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By Basil Okoh

Okowa is calculating and cunning, brilliant but histrionic, therefore ruled more by emotions and ambition than good sense. Sheriff is audacious and bold, capable of daring actions on the go but without deep thoughts and equanimity. And with so much state funds in his control, he is now without a sense of caution.

The combination of these two contradicting characters should inspire a deep introspection and caution from their top political followers in Delta state. But the followers themselves are without thought or opinions of their own, in the true traditions of a mindless mob.

And then when we add a third, Felix Morka, though inconsequential in the scheme of things in the state, a dysfunctional triumvirate is formed. Morka considers himself a major stakeholder of APC in the nation and in Delta state, as the other two humour him to believe, so he completes a picture of a triumvirate of disparate characters brought together by the defection of PDP into APC in Delta state. The known grasping proclivities of Governor Sheriff and ex-governor Okowa is now revealing Felix Morka to be by association, the new knave in the team, the devil they didn’t know at the APC HQ in Abuja. He now looks out for the interest of the Delta defectors at the Abuja HQ of APC.

The Delta PDP ploy to overrun APC in Delta State is a wild gamble played without a supporting deck or a fall back position. It cannot be successful and will met an unsavoury end because it has no big internal APC backer in Abuja. When the real party owners are staked out, Felix Morka will not be there because he has no claim to party leadership. Somebody put him there. Sheriff will be forced to run on the platform of another party and Okowa will become an interloper looking in.

When the PDP in Delta fails to become the chosen faction and platform of APC in Delta state, there will be a complete unravelling of the group. Right now, they have played their hand too greedily, too fast and too direct, even with the collaboration of the Omeni Sobotie and the College of Leaders group. There was no subtlety or nuance in their intent and eventually, no method to the madness to take over the APC. Even if you have to rape a woman, you should at least try and calm her down from fear and hysteria.

The implications of the failure of the hostile takeover of APC in Delta state will be horrendous for the PDP now calling itself New-APC, and as my friend said: on the day of the announcement of the failure of the takeover, the entire political players in the state will flood back into the original APC, without a thought and as if nothing happened. Our politicians are without a sense of shame. The rush to take over APC by the old PDP stalwarts was without contemplation of the consequences of failure.

Sheriff and Okowa are doing in APC today exactly what they did four years ago to destroy PDP. The Delta Unity Group (DUG), an intellectual wing was created in Delta state PDP out of rebellion to the tyranny of Okowa in the management of the PDP in Delta state. Okowa and Sheriff themselves had to abandon PDP for APC after everyone else had left and they were left running the shell of a once thriving PDP.

In the run up to the 2022 primaries, Okowa as governor, forbade PDP from selling nomination forms to anyone he didn’t like and was directly issuing the nomination forms by himself. He became so despotic that party men and women started leaving the party in droves. His daughter had no challenger in Ika Northeast PDP because forms were not sold to anyone else but her. So she like a goddess was unopposed in PDP as her father held sway.

Before the Congress in Asaba, a court injunction had already been issued to stop it. So the entire jamboree was a non-event, a charade and null from the start. But that did not stop the backslappings, the false smiles and the fist pumping. Politics in Delta state is one continuous noisy festival and offers photo opportunities to display new clothing. No thinking is demanded.

This writer has always warned that PDP defection will disorganize and bring disharmony to the APC as they destroyed their own, even as a state ruling party. It’s happening now. Okowa and Sheriff have no capacity to build or to manage an organization for progressive growth and success because they are too self-serving, too inconsiderate of the needs of others and both have a wanton and vengeful propensity to destroy what does not serve their own purpose. Okowa carries the curse of the thief and can never be satiated even if you give him the entire world.

How it was expected that PDP will seize the entire organizational structure of the ruling APC into which it defected and in the time frame of less than a year, replace it with its own structure and then the matter is allowed to stand is groupthink of the stupidest kind. The lack of good heads by the principal actors, Sheriff, Okowa, Sobotie, the College of Leaders, is shocking and not to be expected from adults. Audacity should have its checks and limitations. They are only lucky that the courts intervened to give them time to reflect, the polls later would have given them a karmic whiplash.

The old PDP (now calling themselves new APC) in Delta state will continue to drift and wander until it fizzles and dissolves into a nocturnal provincial gathering as it is now turning out to be. It suffers now from Cyprian Ekwensi’s rendition in “Burning Grass” of Fulani wandering disease called: “sokugo”.

In Ika Federal Constituency for instance, the disruptions that will follow will be so obstreperous and horrendous. Victor Nwokolo may not go back to the House of Representatives. Okowa’ daughter Maureen Daramola may not also return to the state Assembly. Both were clients of Ifeanyi Okowa’s long tenured abuse of power as senator and governor. Ifeanyi Okowa himself will have to face the prospect of never going back to the Senate. And then Okowa may finally get his due time in jail.