To refer to Chief Great Ovedje Ogboru as a prominent and well-known Nigerian would be a huge understatement. In fact, since the bold and politically disruptive events of 14th April 1990, his name has been featured in national and international conversations about Nigeria. In many ways, those events defined the mystique and persona of Great Ogboru as an enigmatic would-be liberator of an oppressed and maligned class of Nigerians. But for the intervention of circumstance, this could well have been the fairytale story that would be the prevalent narrative today, some 35 years after the fact.
However, one of the most unforgiving microscopes of life is the passage of time combined with dynamic opportunities to observe and assess a given situation objectively. From an individual point of view, there is no hiding place from that lethal combination because they offer the opportunity to anyone to measure an advertised or cultivated narrative against contemporaneous situations that are observable and can be evaluated in real time.
In science, a hypothesis is a statement or a prediction that can be tested by experiment and will result in proving or disproving the assumed assertion or prediction. For the voters, the political class, and the multitude of political backers and supporters of Great Ogboru’s long-running political ambition in Delta State since 2003, the number of opportunities to test his mental and evaluate his character has far exceeded reasonable. Indeed, in the entire history of Nigeria, there has not been a gubernatorial candidate who has contested a general election more times than Great Ogboru.
In this regard, Great Ogboru is a national (if not, an international) record-holder. He has contested the governorship seat in Delta State a grand total of seven times since 2003 and spanning some 20 years!
In those 20 years, he also flirted with and represented four different political parties, namely AD (2003), DPP (2007, Jan 2011, Apr 2011), Labour (2015), APC (2019), and APGA (2023).
A cursory examination of his participation in all seven governorship elections shows a common but very distinct theme. An organised and well-targeted fundraising campaign based on widely cast publicity stunts followed by a weak and half-hearted political strategy to convert ground support into actual votes, and worse still, a non-existent framework to protect any votes secured on election day.
Similarly, a review of the many prominent personalities who have thrown their financial support behind his several attempts over the years also reveals a common pattern – an insatiable thirst for humongous sums of money sold as investments into his expected political “triumph”, followed by a vanishing target leading to Election Tribunals and zero accountability. There are just too many individuals with stories to tell of how they were persuaded to part with their life savings and more and invest in Ogboru’s political schemes, only to find themselves abandoned and ignored after the fact.
In many of those elections, hundreds of people were misled into risking life and limb in the aftermath of elections in Delta state in defence of Great Ogboru’s illusory “victories” whilst he fled the state to Lagos or abroad to quietly enjoy his spoils.
The above accurately describes Great Ogboru, the serial governorship candidate in Delta state, who was only ever in it to scam and reap huge sums of money for himself and his family. However, it is his more recent forays that are of particular interest here.
In 2019 he contested under the APC banner but defected to APGA in 2022 after it became clear that he could not get the party ticket for the 2023 elections. The main subject of concern today is his planned “return” to the APC on 9th March 2025, having been in all but in name a full and active member of the PDP in Delta since the general elections of 2023.
It will be recalled that within minutes of the official release of the Delta State governorship elections results in 2023, Great Ogboru appeared alongside the announced winner of the election, Gov Sheriff Oborevwori, Ifeanyi Okowa, and Emmanuel Uduaghan in a staged photo opportunity to congratulate and celebrate the PDP victory.
That singular act alone tells any neutral observer everything they need to know about the political sincerity of Chief Great Ogboru when he contested the last election. Since that election, his actions and his political disposition have only served to confirm what everyone in Delta now knows – that he contested that election under the aegis of APGA as a bona fide surrogate of the PDP in Delta State.
Since then, Ogboru has been handsomely rewarded with appointments to the Delta State Government for his family members and his closest political associates.
His eldest son, Michael Ogboru was appointed Special adviser to Gov Oborevwori in March 2024. The son of his right-hand lieutenant, Sir Richard Odibo, Roy Odibo was appointed to join a parastatal, the Delta State Security Trust Fund (DSSTF). Elvis Ayomanor, also one of Great Ogboru’s closest confidantes was appointed a Special Assistant to Gov Sheriff.
Given the above, it is beyond curious that the same Great Ogboru, who is now so firmly politically rooted in Delta PDP, has decided to decamp from his adopted APGA back into the APC. The questions are as obvious as the answers. What is he really going back into the APC to look for and why now?
With his immediate political family in full and active service within the PDP-led state government what possibly is he looking to gain from this action? He has no political philosophy other than to line his pockets, and this is being done quite adequately now with the continuing patronage from Gov Sheriff Oborevwori.
Having successfully played the role of surrogacy for PDP in 2023, it appears that Ogboru has now been given instructions to march on the APC and play the role of a Trojan Horse to factionalise the party ahead of the 2027 general elections. Chief Great Ovedje Ogboru fa-fa-fa-foul!
The core APC (ignoring his would-be enablers) and the good people of Delta State know him too well – he has already failed.
– Written by Aruviere Martin Egharhevwa, Esq., Ethiope East LGA, Delta State.
