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By Pascal Okorobie
For the first time, leaders of Delta State opposition now appear largely united in one political party. APC now boasts of the revolutionary Chief Great Ogboru, the strategic-thinking Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, the positively aggressive Dr. Cairo Ojougboh, the top-level operator, Dr. (Mrs.) Marian Ali, the youthful, brilliant Rt. Hon Victor Ochei, and a host of other major political actors in Delta.
By its present configuration, the new Delta APC is not where anyone should impose himself as a ‘grand leader’ just because he participated in an election and scored a few embarrassingly miserable votes. That is not how President Buhari or Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu earned their political leadership. Theirs came organically from their overwhelming political popularity, clear records of electoral sagacity and victories. An unfounded cult of the individual in the Delta APC is not an alternative to this type of leadership. Those attempting to practice this cult in the party must stop. They are offering nothing but desperate barren schemes to harm persons with undisputed electoral capacities to help the party win in 2019.
A great many believe that with a 2019 electoral environment hopefully devoid of the usual abusive use of ‘federal might’ to intimidate Delta’s electorate and violate electoral due process, Ogboru, for instance, has a unique grassroots electoral pedigree and popularity to mobilise Delta’s electorate for APC’s victory. Even many in PDP admit that Ogboru’s cult-like grassroots popularity is a unique electoral asset for APC and a real threat to the PDP. Ogboru’s electoral appeal cut across many political divides and barriers, including primordial sentiments like ‘zoning.’
For the many who believe in Ogboru’s school of thought, zoning is an easy way to infect the APC in Delta with PDP’s incurable viruses. They prefer credible primaries where delegates would freely choose APC’s candidates based on their faith in the candidates of their choice. They want free and fair elections where the electorate would elect their own leaders. Simple. They view ‘zoning’ with scorn. This is more so as some aspirants who have embraced zoning do not have popular electoral value across the length and breadth of Delta.
As the award-winning journalist Zik Zulu Okafor once noted, peaceful, undaunted and consistent, “Ogboru is tougher than hope.” Even the worst of political provocations have not changed him. These are why the people remain with him. In Delta, APC needs men and women of Ogboru’s pedigree and character to avoid the errors of 2015 and win convincingly in 2019.
But to win, the party must avoid the pitfalls of 2015; dare to be different from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in its governance offerings; and adopt bold winning strategies that are easily acceptable to the electorate. To do these, APC must first look at itself in the mirror and answer some tough questions on its 2015 outing in Delta.
The question, however, is: Why did the party perform poorly in Delta in the 2015 general elections? How was it possible for APC not to win any elective position in the state? Why did APC fail even in governorship candidates in ward and local council? How come the party failed to add any tangible electoral value to President Muhammadu Buhari’s victory?
The 2015 reality of the Delta APC is quite telling. And, it is important to ask whether the Delta APC in 2015 was a grand deception designed for purposes other than winning elections? Was it a compromised or scheme or a façade created to deceive Abuja? If it were, then it would be right to tame and stop the architects of that false reality from reenacting a scene II of electoral deceit, as a new, robust Delta APC marches towards 2019.
Ending the electorally barrenness order in the Delta APC becomes even much more compelling if evidence abounds that it is also irresponsibly trying to isolate powerful blocs in the party with an offensive and destructive sense of party ownership. From the issues of 2015, reasons to end the old order in the Delta APC already exist in abundance. Using a false, overhyped sense of grand party ownership as a strategy of undermining official party leadership and alienating those who can make the party win elections, for once, is a prescription for disaster. A cult of the individual without strong electoral value cannot guide APC to victory in Delta.
• Dr. Okorobie, a political economist, wrote from Kwale, Delta State.
