WHEN the people of Delta North go out to vote on April 9,2011 in the shifted National Assembly election, the image and stature of Dr. Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Prince Nwoko of Democratic Peoples Party (DPP) stand head and shoulder above the other contenders and pretenders in the race for Delta North Senatorial seat.

The implosion in PDP has given the people the alternative and choice of perspective. It has energized the opposition and made the democratic process robust.

Certainly, the era of “carry go,” politics that we have seen in the past 12 years, is over as the citizens have become active in trying to assert themselves and their sovereignty in their choice of who should represent them and their interest as well as manage their destiny.

The freedom of choice is crucial in this analysis because we have seen a situation where candidates for elective offices in Delta State have been selected from the United Arab Emirate, by the power cabal that emerged in Delta State in 1999 and its sole interest is the perpetuation of self in power and creation of a family dynasty like the type that Col. Muamer Gaddafi is doing in Libya.

There is also the issue of representing the group interest and the people’s interest, the personality traits and the politics of Anioma nation. Delta North is made up of nine local governments, namely: Aniocha and Oshimili, Ndokwa and Ika, with a demographic composition that shares socio-cultural ties and some degree of linguistic affinity and political destiny.

Its high human capital development  has been devalued by politics of bread and butter where the advent and consequences of the civil war has seen the area not only being marginalized but also reduced to the status of vassals in the scheme of things. It is a situation the people from outside the region will have to think and act for the people who are obviously being treated as a conquered people.

The sad odyssey can be seen in the failure of the different socio- cultural and political groups that have tried to represent and articulate the interest of Anioma people in the geopolitical space of Delta State and Nigeria.

From the so-called Izu Anioma, to Onu Anioma, Anioma Political Forum, Anioma National Council and Organisation for the Promotion of Anioma Arts and Culture, the  story has been that of abysmal failure, not only from the internal weaknesses of the structure, vision and purpose for the emergence of these groups but of leadership and courage for the people to stand and speak as one but above all the pervading sense of denial of individual and collective identity and lack of courage to pursue group interest and political action.

This is why the opportunity presented to choose between Dr.  Okowa and Prince Nwoko as the most qualified candidate to represent Delta North Senatorial District is more than a bread and butter affair.

While the other ethnic groups that made up Delta State have mastered the art of articulating and projecting group interest for political negotiation and action, the lot of Anioma people is to produce men and women with unquestioning loyalty and subservience to the powers that be as long as their personal interest and comfort is guaranteed. Consequently, the Anioma people face bleak future for lack of leadership.

The position of the Senator representing the Anioma people is the position of leadership that ought to convey leadership, focus, and ideological direction to a people whose lot in the socio-political equation must be uplifted from self-imposed nihilism. That is where the choice of Nwoko and Okowa becomes critical.

It is this reasoning that has made the race for the Senate a special one for Delta North senatorial zone which is also referred to as Anioma because of the subsisting demand for a state by this region. In the race for the Senate, Dr. Okowa, former Commissioner for Works, Agriculture and Health and one-time Secretary to State Government is contesting on the platform of the ruling PDP; Prince Ned Nwoko who was a member of the House of Representatives , Abuja, is contesting on the platform of the Democratic People Party.

Nwoko left the PDP after he failed to secure the ticket for the Senate where Dr. Okowa proved to have a better political savvy at least within the PDP system. But now the battle has entered into the public domain with the candidates appealing directly to the voters.

The issue then is who has a better organisation, network of contact, the skill and sagacity to represent Anioma people well in the Senate. There are issues that are tied to the aspiration to the highest political office in Delta North.

In 2007, Dr.  Okowa and Godswill Obuelum were the leading candidates in the race for the governorship of Delta State; Prince Ned Nwoko and Dr. Maryam Ali were the strong contenders for the Delta North Senatorial seat.

But by some deft of political maneuver, the former governor, Chief James Onanefe Ibori talked Dr. Okowa into chickening out of the race at a point where he was to go for a run–off with Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, he has offered the post of Secretary to State Government, a position that protects his self interest at the expense of collective aspiration leading Anioma people into political actualisation and relevance.

Unknown to him the opportunity cost of abandoning that race at that point is that most voters today would raise the issue of his courage to stand up for the collective interest of Anioma people, especially when the issue of pursuing the creation of Anioma state crops up in the Senate?

Going into that run off and suffering a defeat would have made him a hero, yet his chances of winning then was so high that many of his followers today know that they lost it in 2007. Prince Nwoko was edged out of the race for the Senate by the Ibori political machine which gave her the ticket, only to go behind and support Chief Patrick Osakwe of Accord Party. What happened to Anioma interest in the Senate in the12 years of Chief Osakwe’s tenure is better left to history.

As at today, Prince Nwoko is judged largely by his performance in the House of Representatives, where he sponsored 21 bills, including the EFCC and the National Minimum Wage Bills that eventually became Acts of the National Assembly.

He was consistently voted as the best law maker for four years by his colleagues at the National assembly.
Status quo maintainers have accused Nwoko of jumping from one party to another but they have often over-looked the circumstance for his restlessness and political activism.

He had the courage to take on Chief Ibori in 2003 for the governorship on the platform of All Nigeria Peoples Party; it was an incident that almost cost him his life as the exchange of gun shots and accusation of possession of gun by the Police was all that was needed to chuck him out of the race.

Between Prince Nwoko and Dr.  Okowa, the issue is who best represents the collective aspiration of Delta North people. That cannot be anybody that rides on the back of the Governor to the Senate or any other political office in the state which makes him to be eternally  yoked to the governor.

Mr.  FRANCIS OSHODI, a commentator on national affairs, writes from Asaba, Delta State.