By Basil Okoh
It is amazing how after destroying his own party PDP, Sheriff instead of looking for ways to rebuild what he helped destroy, is running away, looking for a viable party to inherit and again destroy. It was Okowa’s obduracy and insistence that an unqualified and unpopular Sheriff must be the governor of Delta state that caused the implosion in PDP which has now destroyed it.
Sheriff should not be made governorship candidate of APC as compensation for destroying his own party, PDP. He, as is obvious now, did not have the certified knowledge, capacity and general attributes to be governor and should not be allowed to use a position he did not merit to leverage another one that he still does not merit. That he is governor under the PDP does not qualify him to be governor under APC. It cost the state N63 billion to make him governor in 2023 under the PDP. The state cannot pass through the pain and losses of making Sheriff governor, again.
Delta state boasts one of the highest literacy rates in the African continent. So our state must present a leader who is knowledgeable in the development principles, policies and practices for economic growth, not just a low level inspector of public works. Sheriff has proven vividly to us that you cannot get such a high capacity person from a motor park.
We cannot keep pretending that education does not matter, a mantra which the youth of the state is dangerously trying to embrace. Sheriff is at best a middling surrogate to Okowa and his understanding and grasp of the issues of development does not go beyond the inspection of shoddy civil works which he himself awards to undeserving contractors handicapped by a lack of knowledge of the job and who also are victims of stiffing from bureaucrats who insist on getting cuts from contract sums.
Our state this time must rise beyond the inadequacies of Sheriff and the many brigands Okowa brought in to overwhelm the institutions of the state and take over leadership. One of them was the leader of a vital development institution in the state for oil producing areas but which was run aground during Okowa’s rule. He was prattling the other day of being in PDP but engaging in the presidential campaign to win election for Bola Tinubu, the APC presidential candidate. Do not be fooled, the agency he headed, DESOPADEC is under investigation for massive fraud That is an exemplar of how bizarre the state politics has been reduced by the brigands that Okowa’s put in control. A state that cedes power to brigands must live in dystopia and can never hope to find order, peace and development.
There’s a reason why we all went to school and got education. It’s not so we can surrender the governorship of our state to school drop outs and street enforcers who later buy certificates to make up for lost education in order to qualify for democratic leadership.
It is a shame that men of prominence and influence from the Delta Central APC are not speaking to the problem of planned defection of Sheriff to the APC to become its governorship candidate. Silence on this matter means acquiescence and so there must be a plethora of voices raised to reject this move by Sheriff. Senator Ned Nwoko, senator for Delta North has made his stand known, rejecting Sheriff’s presence in APC, not to talk of any possibility of giving him candidacy for the governorship election in APC. The two senators of Delta Central Ede Dafinone and Delta South Onowakpo Thomas have remained silent in the face of the raging fire. They are playing sly and not making their voices heard on the consequential defection move by Sheriff that may see them lose their own Senate seats in the next election. You play chicken, you lose your mojo. And so has all other known members of the House of Representatives and prominent members of APC in the South and Central senatorial districts not made their stand known on this gravely important matter that is so consequential to the prospects of their party winning or losing the 2027 governorship election. This is turning out to be a true conspiracy.
The conspiracy of silence extends beyond the Central to the Southern district. These are the same areas where Sheriff lost the governorship election to Ovie Omo-Agege in 2023. Their land already are covered by the APC but they are unable or unwilling to speak for or enforce the rule of APC. Should their senators and House men then be left to continue to play sly to the party that brought them to power? Should they not be removed to be replaced by those who are ready to stand for and be loyal to their own party?
Sheriff cannot be anywhere near the best that the Urhobo can present for leadership of Delta state from among their people. Urhobo land is replete with accomplished academics, professionals, technocrats, successful business leaders and even promising young creative people. But Sheriff is what Okowa thrust on Urhobo as the possible best he could find from among them. And Sheriff without showing effort or resilience has easily capitulated and is unable to hold PDP and the leadership he inherited, together. You can force leadership on Sheriff but you cannot drill the tools of leadership into him. Sheriff has all the certificates to show but he has no immersion in learning and education, no skills and outside his showboating, no intrinsic capacity to lead a modern Delta state.
He wants now to run away from the problems in PDP which he himself was used to create. His interest is to move to another party in order again, to destroy it. He has no capacity to build or hold PDP together. He only has capacity to destroy and run away. This crying example of leadership failure is what some in APC are advocating to draft to lead their party to ruin.
For all that can be said, Bola Tinubu as governor, built the APC from scratch and did not run away under the many threats of failure, even when his entire political group was reduced to only Lagos state.
For those like Francis Waive and some other members in the “Council of Leaders” in APC who because of personal friendship believe that Sheriff should be subsumed into the APC and continue to misgovern Delta state, Sheriff was never the choice of the majority of members of PDP at the PDP primaries in 2022. He was foisted on the primary electors which action eventually tore the party apart, leading to the squandering of N63 billion to forcibly install him as governor of Delta State. That he wears the toga of governor now does not make him any more qualified to govern Delta State than he was in 2023. With the certainty that we will have daylight tomorrow, we prognosticate that Sheriff coming into the APC will fracture the party into irreconcilable factions and destroy its prospects of ruling Delta state from 2027.
APC must look inwards, embrace peace and find a worthy leader from Delta Central. Worthy persons from Central senatorial sistrict are teeming in APC as it presently stands. But the rivalries from candidates are so intense, forcing ego to overwhelm common sense and group interest. This malady is so destructive and infectious, disorienting the power contenders in APC Delta state so much that the party has been forced into a state of statis, unable to rise beyond the petty limitations of its elite, leading the mischievous to invite a less worthy outsider to fill a contrived leadership vacuum, even as the party has an outstanding and known leader who has proven his capacity to win votes and even beat Sheriff. In fact the engineered scenario of a leadership vacuum is the premise from which the fifth column in APC are working: “Since we do not have an acceptable leader for governorship candidacy in APC, let us invite the ruling governor Sheriff from PDP to rule over us”.
But these advocates for Sheriff have to be reminded now and again that without the ballot theft in Delta North, Sheriff would never have been in Government House Asaba, as governor. Sheriff is not a vote winner and never will be. He knows this, which is why he is running to softer grounds in APC, the ruling party, so he can win again and reap the benefits of other people’s work. When two brothers fight to the death, a passerby takes the inheritance. And that’s what Sheriff is about to do in APC Delta.
@basilokoh.