Deltans ‘ll Resist Attempt to Unseat Oborevwori, Group Warns

Omon-Julius Onabu in Asaba

A prominent pressure group, Delta Political Vanguard (DPV) has warned that the people of Delta State who overwhelmingly voted Governor Sheriff Oborevwori in March this year will stand strongly against any attempt to boot him out office through the instrumentality of  an allegedly manipulated judicial process.

The group, which reportedly played a role towards the election and re-election of the immediate past governor of Delta State, Dr Ifeanyi Okowa, as well as in other elections in the state, also urged Nigerians to be more vigilant as rumours of plans to career the country towards a one-party state were better louder by the day. It added  that more and more Nigerians were finding the spate of electoral losses suffered by governors from opposition political parties very worrisome.

The National Secretary of the DPV, Mr. Ese Sanco, stated this while addressing newsmen yesterday in Asaba, the Delta State capital, saying that the people could not fold their hands and watch democracy in the country being destroyed by a handful of greedy and desperate politicians who have, somehow, taken the reins of power in Nigeria.

He said: “Nigerians must be wary and watchful of the clear antics of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) across the country.Today, APC has given Nigerians, and PDP in particular, every cause to worry.”

“Unconfirmed information collated from various  sources gave a graphic details of a grand design by the ruling party (APC) to increase the tally of states earmarked for political manipulations through the judicial process. Nassarawa, Kano, Zamfara and Plateau. “If urgent steps  are not taken, it is feared that Delta State may not be spared by the ruling party.”

The group, which stressed that it was still grieving over the shocking loss at the appellate court of Michael Diden, a.k.a. Ejele, (candidate of the PDP), to Joel Onowakpo-Thomas of the APC, lamented that the country’s Constitution has, however, tied the hands of the people of Delta South from pursuing the alleged injustice further.

Recalling the outcome of the February 25, 2023 senatorial election to buttress their contention that Michael Diden had a meritorious case before the appellate court, the DPV scribe said: “Again, of the eight LGAs, APC’s Thomas won in only one and lost with a very wide margin in the LGA that was cancelled. Yet, the Appeal Court judges felt morally comfortable to upturn the Tribunal’s judgment.

 “We reject this judgment of the Court of Appeal, but as final level for electoral disputes in legislative elections, we have nowhere to seek redress. It is a most blatant rigging and shameless miscarriage of justice that took place in the last elections in the Delta South Senatorial election. It is unconscionable to deny voters in a local government area the right to be part of the process of deciding their representative in the Senate,” he said.

Nonetheless, Sanco appealed to good spirited Nigerians and lovers of democracy with peace and progress to awake to the patriotic call of notable Nigerians for renewed vigilance in the light of the seeming drift from multi-party democracy to an autocratic one-party State in Nigeria.

He claimed that some unnamed prominent APC leaders across the country had recently been taunting them (PDP members) with imminent plans to judicially sack Governor Sheriff Oborevwori through a grand plan that would climax with affirmation of envisaged appellate court verdict in the last week of February 2024.

“High-ranking APC leaders are calling us and saying that they were taking over Delta. That they are already sewing ‘aso ebi’ to celebrate the evacuation of PDP from Government House Asaba”, the DPV national secretary stated.

The Appeal Court sitting in Lagos recently said it had concluded proceedings on the petitions before the court challenging the Delta State Governorship Election Petition in Asaba upholding the election of Sheriff Oborevwori on March 18, 2023 as Delta State Governor, as declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

“With the Appeal Court being the final level for resolution of cases not involving governorship and presidential election, there was no way the strange judgment that ignored previous established precedents could be remedied at the Supreme Court,” he said.