Chief Edwin Chukwunweike Uzor, Delta state PDP Chairman
• Call Them Lazy Politicians With no Political Benefit
The Chairman of the Delta Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Chief Edwin Chukwunweike Uzor, has taken Chief Paulinus Akpeki, Barr. Misan Ukubeyinje, Mr. Ebifa Ijomah and other defectors, to the cleaners, describing them as lazy, jobless politician with no grassroots political base, who did not contribute anything to the All Progressives Congress, APC where they decamped to as the APC did not even win a single Local Government Area Delta State in the 2015general elections.
Chief Uzor, who addressed a press briefing against the backdrop of the recent defections by these former PDP members to the All Progressives Congress, APC, further described them as political prostitutes, and fair weather politicians, who believe they must be in government at all cost, even as he accused them of decamping from the PDP after their concerted but quite futile efforts to secure appointments in the present Governor Okowa administration in the state failed woefully.
The Delta PDP Chairman, who took deliberate swipes at the defectors individually, flayed Chief Paulinus Akpeki as a failed politician, who was rejected by his own people in his ward in Sapele, has not mentored any younger politician to take over from him, as a result of his political greed to remain in power with successive governments in the past 16 years, yet has nothing to show despite his continued appointments over the years and has enjoyed the goodwill of the PDP over the years, even as he cautioned the All Progressives Congress, APC, to be wary of a man who wants to reap where he did not sow.
Chief Uzor also rapped Barr. Misan Ukubeyinje, a former Delta State Commissioner for Agriculture, as an opposition mole in the PDP, whom he derided as a former opposition Youth leader with the defunct Action Congress of Nigera, ACN, who was languishing in penury and political doldrum, until former Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan rehabilitated him with a Commissionership portfolio, pointing out that this was the same man who had lost his first election in 1999 under the Action for Democracy party, but enjoyed political success when he decamped to the PDP in 2001 and won the House of Asssembly election to represent his constituency for two terms, even when he did make any contributions to the victory of Governor Uduaghan in 2011 and indeed to the party in the 2015 elections.
Speaking on Ebifa Ijomah, the Delta PDP Chairman, who also enjoys the traditional title of Odu 1 of Oko Kingdom in Osminili South LGA, described the former Delta State Commissioner for Youth Affairs, with a harsh word and regretted that the young man, who was given political recognition out of respect for his father, Prof. B.I.C Ijomah, an elder statesman of high repute in Delta state, was a big disappointment and embarrassment to the PDP, as his tenure in the Ministry of Youth Affairs, witnessed unprecedented youth restiveness in the state, while his subsequent appointment as Commissioner for Economic planning exposed his incompetence and ineptitude as an administrator, yet he had the temerity to vigourously and desperately lobby Governor Okowa for another appointment in the present administration, which thankfully was rejected.
As for Dr. Akwara, the fourth decampee, who was a former governorship aspirant under the PDP, Chief Uzor dismissed him as a politician, who did not even know his ward and displayed shocking political ignorance, when he came to the PDP secretariat to collect his governorship nomination form, even as questioned the political value and relevance Dr. Akwara intended to add to the All Progressives Congress, APC, with his defection, when he had merely been a fringe member of the PDP in his colourless political career, so far.
Chief Edwin Uzor described as laughable, the reason given by the defectors that they did not want to be part a government and political party that was in opposition at the state level, reminding them that the All Progressives Congress, APC had been in opposition for the last 16 years at the center and while assuring that their decamping was no big deal, urged the PDP faitful in the state not to be disturbed by the defections, which was of no consequence to tthe fortunews of the PDP in Delta State.
“These are hungry politicians, who decamp when things are no longer rosy. Defection is an option open only to lazy politicians without any base at the grassroots”, Chief Uzor concluded emphatically.
