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From Joseph Obukata, Warri
The Delta State chapters of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and All Progressive Congress (APC) are entangled in a war of words over election violence and rigging claims in the state.
It was learnt that trouble in the two parties started after Senator Peter Nwaoboshi, representing Delta North Senatorial District, accused the the PDP, his former party before his defection to the APC, of rigging successive elections in the state.
“There’s no rigging plan that I don’t know. The battle has started. It’s total war. Not the war involving the use of firearms; but they will have themselves to blame should they try that,” Nwaoboshi said of the PDP rigging plot while congratulating the newly sworn-in APC Exco in the state last week.
But his statement has not gone down well with the PDP which refuted the allegation even as it described Nwaoboshi as “an attention-seeking rabble and a failed politician” who lost his usefulness in the party before joining the APC
The ruling party in the state in a statement titled: “We are not a party of violence, Delta PDP tells Nwaoboshi” signed by its publicity secretary, Dr Ifeanyi Osuoza said:
“We are even surprised that a politician who has achieved all his political fortunes under the steady umbrella of the PDP, will be making comments suggesting rigging and violence. Ironically, we do not recall any extraordinary incidences of rigging and violence in the two senatorial elections which Senator Nwaoboshi won under the PDP, or is he now confessing to the world that he achieved his senatorial election victories by violence and rigging? What a shameless man, cutting his nose to spite his face.”
Osuosa liked Nwaoboshi to an Okro plant which doesn’t grow taller than the person who planted it, saying the PDP would continue to bend Nwaoboshi to size effortlessly and cut him off without any qualms or stress.
“We have no reason to doubt that such comments were uttered by Chief Nwaoboshi, as they are not remarkably different from his typically verbose and puerile uttering, in his futility to discredit the PDP, since he jumped into the sinking APC boat, in the assumed hope of temporarily escaping the looming indictment of an already done and dusted forensic audit report.
“Peter Nwaoboshi knows that the PDP is not a party of violence and we have no reason to rig any election because the PDP is the most popular, the most organised, the most prepared, and the most beloved party of Deltans,comprehensively accepted and unanimously embraced across the length and breadth, nooks and crannies of the entire Delta State.”
But reacting, Delta APC, in a statement by its Publicity Director, Dr Omene Odafe, lampooned the PDP saying it was rattled by the resurgence of the APC in the state, hence the seething attack on Nwaoboshi.
“Far from Senator Nwaoboshi losing his usefulness to the PDP, it is the PDP that lost a gem of rare and sterling political sagacity and resourcefulness in Nwaoboshi, when they were foolish enough to lose him to the APC.
“In fact, while pretending that Nwaoboshi’s exit is not a headache to the PDP, by continuously obsessing over the veteran political grandmaster ever since his defection, the PDP had only unwittingly exposed the fact that it is scared witless of him and that Governor Okowa, in particular, has suddenly found the prospects of his political future to be quite bleak, going forward.
“The PDP has always been the party of violence and thuggery, of thumb-printing and snatching of ballot boxes, of kill the people, steal the vote and share the money! Senator Nwaoboshi was merely serving notice that with the inauguration of a new executive, the APC is now fully on ground to rescue Delta State from what would eventually amount to 24 years of kleptomaniac misrule under the PDP by 2023.”
