The talk about some PDP leaders working
behind the scene to promote the candidature of the opposition party in Delta
State, though doubtful is worth looking at. Such rumours only indicate a lack
of understanding of lessons from political history. A few years ago the pattern
being talked about occurred in Edo State. Let’s try to succinctly recall that
episode.
Those
who are very familiar with the politics of Edo State PDP and the emergence of
Prof. Osunbor as the party’s governorship candidate know that he was handed the
party’s governorship ticket in 2007 by President Olusegun Obasanjo, this did
not sit well with Chief Tony Anenih who supported Odion Ugbesia who looked good
to beat Osunbor at the party primary. While in office Osumbor did not help
matters.
The ouster of Osunbor by the Tribunal
and Appellate Court marked, in the main, a denouement of despicable irritating
Machiavellian stratagem, insidious disloyalty and wanton disdain for party
discipline that befell the PDP in Edo State who brought down a duly elected Governor
of its party. The truth is that the tragedy, which befell the man whose
tenure was suddenly terminated by the Court of Appeal on November 12, 2008 to
pave the way for the takeover of the reins of governance by Adams Aliu
Oshiomhole of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), also befell all party members
and leaders of PDP extraction following ACN victory.
Chief Anenih had aligned
with Governor Oshiomhole and their relationship became very close. Anenih at one point described Oshiomhole as
his son until the relationship became sour less than one year on, when Anenih publicly
described the ACN as air conditioner without compressor at a rally in Ewohimi
and that he wants the people of Nigeria to know that Oshiomhiole does not
practice what he preaches.
The issue that came to the fore and has
engaged the attention of many discerning watchers of Edo Politics was the proxy
war and high-wire manipulations and posturing that rocked and scuttled
Professor Oserheimen Osunbor’s governorship.
Naively
PDP members and leaders played the game of treachery to undermine its own
victory. PDP in Edo State in 2008 was deeply engrossed in a political macabre
dance by pandering to the attraction of filthy lucre and narcissism, at the end
the party lost its victory to ACN. Most of those who orchestrated the fall of PDP
became the victims of Oshomole’s ascendency to power. Barrister Osaze
Ize-Iyamu, SSG under Igbenedion was a major casualty.
Today, there is festering
rumour that some people are once again naively contemplating and pandering with
the idea of working with the opposition to stall PDP victory. In contemplating
so, they should look with hindsight at what happened in Edo State in 2008 and
how PDP used itself to throw away victory, at the end every leader and members of
the party regretted that awful error of political decision.
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