Delta State Govenor, Ifeanyi Okowa
By Emma Arubi
The alleged ceding of the chairmanship position of Warri North Council in the forthcoming 2021 council polls in Delta State is illegal, baseless and unconstitutional because the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has not conducted the party primaries from where the party flag bearer would emerge.
A former Member of the Delta State House of Assembly representing Warri North, Hon. Misan Ukubeyinje made this assertion, Wednesday in Warri in an interview. He said that “only a few minute persons without the requisite mandate and authority in Itsekiriland took that decision without involving critical stakeholders in the council area.
Hon. Ukubeyinje who was a two-time Commissioner for Agriculture and Natural Resources and also Lands and Surveys noted that despite the call by Dr. Emmanuel Iwetan Uduaghan, former Governor and Co-ordinator of the Co-ordinating Committee for the convention of critical stakeholders meeting to fine-tune arrangement for a PDP in-house selection of a consensus candidate for the PDP in the forthcoming council, no meeting was called but a few minute persons of Itsekiri extraction met and allegedly concede the chairmanship seat to one Smart Asekutu of Ijaw extraction.
Barr. Ukubeyinje said that decision is illegal, baseless and unconstitutional as the only proper to do is the conduct of the party primaries and called on the State party exco and the Governor of the State, Sen. Ifeayin Okowa to conduct same to avert crisis, saying that the authors of the chairmanship concession agenda are only bent on creating unwarranted crisis in the council and make it ungovernable for Governor Okowa.
According to him, conceding the chairmanship to Ijaws is not a panacea for peace but a recipe for maximum chaos that the council is noted for during local government polls, adding that “decision of such magnitude can only be taken by His Majesty the Olu of Warri in –Council after a critical stakeholders meeting with the relevant authorities”.
“As a critical stakeholder and legal adviser to PDP in Warri North no such meeting of critical stakeholders was called. Therefore for anybody or group to say one Ijaw candidate has been picked and a PDP nomination form also issued to him is not only illegal, unlawful and unconstitutional but smacks of imposition with impunity and a insult to our collective conscience as a people. This is a democracy. Everyone has a right to contest on a level playing ground. Our amiable Governor should conduct a primary for all interested aspirants and good luck to the winner of the primary”, he insisted.
Meanwhile the protest by hundreds of Itsekiri youths against the alleged trade off of the chairman seat to the Ijaws enters its seventh day in Warri to the homes of prominent Itsekiri leaders and politicians who they claim are mortgaging their future for the selfish gains.
