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Basil Okoh

Obarisi Ovie Omo-Agege was a member of the PDP who came into office with James Ibori as Executive Assistant (EA) in 2003. Those were the days when being governor’s senior aide depended on the content of your cranium, not now when their appointments have no job description and depend on the size of your chest or the notoriety of your brigandage.

Omo-Agege did impress his employer Ibori which earned him a rapid promotion to Commissioner for Special Duties, Government House and Secretary to the State Government, within three years following the resignation of Dr. Uduaghan in 2006 to contest the governorship election.

The entire apparatus of government was left in the care of Ovie Omo-Agege and many considered him the Vice Governor of Delta State. The talk was rife that he had been anointed by Ibori as the next governor of Delta state. Ovie Omo-Agege did contest the governorship primaries of the PDP in 2006 but was bested by Emmanuel Uduaghan, cousin to then outgoing governor James Ibori. This obvious nepotism provoked the anger of the elders of the state to form the PDP Elders and Stakeholders Forum to protest the cronyism demonstrated in that primary election.

In 2014, Ovie Omo-Agege again made another bid for the governorship of Delta state for the election of 2015. One of the early moves he made in that effort was a consultation visit along with his large retinue to the Palace of the Asagba of Asaba. There, he was reminded by the old Professor, Asagba Chike Edozien that the governorship of Delta was the turn of Delta North. Omo-Agege’s response was novel and it drew the mirthful admiration of the Asagba.

He said: “Everyone knows I’m Urhobo from Orogun. But the Asagba may wish to know that Orogun people migrated from Aboh in Delta North. So historically I’m Anioma like the Asagba himself”. The Asagba after acknowledging his good cheer and gaiety, wished him well and gave his blessing. It was after the PDP governorship primaries that Obarisi Ovie Omo-Agege abandoned the PDP and moved to the Labour Party from where he ran for Senate in the 2015 election in Delta Central senatorial district and won. He moved again to APC and won a second tenure to the Senate to become Senate President in 2019. After two tenures in the Senate, Obarisi Omo-Agege is going back to seek the old job he originally wanted; the governorship of Delta State.

The state should consider him a serious contender for the job of governor of Delta state for the reasons that he has exceedingly achieved for the senatorial district he represented and therefore comes with a tenable testimonial. Our consideration for the governorship bid should also be because we know him to be without blemish in his qualifying credentials. Ovie Omo-Agege has contested and won the nomination of the APC to run for the governorship of Delta State in the 2023 election.

We can now begin to interrogate Obarisi Ovie Omo-Agege to know what he wants to do differently as governor of an underachieving Delta state, ravaged by 24 years of PDP mindlessness and locust invasion. The usual mish-mash of promises will not suffice to convince anyone to have a different expectation from the floundering and dying PDP which is cratering down the middle in recompense for the greed and betrayal of its leaders and principal actors.

The twenty-four-year governance of Delta state by the PDP has brought monumental ruination in every area of development in the state. The state PDP has become increasingly irresponsible from one governor to the next to the sorry point that political office in the state is now interpreted as a ticket for self and family enrichment.

The culture of working with boneheads and appointing mediocrity to lead positions reinforces the belief that public office is for self-aggrandizement. The practice has gotten so bad to the point now where the entire state is in court to decide whether to promote a street punk to become governor of the state. No other state in Nigeria has rated itself so low or grown such a culture of low self-esteem as Delta state has so abused itself in the last twenty-four years of the reign of PDP.

It is no longer tenable for Delta state to look to PDP to provide leadership. To rescue Delta State from the cesspit in which PDP sank the pride and patrimony of the state, the people must look elsewhere among the alternate parties without the heavy baggage and cumbersome bills which PDP presents. We must search for that one person who must begin to provide leadership for the renewal and revival of our state.

All PDP has mastered in the twenty-four years of its locust invasion of Delta State is loss and shame. Out of the three PDP governors that have ruled the state, the first one has done time in jail for plundering the wealth of the state, another has junked 5 mega projects on which N120 billion had been wasted and remains a constant secret visitor to EFCC.

The Oghareki Power Project was abandoned after wasting N30 billion naira on it even when the overpriced Rolls-Royce Rotary Engines from Canada had been delivered and in storage at Ogharaki. The Warri Industrial Park concocted with Alfred Okoigun gulped N28 billion, and never went beyond the sand filling of the land before desertion. It only now boasts of a grotesque and uncompleted Legacy House left out in the rains and swamp of the Warri Port Expressway. The Oreye Floating Market has gone through three regimes, swallowed billions and remains uncompleted. The Asaba-Ughelli Highway received over N30 billion under Uduaghan and left uncompleted. Uduaghan also sunk N30 billion on the Asaba Airport and left it uncompleted. 

The present governor is borrowing billions in the name of the state to fund the presidential campaign of a stranger and pariah in order to purchase the job of a quisling and Vice President. Delta State with a figure of N378. 878 billion is presently the second highest indebted state after Lagos State.

The state has had enough of PDP. For twenty-four years we made ourselves victims of unrelenting fraud and no one is going to give us plaudits for self-abuse.

For all our pride in our citizens’ superior performances in their various areas of human endeavour, Delta state is today a laggard competitor in every category of human and spatial development in Nigeria. We are among the best in the world in many other areas but we bring out the worst among us to lead the state. Could that be a curse?

For the alleluya choristers of PDP in the state, every kilometre of road constructed without drainage is a reason to go for thanksgiving in the Government House Chapel, Asaba.

Our major challenges to developing a growing economy in Delta state will be energy, a farmer-oriented agricultural policy, industrial agricultural practices, improvement of school enrolment and teacher availability in the coastline communities, improving teaching quality in public schools, providing basic health care for rural communities and removing opacity in state tax collection.

Beyond all these, there’s a crying need to tackle the obscurity in government business, particularly in the bidding processes and awards of contracts. There must be open and verifiable public bidding for all contracts.

So to make a serious bid for the job of governor of Delta state, a candidate must provide for us citizens of the state, a valid proposition and blueprint for the development of our people, our cities and the agricultural land and waters of the state. 

It is reassuring that Ovie Omo-Agege has brought out for everyone to see and review, a blueprint of his plans for all aspects of the governance of Delta state in his rather lengthy manifesto. It is necessary for everyone to get a copy of this graphic presentation, make assessments and take decisions that should inform voting choices.

It will no longer be enough to offer the usual platitudes and the cheap sloganeering to win popularity and the votes of the people. Emmanuel Uduaghan came with the “Three Point Agenda” and Ifeanyi Okowa with the “SMART Agenda”, each agenda was built into fancy proposals with the sole purpose of carrying out grand larceny on the public treasury.

The 2023 election is going to be injected with a youth dynamism never seen in Nigeria’s history and Delta is not going to be left out of the revolutionary change that beckons on the nation. The choice of Friday Osanebi, a youth, by the APC candidate Obarisi Ovie Omo-Agege as running mate, is playing to the deciding factor in the 2023 election.

What remains is for him to put together a team with the capacity to deliver progressive development within the shortest possible time. In every area of development there must be an explicit policy direction to confront existing challenges while charting pathways to holistic development in Delta state.

@basilokoh.