Senator Peter Nwaoboshi & Innocent Esewezie when the going was good. (INSET) Barrister Fred  & Princess Ajudua

Commissioner, SAs List Tears Delta Oshimili North Apart!

The fragile peace in Delta Oshimili North Local Government has been smashed to smithereens by a purported list of names for commissioner, Senior Special Advisers and Special Advisers drawn from Oshimili North that was submitted to Governor Ifeanyi Okowa.

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Xclusive Magazine gathered from very authoritative source that Governor Okowa had asked Senator Peter Nwaoboshi to submit the names of people from Oshimili North whom he deem fit and proper to occupy political positions in his cabinet. Our source revealed that Senator Nwaoboshi had in turn mandated a committee that included Mr Innocent Esewezie and one Echiejeni, Chairman, Delta State Oshimili North Local Government Chapter of the People’s Democratic Party PDP to come up with a list of eight names.

We understand that the committee members had hurriedly drawn up a list that included their names and that of their acolytes, but on submitting the list to Nwaoboshi he there and then rejected the list and even went as far as tearing it up before them.

A source very close to Nwaoboshi confided in Xclusive Magazine that Oracle, as Nwaoboshi is popularly called, had already drawn his own list and handed over to Okowa at the time he asked the committee to come up with a list.

“Oracle was just taking his loyal stewards on a wild goose chase, to keep them busy. Remember that just recently he contested a Senatorial election, went on campaigns across the length and breadth of Delta North. That experience was enough for him to know nearly every political-minded individual in Oshimili North by name and what he or she stood for. Why then should he delegate an assignment as important as political recommendation requested by the governor to his boys when he can easily do that himself even with his eyes closed,” our reliable source explains.

We further gathered from another source that the committee members were not happy about it. Esewezie, in particular, we were told, took the rejection very badly. He had then vowed to repay Nwaoboshi in his own coins. And many have interpreted his recent romance with Princess Pat Ajudua and Fred Ajudua as part of that revenge mission.

It is not surprising that as Esewezie, a well-known political son of Nwoboshi and on whose influence he had rode to power as a caretaker chairman of Oshimili North Local Government Area, is moving closer to the Ajuduas, he is distancing himself from Nwaoboshi. And evidence of how far the gap between them has widened was made obvious when Esewezie did not attend Nwaoboshi’s senatorial inauguration in Abuja on Tuesday, 9 June. We gathered that when he was asked by someone if he was going to attend, he had retorted: “what am I going there to do?”

At Fred Ajudua’s 55th birthday celebration on 5 June, Esewezie was visibly present and running the show. A source, who was at the birthday event, told Xclusive Magazine that Esewezie had openly expressed his new love for the Ajuduas and had publicly said that he (Esewezie) was all along being deceived into believing that Fred was a bad man, but had now realised how such a good man he was. Our source explained that such profession of love for a sworn enemy of his former principal, Senator Nwaoboshi, was more of a one-finger message to him (Nwaoboshi) that “I now have a new Godfather; you can go to hell!”

A source, well-versed in the political groupings in Oshimili North, told us that Nwaoboshi and the Ajuduas are age-long political enemies. However, these differences were patched up before the recent elections and both camps had pooled forces together to fight their common political foes in Hon. Victor Ochei of Accord Party (for senate) and Chief Tony Azuya of APGA (for House of Assembly).

Under the Tripod Agenda umbrella, Princess Ajudua won a third term in the State House of Assembly, though the results are now being contested in the State Election Tribunal by Chief Tony Azuya of APGA, and Nwaoboshi coasted to victory in the Delta North Senatorial election that was keenly contested against the charismatic former speaker of the Delta State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon Victor Ochei.

The expectation then was that this new found political romance between Nwaoboshi and Princess Ajudua would be a long-lasting one. But our investigations revealed that a murder case hanging over the head of the Ajuduas was to put a wedge in that relationship, a wedge which Esewezie has now capitalized on and expanded into a big gully.

Emeka Kelvin Onianwa lying Comatose in the hospital, handcuffed, before giving up the ghost

Emeka Kelvin Onianwa lying Comatose in the hospital, handcuffed, before giving up the ghost

In a Petition to Inspector General of Police Solomon Arase, signed by his solicitor, Barrister Femi Okafor, Chief Azuya fingered Ajudua for the Gruesome Murder of Emeka Kelvin Onianwa.

He narrated how Mr Onianwa and two other members of APGA monitoring team were allegedly beaten “into a state of stupor at Ward 8 Umueze/Ngboko polling booth where they had gone to monitor the voting process, and stripped off their clothes.” Thereafter, they were abducted in “a Hyundai Accent vehicle with Registration No. LG 027 AKU and driven by Mr. Uche Ofuonyeadi straight to the residence of Mr. Fred Ajudua, the husband to Princess Pat Ajudua, the PDP candidate in the said election,” where they were again severely beaten this time with an iron rod.

“The deadly blows from the rod coupled with the other beating already given to the trio resulted in late Emeka bleeding from the ear, nose and mouth…Mr. Emeka Onianwa, because of the excessive loss of blood arising from the blows to his head and body with the iron rod, fainted right in the living room of the Ajuduas,” the petition reads.

Azuya went further to reveal in the petition that the victims were eventually taken to Ibusa police station from where a critically ill Emeka was rushed to the Federal Medical Centre, Asaba and later to University of Benin Teaching Hospital, Benin City. “He died a couple of days later as a result of the fatal wounds.”

The Ajuduas, in a public statement entitled “From the Desk of Chief Fred Ajudua,” dated 9th May 2015, denied the murder allegation.

“Attempts to frame my family, with a murder case and instigate hate-campaign against us will at the long run also fail. We did not touch the skin of the late boy not to talk of hitting him with any object,” Fred Ajudua said in the statement posted on Facebook on 10 May by Emeka Ogbangwo.

Despite the Ajuduas’ passionate denial of their involvement in the torture and murder of Emeka Onianwa, Chief Nwaoboshi was not moved enough to want to continue the relationship with them. So while Princess Ajudua, who is set to be named Chief Whip of Delta House of Assembly next week, is back in Asaba fighting war at two fronts: a murder allegation and election petition, Nwaoboshi was in faraway Abuja settling down and savouring his new status as a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

A source close to Princess told Xclusive Magazine that the Ajuduas felt betrayed by Nwaoboshi’s attitude, particularly when Fred and other accused were in Abuja on the invitation of the Inspector General of Police, Nwaoboshi made sure he was unreachable. This was seen by the Ajuduas as the final straw for which they then accepted that the political romance with Nwaoboshi, whatever it was worth, was now over.

The Ajuduas have now returned once again to the trenches to rekindle an old political war with Nwaoboshi, dragging Esewezie firmly with them and dividing the loyalty of other Nwaoboshi’s stalwarts such as Elofu Dike and the Oshimili North Local Government chairman, Louis Ndukwe, thus leaving the unity of Oshimili North in tatters.

Meanwhile, Governor Okowa continues to release names of his political appointees in trickles. Today, he announced Chief Festus Ochonogor as Senior Political Adviser and Hon Omimi Esquire as Political Adviser to the Executive Governor of Delta State. These announcements follow in the heels of his previous appointments of Barrister Festus Agas as the Secretary to the State Government and 2 new media Special Advisers in the persons of Jonathan Onwuka (Community Newspapers) and Ifeanyi Ujemba (Electronic media).

Xclusive Magazine gathered from very reliable source that in the full list of all Special Advisers, which is due out from next week, Esewezie has managed to find his name there, not with Nwaoboshi’s recommendation but because of the close and personal relationship he enjoys with Governor Okowa. We also gathered that barring any last minute change of plan, Governor Okowa will next week submit the list of his commissioners to the House of Assembly for screening. Whoever is from Oshimili North that finds his/her name on that list should give the credit to the Oracle of Delta North politics – Barrister (Senator) Peter Nwaoboshi.

***Additional reports by Dr Peter Anny-Nzekwue