[dropcap]A[/dropcap] coalition of members of All Progressive Congress, APC, Delta State chapter have accused Chief Great Ovedje Ogboru, the Party’s Governorship candidate of stealing the sum of N3billion, meant for the 2019 campaign, sabotaging the party’s chances at the elections.

The group is calling on President Mohammadu Buhari and Chairman of APC,Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, to immediately commence investigation on Chief Ogboru and how he spent N3billion meant for elections.

We call on the National Leader of the Party, His Excellency, President
Muhammadu Buhari and our National Working Committee led by Comr. Adams Oshiomhole to immediately set inquiry for Chief Great Ovedje Ogboru to explain the whereabouts of the huge Financial Provisions for the entire 2019 General Elections, the groups said in a press conference.

“It is of public knowledge that Great Ogboru presented a budget of over THREE BILLION NAIRA, which budget was over funded and availed to him. There was no evidence anywhere that he spent N1 billion for the elections.
He refused to properly disburse and chose to release paltry amounts only to his few chosen supporters. Even for his LGA rallies, he never released one Kobo, instead he directed that local leaders and supporters’ task themselves to fund such rallies, and because most leaders couldn’t raise such funds, a lot of LGA rallies were either abandoned or turn out to be huge flops! We also have it on good authority that commissioner positions were sold N50 million each in advance to raise funds that were diverted from the campaigns!”

“APC, as a Mega Political Party, cannot be brought to the low level of mushroom political parties where Ogboru has been practicing his hit-and-run politics of election racketeering and getting away with the dubious acts. Ogboru should be probed!

The groups said Ogboru did more to divide the party in that state than unite it.

The Text at the Press Conference reads:

Chief Ogboru acted like a man determined to fail at all costs by ignoring
and refusing to carry along even the old APC members who joined him with
Prophet Jones Erue. He stubbornly chose to work only with the few Labour
Party people who he came into the APC with. Even at that, he couldn’t
manage things properly within his inner circle as there were open
hostilities and in fighting between his core people and those of Sen. Ovie
Omo-Agege on one hand, and former Gov. Emmanuel Uduaghan’s people on the
other hand.

Stressing further : It is with an air of the mixed feelings of both Joy of
APC’s Victory in the Presidential Election and Sadness of the Party’s
Failure at the Gubernatorial Poll in Delta State, that we, the Coalition
of Delta APC Support Groups, address you today in this post-election
briefing, after our crucial urgent meeting held in Asaba, to clinically
and critically appraise the just-concluded General Elections.

First and foremost, we whole-heartedly Congratulate our beloved President,
His Excellency, General Muhammadu Buhari, the President of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria, his vice, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, the All
Progressives Congress, APC Family across Nigeria, and, indeed, Nigerians
on the well-deserved victory at the Presidential elections.

We are, indeed, saddened by the unfortunate loss of the gubernatorial
election in Delta State, where Chief Great Ovedje Ogboru was the Party’s
(APC) Candidate to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in the most
traumatizing and shameful manner despite the enormous support and
opportunities provided by the National Leadership of the Party.

We were not surprised at the outcome of the Saturday gubernatorial
election in Delta State, as the stage for failure has since last year been
set when Chief Great Ogboru who just joined the party took the destructive
decision to hijack the party in display of desperation! Unfortunately,
working with Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, they were able to hoodwink and secure
the undeserved backing of our National Chairman Comr. Adams Oshiomhole and
the National Working Committee of the Party.

It was disheartening to see that after they achieved their objectives
which ended up factionizing the party, they made no efforts to unite the
party by stooping to conquer. And worst still, inspite of commendable
efforts by the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo to unite the party in
the State ahead of the elections, Chief Ogboru still didn’t seize the
opportunity to reach out to the Ogodo/Emerhor side to procure peace and
unity. Even worse, he also either pushed aside or completely ignored other
key stakeholders particularly in the Delta North like Engr. Hyacinth
Enuha, Rt. Hon. Engr. Victor Ochei, Professor Pat Utomi, Mrs Marian Ali,
Dr. Cairo Ojuogo and others thereby unwittingly conceding the whole of
Delta North District to Okowa right from the get go!. In the South
District, Ogboru neither cultivated in key person nor did he have any
persons, nor plans in place to win, while at home in his Delta Central
District, he naively believed he would win 100% without making any efforts
to unite the party in Central for such task.

While the PDP was busy going round the nooks and crannies of the State
with an aggressive campaign, Chief Ogboru refused to embark on intensive
grassroots campaigns round the State to market his manifesto to the people
simply because of his total dependence on a so-called Federal might, which
made him to also ignore every other critical stakeholders and groups, even
including Buhari Support Groups in the State. He had not a single bill
board or posters particularly in Delta north and South of the State. He
only held rallies, sometimes, combining 3 LGAs in one location, and then
naively went away believing he has campaigned in those two Senatorial
zones!

It is pertinent to note that the National Working Committee’s recognition
of the Jones Exco was nothing but handing over the Party’s Gubernatorial
Ticket to the electoral merchant, Chief Great Ovedje Ogboru – a Man with
no electoral value who was over-sold himself to our National Chairman Comr
Oshiomhole! His destructive deception then left the Delta APC comatose
with the attendant implications which is the woeful failure that the Party
suffered in the hands of the PDP at the Saturday March 9 elections.

While we are not ignorant of the fact that a winner must emerge in every
contest, the loss of APC in the Delta 2019 gubernatorial election becomes
more painful to us when we realize the enormous opportunities available to
the APC to win the election but which were misappropriated by Chief Great
Ovedje Ogboru who has proven himself as a man without a strong political
structure that has been responsible for his failures in the previous 5
consecutive governorship elections he participated in since 2003 to 2015
before crossing over to APC.

For the first time for Delta APC, we had the massive power of the federal
government at the centre behind us, our National leadership stood firmly
for us providing enormous support in resources and otherwise. The masses
of Delta State were ready to effect a change in Delta. But what we clearly
did not have was a focused and determined Governorship candidate to
translate the opportunity to victory! In fact, we consider it a notorious
fraud for Great Ogboru to waste the 2019 APC Gubernatorial Ticket in such
questionable and shameful circumstances where the Party won a paltry 2
Local Government Areas out of 25 with an alarming figures of 215,938
against PDP’s 925,274.

Finally, we reiterate our demand that the National Working Committee (NWC)
of our great party to set up a panel of enquiry to immediately review the
outcome of the Delta APC overall performance in the just concluded
election: The funds received by the campaign council, the disbursement of
funds and those who received the funds at various Local Government Areas
in the State and to review the results from each polling units across the
State as it was noticed that most leaders played anti party at various
levels in the State. We demand for ‘Operation Show your ward results from
every leader in Delta APC’ irrespective of who they are or the positions
they hold. We understand that Chief Ogboru and a number of his supporters
who could not even win their polling units, not to talk of wards, have all
concluded arrangements to beseech Abuja and again lie and hoodwink our
National Chairman and other National leaders in a bid to secure juicy
federal political appointments!

We must separate the Sheep’s from the Goat’s in Delta APC and only empower
performing leaders in order to so have a formidable and strong party in
our State going forward.

The Statement was signed by Prince Daniel Ekiugbo, Convener, Coalition of
Delta APC Support Groups.

Culled from pointblanknews.com

[dropcap]A[/dropcap] legal practitioner, Robert Clarke, SAN, on Sunday said the votes President Muhammadu Buhari got from the northern part of the country cannot be challenged in court. He stated this on Sunday while appearing on Channels Television’s Politics Today.

According to him, Buhari enjoyed the goodwill from the northern people because of what he described as the ‘President’s track records’.

“Look at the presidential election, nobody can challenge the number of people who voted for President Buhari in the north because there is a track record.

“In 2003, Buhari beat any other candidate in the north, in 2007 he beat any other candidate in the north, in 2011 he beat any other candidate in the north, (same in) 2015. So in 2019, if you look at his performance when you look at his performance, there is a footprint.” He stated.

His comments come two weeks after the People Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, inaugurated his legal team to challenge the result of the just concluded presidential election.

Prior to the setting up of the team headed by a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Dr Livy Uzoukwu, Atiku had rejected the result, alleging several malpractices including the use of the military to perfect voters’ intimidation and suppression in PDP strongholds.

He had also accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) of conniving with INEC officials and security agents to fabricate “bogus figures and outright falsification of the returns from the polling units”.

The PDP candidate, thereafter, said he would use all available legitimate means to challenge the result of the election.

But Clarke stressed that he would have advised Atiku against challenging the result if he was his (Atiku’s) lawyer.

According to him, an aggrieved loser at an election should show that the election was riddled with malpractice before succeeding at the tribunal.

“Let’s be honest. The criteria for challenging an election is three-fold. When you go to an election petition, you must first of all show that the election was riddled with malpractice.

“After bringing out the malpractice, you must show that those malpractices affected the result declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

“If I were Atiku’s lawyer, I would have told him that it not easy to challenge an election that has given someone four million votes because when we look at the five states of the southeast, the totality of all the states is not up to half, two million votes of what Buhari (got) not to talk of four million,” he stated.

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he suspended Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen, was absent at today’s Code of Conduct Tribunal hearing on medical grounds. Onnoghen, however, wrote the tribunal, informing it that he had a toothache and could not attend the hearing due to a medical appointment he had with his doctors.

Naija News recalls that the tribunal had ordered a daily hearing of the matter on Monday, after reserving ruling in an application challenging its jurisdiction.

Reading through the letter, the lead prosecution lawyer, Aliu Umar, said he would concede to the report that the defendant had a medical challenge. According to Mr Aliu, the content of the medical letter showed that Mr Onnoghen was also battling a high blood pressure and that the CJN was ordered to remain on bed rest for the next 72 hours.

A three-member panel of the tribunal led by Danladi Umar, therefore, adjourned the matter till March 15, following a request for an adjournment by the prosecution.

“In view of the medical report presented by the defendant and the fact that the request was conceded by the prosecution, the tribunal hereby adjourns matter till Friday, March 15 as requested by the prosecution,” said Mr Umar.

Mr Onnoghen is facing trial on alleged false asset charge.

[dropcap]G[/dropcap]ov. Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta on Monday celebrated his re-election in Saturday’s governorship poll at Government House Chapel, Asaba, saying he had trusted in God for the victory. INEC had declared Okowa, the Governorship Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), winner in the March 9 election, having polled 925, 274 votes to defeat Chief Great Ogboru of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who scored 215,938 votes.

Okowa thanked God for the victory and appreciated party chieftains and Deltans generally for their support that ensured the victory. He said that the election came with all manner of challenges, causing the party members to become worried, but they refused to be discouraged.

According to the governor, the victory is for all Deltans and not that of Okowa.

“At the final announcement of the governorship election results, we won convincingly in 23 out of 25 local government areas, but lost marginally in two Local Government Areas. “I trusted in the Lord and those who led the campaign also trusted in the Lord.

“I thank the leaders of the party for not just delivering me and my deputy, Kingsley Otuaro, but also two of our senators, nine members of house of representative and 26 members of house of assembly.

“Most especially. I want to appreciate my leader, former governor, Chief James Ibori.”

The governor said that the opposition had plotted to disrupt the governorship election in the state, but God averted their plans. “But I want to publicly appreciate INEC and the security agents for being very fair and firm, and for standing for free and fair elections in the state.

In a sermon titled “The Triumph of God” taken from Psalm 2 verses 1-4, Venerable Charles Oseme enjoined everyone to trust in the Lord for a sure victory.

The Government House in Asaba witnessed huge crowd immediately the final result of the election was announced.

Among those that graced the thanksgiving celebration were former Gov. James Ibori; Sen. James Manager; Sen. Peter Nwaoboshi; State PDP Chairman, Mr Kingsley Esiso; party faithful, and civil servants.