By Ediri Oyibo
The die is cast. Sheriff Oborevwori is the governorship candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) for the 2023 gubernatorial election in Delta State. The campaign trail is going around the State, loud and clear.
Through thick and thin, the Speaker of the Delta State House of Assembly emerged the governorship candidate of the PDP, displacing Olorgun David Edevbie, his closest rival in the contest for the PDP ticket, who went all the way to the apex court of the land to contest the candidature of Oborevwori.
But events have since overtaken the PDP primary and all that followed it has been left behind even though the former aide to the late ex-president Umar Musa Yar’Adua is still fuming. It is believed that former Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan is working on him and his principal, former Governor James Ibori to sheath their swords.
Nevertheless, the political atmosphere in Delta State has been positively charged by the PDP and Oborevwori is hoping to cruise to victory in the 2023 governorship election. There is no campaign event of the PDP that is not filled to the brim. Every campaign of the party appears designed to send chills and jitters to the spine of the main opposition party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its candidate, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege.
Most of the opposition seem to have resolved, with the new unity in the PDP and the success of the ward-to-ward campaigns, to soak themselves in political mudslinging, pedestrian inanities, and doctoring of speeches of the PDP gubernatorial candidate.
The opposition, APC, recently shared photos of former Governor James Ibori with the Deputy gubernatorial candidate of the APC, Mr Friday Osanebi, in apparent move to give their followers the impression that the strongman of Delta PDP is tilting towards supporting the Ovie Omo-Agege governorship ambition. Opponents see this as desperation.
Deltans, the PDP reacts are far wiser than this as they say the train has since left the station.
The gubernatorial campaign of the PDP in Delta state has been made even more colourful by various political pressure groups, including some students who aggregate the slogan, More. Even Governor Ifeanyi Okowa, the Vice Presidential candidate of the party could not help but identify with them. At a recent campaign in Burutu local government by the PDP, Okowa grabbed a yellow flag, an emblem of the More Students to campaign for Oborevwori.
The PDP in Delta is leaving no stone in selling the candidacy of Oborevwori to Deltans, who has been described as analytical mind, who does not talk with reckless abandon.
He is a grassroots politician, who has lived his entire life in Delta State and knows what Deltans want at this point in time. He is referred to as a man with excessive street credibility.
Some Deltans believe that his experience of the executive workings of state machinery under Chief James Ibori, Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan, and his present position as the Speaker of the Delta State House of Assembly, as well as being the National Vice-Chairman of Conference of Speakers of State Houses of Assembly in Nigeria has prepared him for the task ahead.
Deltans believe that Oborevwori’s MORE Agenda will deliver the dividends of democracy even as the guber candidate. Even the acronym, MORE is symbolic because it recognizes that so much has been done in Delta State, but that there is room for more improvements in every facet of the State.
As a chieftain of the PDP in Delta, Chief Sunny Onuesoke puts it, Oborevwori’s MORE agenda is structured to ensure smooth and progressive continuity in governance, anchored on Meaningful Development, Opportunity for all Deltans, Realistic Reforms and Enhanced Peace and Security in the State.
Realistically, however, Oborevwori and his party, the PDP still need to do more, explain to Deltans more, if they are to fend off the gamut of opposition candidates, especially the APC’s Ovie Omo-Agege, who desperately want to put an end to PDP’s sustained reign in the state since 1999.
Oyibo, the Editor of TheNewsGuru.com (TNG), writes from Abuja.