SENATOR ( DR) IFEANYI OKOWA'S VOLT FACE ON ZONING WHICH HE ANCHORED HIS 2019 ELECTION CAMPAIGN MESSAGE ON, IS SHOCKING BUT NOT SURPRISING .

"A man's mien often times signpost the content of his character".... Yugbovwre.

Senator (Dr) Okowa, physiologically and psychologically is an embodiment and exemplification of all things vile, such as deception, treachery, cruelty, backstabbing and divisiveness.

Here is a man who snivelled and cringed from one political personality to another, from one group to another and from one community to another community with a mendacious sing song; rotation of the governorship amongst the senatorial districts will engender togetherness and even growth for our multi-ethnic Delta State.

A message which evidently really resonated with many political gladiators, especially of the PDP clan which instituted the zoning template. 

Dr Okowa, riding on the crest of that singular mantra presumably earned the votes of the electorate across ethnic divides and Senatorial Districts.

Strangely but not surprisingly unexpected, just 6 years into his governance of the state, Dr Okowa dubiously assembled his "kinsmen" in a town hall gathering where he not only repudiated the extant zoning template of PDP on the governorship of Delta state along Senatorial Districts, he equally served his people, a political homily- the governorship of the state must not be ceded to haters of Asaba; the state capital.

Dilatory as Okowa's message may appear, let's us attempt an extrapolation of its worth, by  applying this metric to evaluate the love Okowa has evinced for Asaba vis-a-vis, the records of his predecessors to unravel the true intent of that inciting odious vomit from a sitting governor.

Implicit in that uncouth verbiage is an attack on his two predecessors; one of whom is from Delta Central and the other from Delta South.

Even though this writer is not an avowed fan of James Ibori nor Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan for the sole reason that they failed abysmally to apply the resources of the state equitably and judiciously to galvanize  growth of the state close to the enviable status of Lagos state by all parameters and modern indices of technological, infrastructural and human capacity developmental growth, Okowa has without any scintilla of doubt faired worse off than his two previous predecessors.

Yes, persons who posited that Okowa was not good enough as a governorship material for the state are indeed vindicated, but it shouldn't be justification for them to scoff at the many persons from their Communities who wagered on the integrity of the governor during his deceitful political  stomps.  

More so, these exposé and unmasking of the true persona of Dr Okowa is a special moment to recognize the frailty of human intelligence and be more empathic with those who blundered in deciphering the minds construction from the visage of Dr Ifeanyi Okowa

This surmise calls for a juxtaposition of each of the legacies the past and present governors of Delta state, beginning from the state capital Asaba, in order for the readers to make informed judgements.

While Ibori was in the saddle in 1999, some legislators who felt Asaba was too far from the people they were representing because of the cost and distance they encountered coming to Asaba in comparison to the cost of doing business in Benin which they were used to before the creation of Delta State, moved to lay before the legislature a Bill to ease the burden of their constituents so far flung from the state headquarters entitled; "Decentralization of Administration Bill modeled after the South Africa template. The Bill sponsored by the honourable member representing Uvwie Constituency who was of the opposition party (APP) in parliament was shot down not because of its assumed demerits but because James Ibori was opposed to the contents of the Bill because he didn't see the burden of coming far to do administrative and legislative business in Asaba as enough justification to decentralize administration of the state -- this for convoluted minds  ldoes not symbolize that James Ibori loved Asaba.

Again on the infrastructural front, at the end of Ibori's tenure the only single road he met in Asaba in 1999, he multiplied  from one to several new roads. Furthermore, it is on record that James Ibori built a new Secretariat and Government House. A branch of the Central Bank was attracted to Asaba at a cost borne by the Delta state government, all because the governor, James Ibori was committed to giving Asaba a facelift.

James Ibori's immediate successor; Emmanuel Uduaghan continued in the track of Ibori and before Uduaghan left office, Asaba became the Las Vegas of Nigeria where actors streamed in to shoot their films. Yet Okowa is blinded to these transformative trajectories of his predecessors. A carpetbagger would spin everything upside down to promote personal and skewed ethnic interest.

However, let's concede that Okowa would have best the lot of his predecessors, had it been he was opportune to have governed the state earlier. Such an assumption is nothing but a blatant hogwash bandied about by febrile minds and proponents of ethnic jingoism, because for six years, Dr Okowa has been incompetent gently sitted in the saddle of leadership, yet, he has not moved the fortunes of Delta state beyond the pedestrian infrastructure of his predecessors in Asaba. 

But in contrast to the mundane attention he gives to Asaba, his Ika territories are getting more attention than the state capital, So, between him and his predecessors who is more culpable of clannishness and parochial bigotry? 

Dear reader kindly make your unbiased judgments and thereinb in no doubt that Okowa is pathologically divisive, a backstabber and a bigoted ethnic irredentists.

May I crave your indulgence to allow me  refresh your minds with the under listed facts....

Immediately on ascending office as the Governor of the state, Dr Ifeanyi Okowa embarked on a deviously orchestrated subterfuge of disrupting the age long tradition of Ika people, who all acknowledged the Dein of Agbor as the most revered and senior monarch in Ika nation, covertly, Okowa has elevated the lowly monarch of his Owa kingdom far above the Dein of Agbor. This he accomplished by pushing the Efiezomo  of Owa Oyibu as the Chairman, Delta State Council of Traditional Rulers. As  putrid as that desecration of history and tradition is to all versed in the culture of  Ika, Okowa still shamelessly prance and strut about as a man of conscience. Perhaps he is in a world of alternate reality.

What Okowa is spewing will only surprise few who are not aware of his public life. Even as Local Government Council Chairman in Ika during the military transition period, he was accused of heinous misdeeds and for which he was suspended and eventually incarcerated while his Vice Chairman took over.

So also for his notoriety and trail of scandal as a Commissioner under James Ibori, Secretary, and now Governor.

History might repeat itself paving the way for Kingsley Otuaro to take over the reigns of office, for as it happened to him whilst serving as Council Chairman over the current cum past litanies of  malfeasance.

Nobody who has integrity ingrained in him will listen to a person of infamy as Okowa because, he fortuitously found himself as a Governor of Delta State. 

A word is enough for the wise. Let Okowa continue his macabre dance of shame, let him continue to stoke the embers of ethnic strife, the ensuing flames will certainly cook his goose.

Kenneth Yugbovwre Mph,

Conflict Resolution,

Trinity College,

Dublin- Ireland