Members of the Editorial Committee ought to worry about this matter more than they have cared to do thus far. I don’t think this was what Professor Peter Palmer Ekeh intended for the UHS,” he concluded.