By Emeke Alexander
Delta Unity Group (DUG), a new political pressure group within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Delta State has moved a step further to consolidate on the essence of its emergence about two months ago.
The group on Wednesday, September 21, 2022, inaugurated its National Council, Board of Trustees and Local Government Coordinators at a meeting held in Uro, Isoko South Local Government Area.
The inauguration comes at a time when most PDP faithful in Delta, particularly those in support of the ‘anointed’ governorship candidate of the state governor, Dr Ifeanyi Okowa, thought that the enthusiasm that greeted the birth of DUG in the political space of the state would have waned by the judgement of the Court of Appeal of August 29, 2022, which upturned the ruling of the Federal High Court sacking Rt Hon Sheriff Oborevwori as the lawful and authentic governorship candidate of the party in the state.
Former Speaker of the Delta State House of Assembly and National Coordinator of the group, Rt. Hon. Peter Onwusanya, at the inauguration, pledged the group’s total support for all PDP candidates.
Onwusanya reechoed that the vision of DUG is the modernisation of Delta State with all stakeholders working together but disclosed that it would be difficult for people to work for anyone whose capacity they do not believe in.
Significantly, the stance of the group to continue to remain in the PDP as further pontificated by Onwusanya and other arrowheads of the body during the inauguration ceremony, without recourse to the yet unknown outcome of the Supreme Court appeal by Olorogun David Edevbie who they have thrown their weight behind as the party’s lawful and authentic governorship candidate leaves much to be desired.
Some political pundits see the move of the players of the DUG as reminiscent of the path toed by aggrieved leaders and other stakeholders of the party at the national level in 2013 when former President Goodluck Jonathan sought reelection in 2015.
Nigerians, especially PDP members from the South-South geopolitical zone of the country, will not forget in a hurry how the disagreement within the party degenerated to the extent that seven of its estranged governors including former Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi and former Nasarawa State Governor, Senator Abdulahi Adamu rallied under the new Peoples Democratic Party, nPDP with Abubakar Kawu Baraje as chairman.
While the nPDP on November 26, 2013, eventually merged with the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Abuja, other gladiators in the PDP like former governors Babangida Aliyu of Niger State and his Jigawa counterpart, Sule Lamido, it was widely believed, stayed behind to work against the party in the 2015 presidential election. The election outcome saw for the first time in the political history of Nigeria an incumbent president who sought reelection lost.
With the turn of events in the PDP in Delta State after the party’s governorship primary held on Wednesday, May 25, 2022, which culminated in the legal battle between Edevbie and Oborevwori and which has sharply polarised the party, there are concerns that the PDP may for the first time since 1999 lose the governorship seat in 2023 to the opposition.
Some political authorities hold the view that calling the Delta Unity Group a bluff, especially in the event that the Supreme Court rules in favour of Oborevwori, will spell doom for the party in the 2023 governorship election. This may not be far from the truth as the group parades, among other heavyweights, three former Speakers of the State Assembly, former and serving members of the House of Representatives, House of Assembly, Civil Commissioners and other ranking leaders of the party who incontrovertibly command huge followership in their respective constituencies and senatorial districts.
With a cracked foundation and a strong opposition from the APC which has the current Deputy President of the Nigerian Senate, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, as its gubernatorial candidate, there is a dire need for serious fence-mending to restabilize the PDP as a formidable force to emerge victorious at the polls. This is certainly not the time for critical stakeholders of the party to fence-sit or be indifferent and allow the disunity in the party to continue to degenerate into an irredeemable situation.
Dependable sources say that the DUG, like the nPDP is expected in the coming days and weeks to increase in number and wax stronger across the length and breadth of the state such that the group’s mobilisation and support would greatly shapen the outcome of the 2023 general elections, especially for the gubernatorial. Whichever way the pendulum swings, take it or leave, the ticking of the political time bomb surely has begun.
