…says anything is possible before 2015
…Time for hearing election petition unconstitutional
…INEC may investigate why votes from Riverine Communities is
60% above national average
Author: By Omafume Amurun
In what seemed to be a show of strength, the Democratic
Peoples Party(DPP) led by Chief Great Ovedje Ogboru, the 2011 governorship
candidate, Chief Tony Ezeagwu, the party’s Delta State Chairman and scores of
supporters met in Abraka last Sunday, attended by unprecedented number of
crowd, which was an indication that the
party may still have large followers, despite losing the governorship election
case at the Supreme Court and the recent joining of the All Progressive
Congress(APC) by some of its members
The occasion eventually became a
mini-rally for senatorial aspirants to mobilize their supporters in a show of
their strength. Some of the aspirants present on the occasion were, the
son of a business mogul and renowned accountant, Chief Ede Dafinone, who lost to late Senator Pius Ewherido during
the last primaries, a Warri-based businessman, Chief Richard Odibo, former
member of the House of Representatives, Chief Napoleon Gbinijie, Chief Agharome
and Mr. Abel Edijala, a former governorship aspirant as well as Chief O’tega
Emerhor, a former DPP member, who has been campaigning on the platform of the
APC, but there were indications that he may return to the DPP.
Speaking to Journalists at the
end of the rally, Chief Ogboru said, “the purpose was to thank our numerous
followers, those who stood with us all these times and assure them that all
hope is not lost. They should keep hope alive and that we will not leave any
stone unturn. We are going to explore every available avenue to seek justice
and to tell them that the future political calculation will not leave us out
and that they should not be in a hurry to do whatever they had been told to do
by some persons and be faithful to the DPP and to maintain our structure in the
state”.
He said the DPP was united, and
was surprised that some people were saying that because two or three people
left the party, the party was dead. “The party is not going to die because we
are not getting any help from the west or any part of the country, Our party
will only be dead when our people refused to believe in the quest for justice.
As long as we believe in change and that we are standing for change and
justice, I do not think this party is going to die.”
Responding to a question
on why he was so sure of occupying government house before 2015, Chief Ogboru
said, “first, the merit of our case has not been heard at all and we are
challenging the legitimacy of section 285 of the amended constitution 1999. It
is in process and we want that insertion declared illegitimate and
unconstitutional. It did not meet the mandatory requirement of section 93 on
what was needed to amend chapter 4 of the constitution. The provision is
four-fifth of all the members of the National Assembly that is required to
amend that section of the constitution. Those who amended section 285, 6 and 7
did not have mandatory requirement of four-fifth. We hope that section will be
declared unconstitutional. When that happens, the merit of our case will be
heard.
On the alleged merger of the
party with the APC, he explained that the DPP had not merged with any party.
“If we must merge, it must be as a political party. We are telling them to stay
where they are, that wherever we decide to go, we shall go as a party. We are
not going to merge behind closed doors or from the back door. Mergers must recognize
your strength and weaknesses, but when a merger appear to be trying to create
new membership for a political party, it is against the principles of merging”.
Chief Ogboru reinstated
that as far as they were concerned, the DPP was not in this merger at all and
that the registration by INEC had proved that there were only three parties
that merged, anybody who was going there was a joiner adding, “One day if we
will do so, it will be on the principles of merger”.
On the forthcoming senatorial
election to fill the vacant seat following the death of Senator Pius Ewherido,
Chief Ogboru assured that the party would present a credible candidate and
retain the seat. “As you saw in the gathering there, we have several people
there who are, responsible and can influence Nigerians, including Chief
Emerhor, who was in our party, we do not know if he is still in our party. With
the structure of DPP in Delta State, particularly Delta central, there is no
way we will not get it back. No party can muster the type of crowd we have
today, who were not paid or hired to pay their loyalty and solidarity to our
course”
On the recent Supreme Court case
in which he lost, Chief Ogboru said, electoral law did not meet all the
constitutional requirements for amendment. “The Supreme court did not hear our
case, short of throwing us out. Our lawyer, Sebastaine Hon. was being brought
to disrepute before the public and that we have lost our right for appeal. Of
course that is ridiculous. And I am sure that the Supreme Court Justices who
sat over that issue one day will confess that they carried out a great
injustice, not just to the Nigeria people but the whole of humanity”
Responding to another question
on election rigging, Chief Ogboru said, “the peculiarity of the problem in
Delta State is the riverine communities. In future election, we will not allow
INEC to be complacent again. We will be talking to INEC about this. That votes
of non-existing communities should not be used to defeat the will of the
people. The average turn out there is 90 per cent, but the national average is
30 percent. It is in these riverine communities they manufactured 291,000
votes, if not we defeated them by a wide margin of 130,000 votes. I told you
there will be a workshop when the INEC chairman will be here on the 23rd
of this month. We shall make a presentation to INEC and we shall follow it
vigorously on the need for INEC to give us assurance that this will not happen
again and we will show it to INEC empirically that the communities we are
talking about, that voters turnout was in excess of 90 per cent, whereas the
national wide average was about 35 per cent, that we are not crying wolf when
we should not be crying wolf. We are saying as a matter of fact that we were
defeated not by legitimate votes but by invalid votes.
On why he believed that he would
eventually get justice, Chief Ogboru said it was based on the history of where
the party was coming from, saying that though election did not take place in
2003 and 2007, in 2011 there was proper election in 18 local government areas.
“We had a senator, members of Houses of Representatives and Assembly.
He said those who came from PDP
and having used DPP platform, won the election and went back to PDP “we say,
good bye to them. We believe we are making progress and that Rome was not built
in one day. In 2015, nothing will stop us from getting the governorship seat,
two or three senators, four House of Representatives and 18 members of house of
Assembly. We know the difficulties in making change in a political environment.
So sometimes when we are critical of the justices of the Supreme Court, we also
understand that political decisions are very difficult. We shall do our home
work and we shall get there.
On whether he will run in 2015,
Chief Ogboru said, “It is too premature to talk about my running in 2015” and
that anything could happen before 2015 and he will be in government house.
urhubotimes.com
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