South-South leader, Chief Edwin Clark, yesterday, came under attack over reports credited to him that the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Elder Godsday Orubebe, cannot be governor of Delta State, come 2015.
Reacting to the remarks, former Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, to Elder Orubebe, Mr. Ekenwan Ekwagbe, said Chief Clark has no power to stop Orubebe from realising his governorship ambition in Delta State in 2015.
Ekwagbe said the remarks on Orubebe by Chief Clark were unbecoming of an elder statesman well respected in the region and beyond.
He said Chief Clark cannot stop Orubebe from becoming the governor of Delta state, advising the elder statesman to stop playing God because he is not.
He said: “E.K Clark’s press conference, that come 2015, Elder Orubebe cannot be governor of Delta State, doesn’t disturb anybody. It doesn’t move anybody because we know where we are coming from and where we are going. All of us in Delta State, in Burutu Local Government Area, where both E.K Clark and Elder Orubebe come from, know each other. We know ourselves.
“In the last elections in 2011, a former Speaker in Delta State House of Assembly, Mr. Frank Enukura, decided to contest election to the House of Representatives. E.K Clark put forward his son, Ebikime, to contest for the same office under the platform of Democratic Peoples Party, DPP, and wanted everybody, irrespective political party, that was contesting the election, to step down for his son.
“But they all refused. At the end of the day, Frank Enukura defeated his son at the primaries of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. The boy had to defect to DPP. He used that platform to contest the main election in 2011.
“Frank Enukura, son of a fisherman in Burutu council, whose parents toiled day and night on the rivers, fishing to train him, defeated E.K Clark and his son, not just his son because it was E.K Clark who contested the election indirectly. So, if E.K Clark’s son cannot win election in Burutu council, can he determine who becomes governor of the entire Delta State?”
On the said Orubebe’s embarrassment of President Jonathan through indicating of interest in the governorship race, the SA noted that Clark had caused a lot of embarrassment to President Goodluck Jonathan in the history of the administration through his utterances by attacking highly placed Nigerians.