Dislodging PDP in 2023 No Tea-party, Says Omo-Agege

Omon-Julius Onabu in Asaba

Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, has admitted that his party’s task of dislodging the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Delta State would not be an easy task but one that required all hands to be on deck within the fold of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Omo-Agege was on Thursday elected as APC Delta governorship standard-bearer in the 2023 general election at the party’s gubernatorial primary election held at the Federal College of Education (Technical) Asaba grounds. 

The senator representing Delta Central was returned unopposed as the sole candidate for the position but, nevertheless, polled a total of 1,190 of the 1,350 valid votes cast by the delegates.

The chairman of the party’s election committee and returning officer, Mrs. Oyibo Nwaneri, declared “Ovie Omo-Agege as winner of the primary election having polled majority of the votes cast.”

While thanking the entire APC family for making his victory possible, Omo-Agege insisted that the Okowa administration had, in the last seven years of the PDP government, been unable to the match the huge financial resources accruing to the state with social, economic, infrastructural and other indices of development across the state.

He described the exercise that threw him up as gubernatorial flag-bearer as a culmination of the newfound unity of the APC in the state, urged party members and leaders to take the unflinching support for him and the party to the next level by working hard to ensure the party’s victory in the general election next year.

Omo-Agege said, “Today, the APC in Delta has spoken with one voice. We may have had our differences in the past, but we have been able to reconcile ourselves.

“With my emergence as the party flagbearer for the 2023 governorship in Delta, the APC is very determined to take over the reign of affairs in Delta State. And, we are prepared to achieve that with the support of our members and the people of Delta.”

He noted that what the people of the state craved remains real development, enduring peace and unity, saying that his party had answers to Delta’s development challenges and was poised to provide such answers with him (Omo-Agege) as Governor.

“I come for peace; I come to unite Delta State, because we are all Deltans before we are APC or PDP. We say, enough is enough!

“Moving forward, we know it’s not going to be a tea party by any means. So, it needs all hands to be on deck to meet the challenges. The people of Delta State are tired; they know the PDP-led government in the state has failed,” he said, promising that an APC-led government would provide what the citizens of Delta crave but miss under Governor Ifeanyi Okowa.

He predicted that the people of the state will demonstrate their opposition to the choice of Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori as the PDP governorship candidate by rejecting him at the polls 2023 election, saying it was unacceptable to the majority of the people of the state that an incumbent governor would want to foist a successor on the state.

The deputy president of the Senate maintained that the Okowa administration has not justified “the about N900 billion that accrued to the state in the last seven years, noting that his 60-page manifesto has spelt out how he intends to rapidly transform the state under an APC government.

Olorogun ‘Tega Emerhor, who was the party’s governorship candidate in 2015, the party’s Delta Central senatorial district candidate, Olorogun Efe Dafinone, his Delta South counterpart, Onowakpo Thomas and the candidate for Delta North, Senator Peter Nwaoboshi, the Delta State Chairman of APC, Emeni Sobotie, the state Secretary, Nick Ovuakpore, Olorogun Adelabu Ejiroghene Bodjor, Prof Leroy Ediozien, Sir Sunny Mene, formerly state Publicity Secretary, Ngozi Olejeme and Dr. Otive Igbuzor, Chief of Staff to the Deputy President of the Senate, were in company with INEC officials led by the Delta State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Rev. Monday Udoh-Tom and numerous APC leaders to witness the exercise.