LAGOS JANUARY 6TH (URHOBOTODAY)-The fear of the unknown in the forthcoming general elections has started to grip the Delta State chapter of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party.
Stalwarts of the party have started dumping the party for favourable opposition parties in colourful events to realize their ambition.
While some of the defectors have laid claims to the unresolved inconclusive primary elections that rocked the party last year December, others said the exercise was devoid of the expected level playing ground.
While one of the leading governorship aspirants of the party in the state, Dr. Ngozi Olejeme, the Chairperson of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund, now the Deputy Chairman of the Finance Committee for Presidential Campaign Organization, 2015, is said to be contemplating teaming up with Chief Great Ogboru as running mate, the former state Chairman of the PDP, Chief Peter Nwaoboshi, may join the Accord party.
The duo of Nwaoboshi and Mariam Nneamaka Ali, the wife of the former National Chairman of the party, Dr. Ahmadu Ali, have since the middle of last year been at each other’s throat over the senatorial ticket of the Delta North District.
Already, the erstwhile Speaker of the state House of Assembly, who contested the governorship primary with Senator Ifeanyi Okowa on December 8, last year on the platform of the PDP, Engineer Victor Ochei, has picked the Accord Party’s Delta North Senatorial District ticket.
A PDP source, who spoke on condition of anonymity in Asaba on Monday, confirmed that indications have emerged that more will leave the party to realize their ambitions elsewhere.
The source, who recalled how Senator Patrick Osakwe left the PDP in 2007 and beat Mrs. Ali of the PDP on the Accord party’s platform, maintained: “In 2003, the same Ochei contested the Aniocha North constituency seat on the platform of the All Nigeria Peoples Party after he was denied the ticket in PDP and won, before he later returned to PDP.
“That is what is about to play out this year.”
While the AP has started celebrating Ochei, the former Director-General of the Director Labour Agency in the state, Dr. Ngozi Okolie, also dumped the ruling party for Accord to realize his failed Aniocha/Oshimili Federal Constituency ambition.
The Eagle Online gathered in Asaba on Monday that besides popularity and performance as the Speaker of the state, Ochei is banking on the festering crisis between Nwaoboshi and Ali and their inconclusive senatorial primary election in the PDP to gain victory.
On his part, Okolie was dissatisfied that he lost to an incumbent member of the state’s House of Assembly, Deaconess Onyemachi Joan Mrakpor, representing Aniocha South constituency, before the ticket was allegedly given to Hon. Ndudi Elumelu in Abuja, after he lost his governorship bid to Okowa.
Meanwhile, Okowa, the flag-bearer of the PDP in the state, has allayed the fears in the party when he inaugurated a political pressure group, the Canaan Movement with Okowa, headed by Comrade Mike Akporeghene, a former Special Adviser to Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan on Students’ Affairs.
Okowa, who charged the group on issue-based campaigns, said: “PDP will replicate the victory it has always recorded since the advent of democracy in the state this year.”