Delta 2023: Obominuru drums support for governor of Ijaw extraction 

Charges Okowa to jettison power shift 

 

By Nkechi Odumosor,

 

A political scientist and Executive Director “Better Delta State” Dr Isaac Obominuru has made the case for an Ijaw to succeed governor Ifeanyi Okowa come 2023.

He urged Governor Ifeanyi Okowa to jettison the proponents of power shift which seems to favour the central and support an Ijaw to succeed him, describing the zoning arrangement as a deliberate idea hatched by the former state governor, James Ibori to seize power for his kith and kin for sixteen years, while subjecting the Ijaw and other helpless minorities to the status of plebeians.

According to Obominuru, the charade of a political rotation in Delta State challenged its own legitimacy, when the then Governor of Delta State James Ibori used his powerful lobby to rotate power in his household by giving it to his brother Emmanuel Ewetan Uduaghan.

He pointed out that the rotation by Senatorial zones also failed the day the erstwhile Chief of Staff, Delta State, David Edevbie, challenged the present State Governor, His Excellency, Ifeanyi Okowa in the Delta State 2014 People’s Democratic Party primaries and was almost at the point of clinching victory from the jaws of defeat until his political naivety was challenged.

The Executive Director insisted that from the stated incidences, nothing suggest that there was a political rotation in Delta State across the senatorial zones, arguing that what existed only addressed the intendment for which it was designed- the Ibori seizure of power for his kith and kin for sixteen years while subjecting other minorities without any hold on the position.

He said, “The illusion of a rotation model as well as the process by which its knowledge and objectives are produced and disseminated partly instantiates the translation of domination into hegemony.”

Obominuru advised that, rather than planning to wage wars of attrition against each other as 2022 draws near, the Peoples’ Democratic Party should do what is right.

“It is not always going to be about who is right, but what is right. Let it take a principled stand like the national Executive Council (NEC) did recently on zoning. Let it begin to forge links to keep it honest, to sustain its sense of purpose, gain clarity and make the best of its resources against foes and tasks that seem more formidable with each passing day”, he said.