“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” – Edmund Burke.
Our VERDICT.
Dear esteemed deligates, specail greetings once again, from DCCG. We hope we are gearing up for the primaries with renewed vigor to chart a new course for ourselves, our generations and the generality of emasculated Deltans.
In keeping with our promise to assess the capability & credibility of our candidates jostling for the governorship of our state, we are pleased to report that we have concluded our task after much painstaking and thorough job. The key attributes expected from our next governor are credibility & capability. These two words determines who a good leader is and must coexist .
While capability can be acquired through education, training and experience, credibility is innate and defines a person’s character. If you are capable but not credible, it will amount to nothing at the end of the day.
Also, if you are credible but not capable, you can wreck the ship of state by abandoning your responsibilities for all comers. In our exercise, we observed that though most of the candidates are generally credible, they lacked the capability to govern a state as complex as Delta with diverse interest groups, both internal and external.
That being the case and having perceived that they did a good job, we had to narrow our scrutiny to the last three candidates which were recommended to His Excellency Governor Ifanyi Okowa by DC-23, headed by Senator Ighoyota Amori. These were Rt. Hnr. Sherrif Eborevwori, Olorogun kenneth Gbagi and Chief David Edevbie.
On Rt. Hnr. Sherrif Eborevwori:
We do not need to repeat here, the controversies which erupted following the supporting documents to his declaration form submitted by him during the screening exercise.
Our verdict is that our party cannot risk fielding a candidate with such unconvincing credentials which could lead to the loss of the state we had laboured to keep since 1999, to the oposition. That is a sacrifice too terrible to contemplate no matter who are sponsoring him.
On Chief David Edevbie :
He possesses the requisite academic qualifications and experience to be a governor. But as we all know, he is carrying the nationally and internationally acclaimed dirty baggages of his overt sponsor and godfather, to whom he was an accomplice. That means though he may be capable, he did not pass the credibility test.
We know that this our position is at variance with that of UPU- our umbrella Socio- Cultural Organisation. But there comes a time we must call a spade a spade and not a shovel. We expected that UPU should have been circumspect in this matter, because this is an opportunity for the Urhobo nation to redeem our image which had been brutally battered by the soiled hands of one of our own who had an opportunity to govern the state.
Did UPU ever think of how badly and disappointed the other ethnic groups in the state will feel when we say Chief Edevbie is our best? Did UPU not know that the other ethnic groups equally suffered the consequences of the malfeasance of one of our own? Would UPU ever have supported such a candidate if he were from another ethnic group of the state? Sorry UPU, you goofed because Edevbie cannot be our best in this circumstance. Otherwise, you have put a wrong tag on all honest & credible sons and daughters of the Urhobo nation. And we cannot accept that.
More importantly, is the fact that the prospect of PDP losing the general elections to APC if it fields Edevbie is too high to ignore. This is because, Edevbie will cause protest voting from other Senatorial districts of the state against PDP. Ofcourse, once beaten, twice shy.
Nobody wants to experience the ugly incidents of malfeasance of the past which had rendered the state comatose till now and we are being taunted by other Nigerians to account for the 13% derivation we get from Abuja every month.
That being said, Edevbie should be totally out of the permutations.
On Olorogun kenneth Gbagi:
Gbagi, from our assessment is capable and credible to a large extent. However, we are aware of the many controversies trailing him, especially the one of stripping his workers naked for theft, which erupted about two years ago. He vehemently denied it and attributed it to the handiwork of traducers and political enemies who saw his early consultations to run for the governorship as threat to their ambition.
He went to a court of competent jurisdiction to seek redress and was vindicated as his accusers and conspirators including the Inspector General of Police, Delta State Commissioner of police and the the then Delta State Attorney General and Commissioner of Justice were ordered by the court to render a public apology to him and publish same in two national dailies for voilating his human rights with all the embarrassment he suffered as a result.
We are not aware that this court verdict has been appealed. Gbagi had suffered such accusations and propaganda previously. First, close to 2003 primary elections, he was alleged to be rearing lions which he wanted to unleash on the public.
This led parents in and around Effurun to withdraw their children from school for several days, until the rumor was found to be fake. Again, on the eve of 2007 primary elections, when it was alleged that he does not pay his workers their due wages. Gbagi came out to state that he will pay ten times the overdue salary of any of the staff that can prove he or she is being owed by his companies. Again, nobody showed up and the allegation died down after the primary elections of that year. Currently, the narrative is that Gbagi is too hard, connected and cannot be easily controlled by the godfathers of Delta politics or anybody for that matter. We believe these his perceived attributes ought to be assets instead of liabilities, strength instead of weakness.
This is the kind of governor Delta state needs at this critical stage.
He is one candidate who is passionate about the industrialization of every community, which is the springboard of sustainable:
– economic emancipation of the people;
– provision of educational infrastructure;
– provision of health facilities;
-Youth empowerment and
– true freedom for the people.
Esteemed delegates, let us get it right for once and see if we can redeem ourselves and take the state to the level of prosperity we rightly deserve. We believe Gbagi is the man who can do it for us.
That is our honest verdict and we believe you will agree with us. Let us vote Gbagi during the primaries and move away from business as usual.
Thank you and God bless.
Pls, as usual, let us forward this to all delegates and other Deltans in our contact.
