Ochei to Decamp to Accord with Okowa’s Blessing

Rt Hon. Victor Ochei – Accord Party is about to catch its biggest fish in Delta State. In the absence of any last minute setback, former speaker of Delta state House of Assembly, Rt Hon. Victor Ochei, will decamp to Accord Party (AP) to run for Senate.

XCLUSIVE Magazine gathered on good authority that Ochei’s grand plan was hatchet with the full support and blessing of Chief (Dr.) Arthur Ifeanyi Okowa. The Delta State PDP gubernatorial candidate has even promised to deploy his vast and formidable political structure to help Ochei realize his senate ambition. Their final game plan is that after his Senate victory, Ochei will then return to People’s Democratic Party.

On Tuesday, 9 December 2014, Ochei, who lost the gubernatorial primary elections to Okowa with an impressive 185 votes, visited Okowa in his house to congratulate him. It was at this informal meeting that he intimated Okowa of his intention to run for Senate. As long sufferers under common foes in Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan and Chief (Barr.) Peter Onyelukachukwu Nwaoboshi, Ochei and Okowa were already bonded, this made them to easily and quickly strike an accord.

However, it was a raw plan that had to be fine-tuned at subsequent meetings and with numerous telephone conversations. Eventually, agreement was reached that Ochei should decamp to Accord Party to run for Senate. Okowa is the backbone of Accord Party in Delta State and anyone joining the party in Delta North must have his backing. On his part, Ochei has grassroots support, and combined that with Okowa’s structure, the expectation is that Ochei is going to have an easy ride to the red chambers.

Well, maybe not. By entering the Delta North Senatorial race, Ochei would have to square up with Nwaoboshi at the general elections for a position that the arrogant Barrister thought was already in the bag. After a keenly contested Delta North senatorial primary with Mrs Ali, in which the former State PDP chairman emerged victorious, his thinking is that the worst is over. Delta State is a PDP state, and whoever emerged from any primary elections is as good as having won the general elections.

Ochei and Okowa have a common enemy in Nwaoboshi, and they both have an axe to grind with him. Oracle, as Chief Nwaoboshi is popularly called by his supporters, was the hatchet man that Uduaghan used to boot out Ochei as Delta State Speaker of House of Assembly. Nwaoboshi, as the arrow-head of Delta North, had also teamed up with Uduaghan to frustrate Okowa earlier in the governorship primaries. But while Ochei and Nwaoboshi remain sworn enemies politically, Okowa and Nwaoboshi had at some point patched things up.

Chief (Dr.) Senator Arthur Ifeanyi Okowa

Two days before the primaries, Nwaoboshi had approached Okowa and handed him a political olive branch. The trigger was when Governor Uduaghan switched his support from Mr Tony Obuh to David Edevbie. Nwaoboshi, who was also supporting Obuh, knew that without Uduaghan’s backing, his support alone would not take Obuh too far.

Nwaoboshi desperately wants a Delta North governor. He had told Okowa that he could not imagine an Urhobo becoming the Delta State governor in 2015 and if what he would take to stop Edebvie was to make peace with an old foe from Anioma he was ready to do it. Okowa on his part needed all the support he could get. It mattered little to him that the support was coming from an old and unreliable enemy. Nwaoboshi and Okowa shook hands, and with two cups filled up with wine, they raised a toast to their new found agreement and friendship.

However, Nwaoboshi’s support for Okowa was later discovered to be a contrived one. XCLUSIVE Magazine gathered on credible evidence that Nwaoboshi did not deploy his full support for Okowa as agreed. After the primary elections results had been announced, Okowa was presented with the list of delegates who voted for him. It was to his chagrin that some names of Nwaoboshi’s core loyalists were not on the list. Two notable names that were conspicuously missing on the list were Louis Ndukwe, Chairman of Oshimili North Local Government Area and Nwaoboshi’s political son and Princess Pat Ajudua, sitting member of Delta House of Assembly.

XCLUSIVE Magazine reported on 28 November 2014 that in Oshimili North, Chief Nwaoboshi calls the shots. He alone picks who gets the party ticket to contest in any elections or appointed into the State board or as commissioner. It is this omniscient power vested on and wielded by Nwaoboshi and Nwaoboshi alone that is described within the Oshimili North political circle as “system politics.” It simply means that when Oracle speaks, it must be accepted by all and sundry that the “system” has spoken.

It is on the strength of his overwhelming influence that Nwaoboshi initiated a unique political arrangement in Oshimili Delta North tagged Tripod Agenda 2015 that threw up Ndukwe and Ajudua. Louis Ndukwe as Chairman and Pat Ajudua For House of Assembly were the two agendas of the political Tripod. The other agenda of the Tripod was Nwaoboshi For Senate.

It was supposed to be a given that being products of Nwaoboshi’s “system politics,” Louis and Princess as PDP delegates must vote wherever Nwaoboshi told them to vote. Ndukwe, in particular, was barely one month in the office, too early for him not to defer to the wishes of his political godfather. Therefore, it was very telling that Ndukwe’s and Ajudua’s names were missing in the list of delegates who voted for Okowa.

According to a source very close to Okowa, the conclusion within Okowa’s camp was that Nwaoboshi was trying to play smart by pretending that he was for Okowa while his loyalty was elsewhere. Okowa was particularly pained because while the counting was going on, and he was coasting to victory, “crafty and arrogant” Nwaoboshi was throwing “happy” smiles and “knowing” glances at him. Okowa interpreted these gestures as his being taking for a fool.

For his janus-faced, Okowa vowed to pay Nwaoboshi back in his coin. And our source revealed that Okowa rarely forgives.

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