By Perez Brisbe

Famed as the Peoples General, Olorogun Great Ogboru is a leader of one of the two factions in the APC. He gave his perspectives on the battle at the convention ground in this interview.

Ogboru

What led to the melee?

When they came, somehow, their expectations were cut short, but they went and mobilized again. We were able to take the back gate, into the venue and take our seats. We thought that was the end of the matter and whatever the issue is, we would deal with it in the coming days, but as we were seated there, we saw O’tega and Ochei leading them towards the stand.

First of all, Cairo (Ojugboh) came, took surveillance of the environment, how we were, where we were seated, all that, and he left. Then we now saw O’tega with some people numbering up to a hundred; all dressed in blue uniform. They stormed where we were seated shouting, “get up from the chair,” “get up from the chair.” The next we saw were missiles being thrown all over the place amidst fighting.

They drove our people away from the stand, went to the stand of Edo State, drove the delegates there and carried broken chairs which they used in hitting people. Ah! It was a sad sight. But the bottom line is that, even though they had the right which we know they don’t have, by their actions, they lost it already.

What happened precisely in the convention was that Olorogun O’tega and his colleagues including Ochei and Cairo Ojougboh and all of them who have this ethnic agenda, stole a hundred booklets of result sheets and they went to Port-Harcourt to write results and the former national chairman of the party connived with them.

They did not participate in the congress so they cannot have delegates by right. They have no delegates, and they know it. Because you think you have a special relationship with Oyegun, that doesn’t mean that what you have done is right and because Oyegun calls himself national chairman doesn’t mean that he is the law as well.

And these are the things that we have to straighten out, and we had to tell Oyegun to his face, that his behavior was wrong. I told him. I have never seen a man this old and irresponsible.

Now, this was the issue. You came to convention ground, and you were not accredited, if you weren’t accredited and you have a grouse, you must go to the official channel to make your complaint and then the issues would be looked at and dealt with dispassionately by the new leadership. But to know that the entire APC was seated in a convention, the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria was there with over 23 governors, delegates from 36 states all seated, and you came and created that type of mayhem, what justification do you have? What right do you have? Are you the only one that has a right?

Was Oyegun in Delta State? How could he have known what happened in Delta State? The state chairman said this is what happened, but he doesn’t want to accept it because he doesn’t like the result. So this is a summary of what led to them coming to attack us.

That consent judgment was filed in court and was adopted on June 19 which was four days before the convention. Out of desperation, they ran, went to Chief Oyegun who went to court with Gadzama to try to set the order aside but did not. So that order was subsisting and this was the basis for our right to be present there because we have a subsisting order that makes us the valid delegates. That order is still subsisting till now. If they tell you that they were delegates, they weren’t, not before any law. Before the law, there is a legal pronouncement that we are the official delegates, and that has not been set aside, and I doubt if it can be set aside.

How calm was restored after the melee

After their moment of madness, after they had exposed themselves and shown their true colour that they are not only unrepentant criminals and irresponsible touts to the whole world, they went and sat down, we stayed till midnight. The Convention Committee excluded Delta from the voting exercise, so we adopted a consensus list and said okay, we would accept the consensus list as the position of the delegates of which I led, but it was not practicable because votes needed to be cast. At that stage, we advised that it would be better for us not to vote because for us to go and vote, would lead to a greater pandemonium and we do not want to be associated with that kind of scene anymore. So, we left but in the morning they said they voted, but of course those votes were never counted because allowing them to vote would contaminate the process, if you are not accredited, you cannot vote, meaning delegates from Delta State did not vote even the ones that thought they were voting, where just carrying out an exercise in futility. Their votes were never counted.

There were several causalities as a result of the melee, and about eight persons were severely injured. One lady even broke her hand another had the mouth stitched while another had a broken head.

Obaseki, Oshiomhole were chased from their stand

In the process, they even chased the Edo State governor as well as the new chairman and his wife out of his stand that is what they did. I could not bring myself to look at Comrade Adams Oshiomhole anymore because I was ashamed.

Emerhor does not deserve any response from me, by his actions, he has shown himself as an irresponsible man and cannot be a leader by any strength of imagination and of course, he has shown why the people have always refused to vote for him because they know him better than we thought we did. APC in Delta State is bigger and stronger than ever before, and I think without Ochei, Emerhor and their PDP allies; they were in PDP, we fought and defeated them in PDP, and with or without them, we would do what we have to do, and they know it.

They are just pretending that they are so important, they are not as important as they feel, they do not control five percent of the following in the party nor do they control two percent in the state. They pretended that they had done a fake congress, but the express guideline in the party is that you must not zone, maintain the zoning as it is. They went and zoned all the positions in the state and not with the least regard to the national executive committee of the party and the guideline of the congresses thinking that they were in position but the zoned themselves completely out of existence.