Inaugurating his campaign council last Monday, All Progressives Congress, APC, governorship candidate in Delta State, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, in a burst of euphoria vowed that he would while achieving his aim also work to frustrate the Peoples Democratic Party’s PDP’s vice-presidential candidate, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, in his bid.
Reactions to the outgoing Deputy Senate President’s outburst have since occupied cyberspace with poignant claims by the Delta PDP that Omo-Agege was a facilitator of the botched Ahmad Lawan bid for the presidency.
In the course of the reactions, many have also without restraint drawn allusions to Omo-Agege’s recent past in supposedly facilitating the most dangerous assault on the nation’s democracy, to wit, the theft of the mace of the Senate on April 18, 2018.
Now posing with what some will assert as unrighteous indignation, Omo-Agege occupying the seat of the Deputy President of the Senate, an institution which he so wittingly collaborated in desecrating, accused Governor Okowa of breaching the resolution of the Southern governors for the emergence of a Southerner as president in 2023.
Given the seriousness with which he uttered his words, it is so easy for some who do not know the history of Senator Omo-Agege and his serial defections to give heed. From the PDP to Labour Party, to the Republican Party, to the APC, Omo-Agege is arguably the most mobile high-profile political actor in Delta State.
So, given the prism from which he is coming, it is amusing that Omo-Agege would have the temerity to throw stones at someone else. It is surely not surprising given the collapse of moral values in our society where the least dignifying are mostly enthroned into leadership in the country.
His genuflection before President Muhammadu Buhari hours after he was rewarded by the APC with the position of DSP for his obvious role in the mace theft incident is one that brought to question the moral ethos of the APC. It is a party which has brought the nation to its knees with the enthronement in power of the least qualified persons in positions of authority, and no surprise that the nation is bleeding.
Now as regards the emergence of Senator Okowa as vice-presidential candidate of the PDP it is no longer news of the covert role a very loud PDP governor from the South-South played in undermining the quest for the rotation of the presidency to the Southeast.
This South-South governor who has now been unveiled to be working in cahoots with some of his colleagues to undermine his party in favour of the APC was known to be the mastermind of the political scheming in the PDP that forced Peter Obi out of the PDP in his native Anambra State.
This same governor who had earlier forced Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, Prince Uche Secondus also lately forced Senator Iyrochia Ayu as his caretaker in the PDP. What is now known is that Ayu did not play the script as envisioned. Ayu was strategically placed to enable the presidential candidate to easily go to the South. Whereas many party leaders were inclined to have the Southeast, the most marginalized section of the polity, provide the presidential candidate, this loud South-South governor using Ayu and others compelled the PDP to throw it open so that with his money he could buy the ticket.
This deliberate bit of strategy was what compelled Peter Obi out of the PDP given his perception that the ticket had been turned into a trading scheme.
If the loud South-South governor had not derailed the quest for a Nigerian president from the Southeast, the permutations today would have been a presidential contest restricted to the South. However, in his desperation to use the money to buy his way, he lost the script and hence the emergence of Atiku Abubakar as the presidential candidate.
Atiku was helped by northern solidarity. Indeed, given the advantages the PDP enjoys in terms of followership and elected delegates, the advantage of the South was turned in its head by the desperation by one man to corner the ticket to himself.
Now, given that a candidate emerged through the superiority of votes, it behoved a rethinking of the Southern Governors’ resolution. Surely, the PDP must produce a running mate from the South and it was in the wisdom of the presidential candidate that Okowa made the best bet.
With hindsight, everyone is now wondering what could have happened had Atiku chosen Governor Nyesom Wike as his running mate.
Given the high-level involvement of Omo-Agege in the articulation of the foibles and failures of the APC government from mace snatching to what ordinarily should be his roles as DSP, it will be a surprise if he were not part of all the collaborations between the South-South governor and the APC.
It is a shock that a man who has failed on the moral compass and indeed in his assigned role has the temerity to open his mouth to voice his agitation against the interest of the state in producing the next vice president.
This is Omo-Agege that is entering the record books as the first Deputy President of the Senate not to have accomplished his task as chairman of the Senate Committee on Constitution Review.
This is the same Omo-Agege that has taken a position against the interest of the South in many issues that surfaced at the National Assembly notably in matters of the Electoral Act.
Indeed, it is for this reason and many more that we can say that the bile spilled out last Monday will not find resonance among the people of the South-South.
We are waiting for him on how he is going to market his Muslim-Muslim ticket among the enlightened people of Delta who as he knows, do not take last when it comes to their rights. On this note we say Omo-Agege is surely on his own.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nkeonyeasoa, a commentator on national affairs, writes from Abuja.
•Culled from the Vanguard newspaper