Ndokwa Youth Leaders Back Okowa to Purchase Senate Forms

Omon-Julius Onabu in Asaba

As activities towards the 2007 general election intensify across the state, youths of Ndokwa ethnic extraction, under the aegis of Ndokwa Youth Leaders Assembly (NYLA), have asked former Governor Ifeanyi Okowa to heed the call from different quarters to run in the 2027 Delta North Senate race.

Describing Sen. (Dr.) Okowa as “the most credible, unifying and development-rooted figure” capable of giving Delta North Senatorial District the strategic and high-impact representation in the National Assembly, the group expressed its readiness to purchase the application forms for Okowa when he declares his interest to contest.

In a press statement at the end of its meeting at Ogume in Ndokwa West Local Government Area, the NYLA said the appeal was advised by what it described as Okowa’s “tested competence, administrative maturity, bridge-building capacity, and visible investment in human and infrastructural development across Delta North during the period he served as Governor of Delta State.”

More than ever before, Delta North today requires a senator with “both national leverage and local content”, stressing that Okowa clearly embodies that mix, the statement from the meeting presided over by the National President of the group, Comrade Enebeli Ernest Brown, stated.

Delta North Senatorial District “cannot afford another ceremonial occupier in the red chamber but must field a results-driven negotiator who commands respect and maintains responsibility at home”, the group noted.

The NYLA revealed plans to commence what it termed “a structured signature-mobilisation tour across the district” designed to persuade and “formally draft Dr. Okowa into the race”.

The group said that its decision offset the cost of purchasing nomination and expression of interest forms for Dr Okowa was “a people-driven initiative aimed at promoting transparency and accountability in governance through quality representation in the National Assembly.

Nonetheless the Ndokwa youth leaders appealed to “traditional rulers, opinion moulders, professional bodies, women groups and political blocs in Delta North senatorial district to ‘rise above ethnic tendencies’ and endorse a candidate in Sen. (Dr.) Ifeanyi Okowa whose competence and credibility are already verifiable.”