By EMMA AMAIZE
DELTA State Commissioner for Orientation and Communication, Chief  Paulinus Akpeki, yesterday, frowned at people trying to make a  mountain out of a  molehill over his statement that the Democratic Peoples Party, DPP, should stop  confusing Deltans with its spurious claim that  the “people’s  sovereign mandate  was again recklessly and unlawfully donated to Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and its cohorts”  in the January 6 gubernatorial rerun.

Speaking to Sunday Vanguard on phone, he said, “I never said that the DPP gubernatorial candidate, Chief Great Ogboru, should not approach the court over the election, it is his constitutional right. What I said is that the Ogboru Campaign Organization should refrain from the use of phrases such as, “our people’s sovereign mandate, which was again recklessly and unlawfully donated to Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) by the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC and its cohorts”.

“And I stand by my words that such phrases are not only misleading, unguarded and provocative but tend to reduce matters of legitimate political competition to the cesspit of frivolity, banality and the debasement of civilized democratic constellation”, he stated.
For the avoidance of doubt, Akpeki said, “What I said is that my attention has been drawn to a publication in one of the national dailies, which bears the rather quaint and clearly provocative caption, ‘Ogboru asks tribunal to declare him Delta governor’, which was reportedly issued by the Ogboru Campaign Organization.

“I went on to say that,  if anything, the petition fits into a common nexus of scurrilous orchestration and unnecessary propagation of narrow, partisan prejudices, whims and fantasies, associated with the politics of intransigent and rabble-rousing opposition. At face value, it would be dismissible and redolent of the streak of backward, unprogressive interest-aggregation to mix up legitimate litigation with issues of self-perpetuation and self-congratulation”.

“Proceeding further, I said, however, we are constrained to temporarily entertain a caveat, and, assume, as it were, that the prayer by Chief Great Ovedje Ogboru, to the respected election tribunal, to declare him Governor of Delta State, is an elemental thing of juridical procedure.

“Nevertheless, we should also seriously reflect upon certain consistencies that are implicit in the democratic process:  An electoral procedure already consummated with a definite result and official proclamation of winner and loser, need not be travestied with frivolous petitions, bordering on after-thought and a revisionist craving for the negation of history. These were my submissions.

“Furthermore, within the framework of behavior and conduct, consistent with decorum and good conscience, we would like to reason with the author of such publications that politics and democratic struggle need not wear the garb of gladiators tearing each other apart in a Hobbesian State.

“Politics is the act of striking compromise in a conflict setting and the precept. It  is respect for order and truth, so that the legitimate entitlements of others should be given earnest and responsible consideration, I added”.

Akpeki pointed out, “We particularly take exemption to the crass, brazen, and crude manner of giving vent to the natural instinct of opposition politics, which propagators of a sectarian, tribalistic and cheap anti-Uduaghan sentiment have allowed themselves in a most abject manner to descend to.

“As Delta State, the finger of God, transforms, by the day, within the fulcrum of development and progress, initiated and regulated by Dr. Emmanuel Eweta Uduaghan, we call on all the nattering nabobs of opposition politics and negativism to tread the path of self-restraint”.

The commissioner said he was, therefore, taken aback when he received calls and read comments of people saying he was against Ogboru going to court, adding, “Far from it, I only cautioned against the provocative phrases used by his Campaign Organization”.

Akpeki also spoke on  the comments of the Peoples Redemption Party, PRP, gubernatorial candidate in the state, Comrade Emmanuel Igbini, who said his (Akpeki’s) appointment as commissioner by the former acting Governor, Prince Sam Obi ceased on February 10, and he had no locus standi to speak on behalf of the Delta State government on any matter.

His words, “I want to tell you with all due respect that Igbini does not even understand the constitution he is talking about except if he is reading it upside down. Government is a continuum; there is no vacuum in government. My appointment as a commissioner did not cease because Dr. Uduaghan took over his rightful office from the former acting governor. It is only Uduaghan that can say  that I am not a commissioner anymore in his government if he chooses, that is the position of the law”.