Premium News
DELTA APC IN SHOW OF MIGHT AS OKOWA, NWAOBOSHI, NWOKO SIZE EACH OTHER
Senator Peter Nwaoboshi, aka Oracle, a former chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Delta State, made a challenging decision when he decamped to the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2021.
However, as a politician, he had to do so because of the indications that the governor at the time, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, whom he succeeded in 2015 as the senator representing the Delta North senatorial district, was interested in returning to the Red Chamber in 2023 after his eight-year term as governor.
In the way parties are organized in the country, governors are powerful, and that means they could easily deprive him of a re-election ticket. Nwaoboshi was one of the Anioma leaders who stood solidly behind Okowa in the 2014 governorship primaries, where he emerged as the PDP gubernatorial candidate and subsequently became the governor in 2015. But the two politicians have not always been in the same political camp.
For example, Nwaoboshi, as the state PDP chairman, supported Mariam Alli, the wife of Ahmadu Alli, the former PDP national chairman, when Okowa ran for the Delta North senate seat in 2011. Okowa functioned as the Secretary to the State Government (SSG) from 2007 to 2011 under Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan as governor. He represented the Delta North as Senator from 2011 to 2015.
The PDP suspended Nwaoboshi a few months after he abandoned the party due to his constant denigration of Okowa. In contrast to his suspicions, Okowa did not later run for the senate ticket in 2023 because the PDP presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, nominated him as his running mate.
Nwoko, a former member of the House of Representatives for the Aniocha/Oshimili federal constituency from 1999 to 2003, benefited from the Okowa/Nwaoboshi imbroglio. He (Nwoko) sought Okowa’s blessings to run for the Delta North senate seat in 2022, since Okowa was in the presidential race with Alhaji Abubakar, which the latter granted.
Before then, Nwoko’s attempts to launch himself back into politics after he exited the House of Representatives proved to be an overwhelming task until the 2023 elections.
How Nwaoboshi lost out to Nwoko in 2023
Nwaoboshi, who represented the Delta North senatorial district from 2015 to 2023, was strong on the ground in the senatorial district and wanted to run for a third term in the Senate. However, in 2022, something he did not imagine ensued.
A court case over a loan one of his companies took for a business deal culminated in his questionable conviction in 2022 by the Lagos Division of the Court of Appeal.
It was only after the 2023 National Assembly elections had come and gone that the Supreme Court dismissed the charges against him and quashed his conviction, holding that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had no business arraigning him in court on the matter, as no crime was committed.
The apex court described the Court of Appeal’s conviction of Nwaoboshi as shocking, maintaining the anti-graft agency had no business whatsoever meddling in civil transactions.
It said the EFCC and others allowed themselves to be used by some unscrupulous elements to dabble in civil matters, and it was apparent the petitioner had a personal axe to grind with the appellant.
According to the Supreme Court, “He (Nwaoboshi) was convicted for the offense of fraudulent purchase of the Delta State House in Apapa, an offense for which he was not charged. Nwaoboshi’s conviction violates his constitutional rights, having been convicted for an offense for which he was not charged.”
Initially, Nwaoboshi, and lawyer, did not know who sent the missile, and when he found out, the deed had been done. It was too late to turn back the clock.
Nwoko won the Delta North senatorial seat on the PDP platform in 2023, while Nwaoboshi was serving his jail sentence.
Whoever plotted the conspiracy against him was clinical in execution. When they discovered that Nwaoboshi allegedly had preferential treatment, the EFCC went to court and secured an order to arrest him to properly serve his jail term inside the prison, not outside the correctional facility.
His apprehension by the EFCC to serve the Appeal Court’s seven-year jail term was the final death knell on Nwaoboshi’s 2023 senatorial ambition.
Ever before he decamped from the PDP, Senator Nwoko confided in the Sunday Vanguard that he knew nothing about Nwaboshi’s travails.
Nwoko’s troubles with Okowa
But again, as with politics, Nwoko soon had issues with Okowa. The grouse was that Okowa handpicked virtually all the political officeholders in the Delta North senatorial district, including Nwoko’s Aniocha North local government area, without recourse to the serving senator.
It was unclear if Nwoko sought Governor Oborevwori’s intervention in his feud with Okowa. But a source said the governor would have been disinclined to accompany Nwoko to question Okowa’s prerogative in the Delta North politics, for he knew how his predecessor insisted that the party leaders should support Nwoko in 2023.
Nwoko’s supporters also accused the former governor of thwarting their principal’s efforts to ensure the creation of Anioma State because doing so would improve his political standing.
Citing deep divisions and irreconcilable factions as the primary reasons, Nwoko said on January 31, when he defected from the PDP to the APC, “I left because I want to secure the ruling party’s support for the creation of Anioma State. The governor and Okowa, who are PDP leaders, oppose this (creation of Anioma State). I sought PDP’s backing at the national level, but internal conflicts have paralyzed leadership.”
He also confirmed that they sidetracked him in decisions concerning the party in the Delta North. His words, “I wasn’t allowed to nominate any board members, commissioners, or local government chairmen. I had to join the ruling party to be able to attract projects to my constituency…”
A public hearing for the creation of Anioma State was rescheduled from Asaba, the state capital, to Uyo, the capital of Akwa Ibom State, due to worries that those opposed to Nwoko’s bid have concluded a plan to obstruct it.
Intrigues as three heavyweights meet in APC
Senator Nwoko never expected that Okowa, who made him flee the PDP, would later join him in the APC, which occurred live on April 28 in Asaba, the state capital. Governor Oborevwori led Okowa and other PDP leaders to decamp to the APC after collapsing the PDP structure in the state.
Correspondingly, Nwaoboshi did not reckon that Nwoko, who practically rattled him in the build-up to the 2023 polls, would migrate to the APC. He also did not envisage that Okowa, after completing his eight-year tenure as governor, would defect to the APC in 2025.
In the APC, where they have now assembled, Okowa, Nwaoboshi, and Nwoko look like three strange bedfellows. Nwoko does not want to have anything to do with Okowa, while Nwaoboshi also does not want to do anything with Nwoko. Okowa also views anything that relates to Nwoko and Nwaoboshi with thoughtfulness .
For some weeks now, especially since April 28, when Okowa formally joined the APC, the three top Anioma politicians are getting the measure of each other ahead of 2027.
Lately, the political scene has been abuzz with information that Okowa wants to stage a comeback in the Senate. He was, at the outset, said to be preparing Hilary Ibegbulem, his principal secretary from 2015 to 2023.
Some of Okowa’s men have let the cat out of the bag that their boss would contest the senate position. Okowa has not openly declared his intention, but was quietly putting the blocks together. Nwaoboshi is also tactical in his undertakings.
APC leaders and stakeholders back Nwoko for 2027
In what appears to be an ingenious attempt to pre-empt Okowa and Nwaoboshi, some party leaders and stakeholders validated Nwoko as Delta North’s 2027 senatorial candidate at the APC senatorial meeting held in his1 Idumuje-Ugboko country home on June 14.
Okowa and Nwaoboshi did not send a representative to the meeting and did not attend. The deputy governor, Sir Monday Onyeme, was also absent.
However, Onyeme’s foot soldiers and Nwoko’s aides had been engaged in a verbal sparring match over who should be the legitimate leader of the APC in the Delta North senatorial district before the Idumje-Ugboko meeting. It was their boss, according to both sides.
Attending party leaders supported Senator Nwoko, Governor Oborevwori, and President Bola Tinubu for 2027.
LG chairmen denounce Nwoko’s endorsement
Nonetheless, the Forum of Delta North APC Local Government Area Chairmen affirmed their support for Tinubu and Oborevwori exclusively, rejecting the alleged endorsement of Senator Nwoko for a second term.
The APC in the Delta North senatorial district is led by Onyeme, the deputy governor, according to the forum, which “respectfully requests him to kindly take up the leadership role in unifying and guiding the party.”
Eluaka, Delta North APC leader, counters LG chairs
Overruling the forum, the Delta North senatorial chairman of the party, Ogbueshi Adizue Eluaka, who attended the Idumuje-Ugboko meeting, dissolved the forum, which he described as “an unauthorized and unconstitutional body.”
He stated, “We will not sit to watch a few disgruntled, sponsored individuals under the guise of a forum that is unknown to our constitution to cause disunity and disaffection in our party. The APC is a window of opportunity for growth, and these actions are self-serving.”
He warned that any meeting convened by the now-dissolved forums or any unsanctioned groups would be deemed illegal and subject to disciplinary action.
Nwaoboshi slams Eluaka.
Senator Nwaoboshi, who has kept a measured silence on the politics of the party in the Delta North since Nwoko joined the APC, retorted to Eluaka’s statement on Thursday, saying, Eluaka, fast turning himself into a political emperor of the Delta North APC does not have the authority to disband the chairmen forum. Senator Nwaoboshi stated that Chief Eluaka and his group endorsed Senator Ned Nwoko for a second term without duly consulting the Delta North APC stakeholders and the hierarchy a few days ago. His words, ”Sadly, in total disregard and disobedience to the prevailing APC constitution, Chief Eluaka has continued in his acts of crass lawlessness, contemptuous disregard of party rules, abuse of processes, and misuse of executive power, which dangerously portends the extermination of constitutional democracy in the APC Delta North.”
