ZIK GBEMRE SPEAKS ON UPU, DC-2023 GUBER ASPIRANTS SCREENING: WHY SHOULD URHOBO TAKE TAIGA, AMORI SERIOUS?

After declaring that whoever Governor Ifeanyi Okowa chooses to succeed him is who DC-23 would support, the planned jamboree by Amori and DC-23 on screening Urhobo 2023 governorship aspirant is a scam.

Even a similar exercise by Olorogun Moses Taiga led UPU is as much as a deceitful distraction given that the UPU under Taiga is saturated by card-carrying PDP members.

Every Urhobo of voting age must ignore the unholy alliance between DC-23 and UPU, and ensure that their votes count on the side of merit when 2023 governorship in Delta rotates to Urhobo again.

Since reading in the news that Chief Ighoyota Amori’s tool of political scam, the Urhobo Political Forum (UPF) which he has rebranded DC-23 has set for itself the extortionist task of screening Urhobo governorship aspirants for the 2023 governorship, the simple question that comes to mind is why should any aspirant take Amori serious?

In the same vein, it is no less laughable that the Olorogun Moses Taiga led Urhobo Progress Union (UPU) leadership is saturated by Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) card-carrying members who also want to carry out a separate Urhobo aspirants’ screening and equally expects to be taken seriously.

Under Olorogun Taiga, UPU has never been so partisan. At the slimmest of opportunities, Taiga on behalf of UPU is one the news, praising a failed Governor Ifeanyi Okowa to high heavens for having performed exceedingly well at the helms of Delta State Government, as though the Delta state in which Okowa leads in Taiga’s imagination, is different from the real state that is stagnated under Okowa.

Under Taiga UPU has become so much of a Public relations (PR) tool of Okowa’s government. Not even Amori’s DC-23, a chip off the PDP hegemony in Delta has been so gullible in praise singing Okowa as the Taiga led UPU. So it is no surprise that the UPU has chosen to compete with DC-23 in the aspirant screening jamboree which would serve no purpose than extorting the aspirants.

For DC-23 and UPU, the intended screening of aspirants is for purpose of pruning the numbers to ease the contention among Central aspirants to going into primaries. That is more like telling the people what they want to hear. Realistically, this professed motive has more than any point else exposed Amori’s DC-23 as a jobber tool of deceit.

Recall that Amori, only recently, openly swore on behalf of DC-23, that the overriding criteria for whoever they will support on Urhobo’s turn to be Governor that the aspirant must be incumbent Okowa’s choice. Amori never minced words when he gave this public declaration, which is why we are saying that any aspirant who concedes and presents self to Amori’s DC-23 is either part of another grand conspiracy to fool Urhobo or lacks self-confidence and is too gullible to run for governor without being handpicked.

Let’s face it, if whoever Okowa wants from Delta Central is who DC-23 waiting to support for Governor, as we have asked before, where is the point for screening of aspirants? Why is Amori and DC-23 disciples going about across Delta pretending to be building bridges of support?

To push the emanating questions further at exposing the political irrelevance of DC-23, can they screen out Okowa’s choice? What that means is that Amori’s DC-23 can never be fair in allowing merit dictate the jamboree screening. Just as he did with UPF, Amori has also declared that DC-23 is a jamboree, sheer waste of time to scare genuine aspirants with good credentials and intentions to run for Governor.

Amori knows that in the end, “whoever Okowa picks is who DC-23 would support”. That is why any aspirant worth his onions should not take DC-23 and its malicious screening serious. They are only aiming to collect “kolanut money” from gullible aspirants. Except Okowa recommends his choice to Amori before the said screening, if whoever DC-23 picks ends up not being the incumbent choice, Amori will abandon him to honour Okowa in the end.

Like we said, any aspirant who concedes to the malicious screening is either a phony/swindler, part of the conspiracy of deceit or is merely playing for relevance so he can be rewarded with an appointment by whoever wins.

As for UPU, Taiga’s body language, disgusting open image laundering for Okowa and the fact that his cabinet is saturated by PDP members also suggest that their intended screening is as self-serving as that intended by DC-23.

Taiga’s impression of Okowa’s “purposeful leadership” are the shoddily Asaba Stadium where the water tower collapsed during an international athletics meet days after declaring it completed and the scoreboard failed not long after. Taiga points to State Secretariat, over 3,000 Kilometres of roads and bridges constructed and rehabilitated.

He points to Asaba Airport rehabilitation and upgrade, YAGEP, STEP, RYSA and PROJECT GEST empowerment programmes which he claims took over 150,000 youth from the congested labour market in Delta State, and made them breadwinners and small and medium scale business owners.

We ask Taiga, have you gone to Urhobo Land (Delta Central and Urban Urhobo Warri South Areas) on honest monitoring and evaluation of Okowa’s projects in the communities before praising him to high heavens as a good performer, with all the shoddy projects, collapsing here and there. Are the projects that are even visible commensurate with declared costs? How fairly even in the distribution of projects across the state under Okowa. Even the blind knows Taiga is just being partisan, induced by stomach infrastructure in praise singing the governor.

A shameless Taiga even declared publicly that Okowa deserves UPU’s gratitude for “juicy appointments offered sons and daughter of Urhobo extraction since 2015, and still counting”. Whereas under Moses Taiga’s nose, Okowa gave DESOPADEC Chairmanship to an Itsekiri man, a slot the establishing law gives to Urhobo. What juicy appointments is Moses Taiga talking about.

For us, Amori overreaching self with DC-23 to derail Urhobo collective bargaining to vote a sound mind as 2023 Governor has the full endorsement of Moses Taiga. UPU and DC-23 are in an unholy alliance to fool Urhobo again. It is not in dispute that nothing good can come out of such conspiracy.

Our advice to Urhobos at this stage should give absolutely no regard to UPU and DC-23 devious trick on the 2023 Delta governorship. As we continue to stress, it’s Urhobo’s turn to be governor. Urhobo does not need any DC-23 or a partisan UPU to think for the rest of us. Urhobos at no time sat and collectively endorsed jobbers like Amori and few others to determine who become the next governor. At the end of the day let every vote, not an imposition, count on the popular choice of the next governor.

Amori or UPU didn’t support Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan’s choice of Tony Oboh as governor in his time as incumbent. Urhobo does not need Amori, Taiga and ex-convict Ibori to decide who Delta Central picks as governor. Shame on Amori and DC-23, shame on Moses Taiga.

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