THE Secretary to Delta State Government (SSG), Ovuozourie Macaulay, yesterday raised the alarm of a “very serious threat” to his life and property over the 2015 governorship election.
According to him, the threats arose from an interview with journalists on Wednesday, January 15, 2014 in Asaba that was misconstrued by political opportunists and troublemakers who do not wish the state well but want to disrupt the peace and stability.
In the interview as run by The Guardian, the SSG was quoted to have said there was no power shift agreement in the state, a report he refuted, saying he was misrepresented.
However, despite “my refutal and clarification, my life and property have been threatened,” Macaulay told The Guardian on the telephone.
“They threatened to kill me and burn my property in Asaba.”
Meanwhile, elder statesman and former senator, Nosike Ikpo, has denied the existence of a power shift agreement among the three senatorial districts in Delta State.
Delta Central political chieftain, Chief Ighoyota Amori, had also recently in an interview with The Guardian, urged his Urhobo kinsmen interested in the 2015 governorship race in the state to join it.
Ikpo who spoke in his hometown of Ibusa, Oshimili North Local Council of Delta State, however said that what was agreed was that there would be power shift after 2011 just like it happened in Anambra, Cross River, Rivers and some other states.
He said: “People have asked me if there was any agreement. There was no such thing as an agreement. There was nowhere where we said only central or any other zone should produce somebody. We the Anioma have always contested for the governorship of Delta State from the time of Prof. Eric Opia under the defunct National Republican Convention (NRC) when he ran against Chief Felix Ibru of the Social Democratic Party (SDP).”
He said that after Ibru, Chief James Ibori, also an Urhobo contested against many people from Anioma like the late Joshua Enueme whom he later appointed as commissioner, stressing that in 2007, there were well over 11 candidates from Delta North.
Ikpo recalled that when the present governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan came to visit him to solicit support, he told him unequivocally that he was for a Delta North candidate but promised to support him if he won and that was exactly what he did.
As a principal actor in 2007, Ikpo said that all his campaign slogans were for power shift and the present PDP Chairman in Delta State, Chief Peter Nwaoboshi, led the drive.
However, he said that there was no question of all of the political gladiators in the state sitting down to draw up an agreement for power shift but it was understood that power would shift to Delta North after South.
He condemned the “horde of political jobbers” from Delta North who he accused of creating the heat in the polity by promoting what they call Delta North Mandate for the governorship in 2015.
He fumed: “Who told them? Who sent them to go and beg? Who possesses the power? Ethnic communities as I have said do not support candidates for elections but political parties. Political parties have no boundaries or ethnic group. If you are not capable of mobilising support from the other ethnic groups, you have no business to contest for the governorship.”
To those who want to be governor from Delta North, Ikpo a two-time senator advised that they should go out to other senatorial districts and work hard clamouring for zoning as a basis for seeking political office are lazy politicians.
He added: “They should compete with their contemporaries at the primaries and win. If any Delta North candidate wins the primaries, nobody can stop him from being governor in Delta State because we all are equal stakeholders.”
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