The Igbo would often say, “Aku enwe ebe”—Wealth has no permanent abode. Like in the case wealth, political power and influence have no permanent home. Both phenomena belong to the category of achieved status. Among the Igbo, you don’t automatically become rich and politically powerful because your father was either a wealthy man or a notable politician.
Cosmologically you work your way through the instinctive force of your Ikenga—the Igbo goal-getter spirit defined in cosmological terms as the cult of the right hand.
This is the core-centre of Igbo individualism and the fundamental basis of Igbo achievement instinct which is contra to monarchical centralism or befuddling feudalism.
As Dr. Ezeife once narrated, after his Primary School education, his parents had no money to sponsor his further education in Secondary School. As it was and still normally the case among the Igbo, he was contracted as a motor spare parts apprentice trader in Aba, the current economic hub of Abia State.
As a young apprentice living with his master as it is normally the case, one of his principal duties was to carry the tool-box every morning to the shop. He was performing this obligation on daily basis with no obstruction until one day, when as he was lifting the tool-box to put on his head, it accidentally fell off his hand and crashed on the floor. Almost spontaneously, his master landed a deadly thunderous slap on his face sending multiple stars hovering over his cranium.
Almost spontaneously the young Ezeife vowed never to learn the trade again under the man and requested that he should be taken back home to his parents in his Igbo Ukwu village. His master seeing the uncontrollable rage in his young apprentice decided to do as requested and consequently sent him back to his hometown.
Back at home, after narrating his ordeal to his parents it was agreed that he should be sent back to his master probably with an unsolicited apology since such episode formed part of his enduring training as an apprentice. But to the young Ezeife it was a no-no option and he rather stayed back as a local farmer at home rather than go back to the man.
Just as his parents were contemplating the next action to take over their son’s future against the background of his unequivocal refusal to go back to his master at Aba, an opportunity immediately emerged in his small congregation of Salvation Army Church in his town. The Pastor of the Church announced one Sunday that the Church had a competitive scholarship scheme for the training of Primary School teachers for the Church’s schools.
The young Ezeife immediately signified his interest and accordingly applied. He was later successful in the subsequent competitive selection examination that took place at Nnewi and afterwards sent to the prestigious Hope Waddell Training Institute, Calabar where he trained as a Grade Three Teacher after three years. While engaged as a Primary School teacher he sat for his Cambridge O-Level Certificate and passed. He further took his A-Level and subsequently gained admission to study Economics at University of Ibadan.
Becoming a senior civil servant after his first degree, he decided to go further into the realm of education and subsequently travelled to the United States of America where he graduated in flying colors with a PhD in Economics at the prestigious Harvard University. Back at home, he rejoined the civil service, later rising to the exalted position of a Federal Permanent Secretary, from where he honorably retired to join politics, and subsequently becoming the first democratically elected Governor of the present Anambra State.
Indeed the uniqueness of Ezeife’s sublime simplicity blended in instinctive sincerity of purpose and puritanical patriotism is that, as a serving State Governor supervising the allocation of plots of land in the then new Awka Capital Territory, Dr. Ezeife never used his exalted office to acquire a single personal plot of land at Awka and its environs. It might surprise a lot of people that Dr. Ezeife has no personal house in Awka up till this moment and lodges in private hotels whenever he has a reason to sleep over at Awka.
This is a godly example of Igbo leadership founded on individual achievement instincts which further explains why Dr. Ezeife remains ever relevant in the affairs of, not only his Igbo Ukwu hometown, but his Anambra home-State, the Southeast geopolitical zone, and the entire Igbo nation.
He remains historically conscious of the foundation of growth in prominence, the experience of which he shrewdly applies in not only the pursuit of his political ambition, but in his dealings with his people and the wider Nigerian community.
Having experienced the indignation of a bullied motor spare parts apprentice and the hustling intrepidity of under-paid Primary School teacher before rising to political stardom, he nevertheless did not allow his resulting positive achievements in life to color his personality with the spirits of iniquitous arrogance and self-centeredness.
To this category of nouveau riche, money and political influence are the only reasons people follower them and for these reasons they believe that they must be followed at all costs without a modicum of any moral justification. This instance is what is described as the abuse and misapplication of the Ikenga instinct which oftentimes ends in calamitous consequences.
This principle of the instinctive cult of Ikenga is graphically described by the Nigerian literary icon Chinua Achebe in his iconic novel Things Fall Apart in his portrayal of the magnetic ascendency to political stardom of his main character Okonkwo:
Okonkwo was clearly cut out for great things. He was still young but he had won fame as the greatest wrestler in the nine villages. He was a wealthy farmer and had two barns full of yams, and had taken two titles and had just married his third wife. To crown it all he had taken two titles and had shown incredible prowess in two inter-tribal wars. And so although Okonkwo was still young, he was already one of the greatest men of his time. Age was respected among his people, but achievement was revered.
Describing Okonkwo’s humble foundation, Achebe further states:
…Okonkwo did not have the start of life which many young men had. He neither inherited a barn nor a title, nor even a wife. But in spite of these disadvantages, he had begun even in his father’s lifetime to lay the foundations of a prosperous future. It was slow and painful. But he threw himself into it like one possessed.
For those who have followed or are familiar with Senator Peter Nwoboshi’s phenomenal rise to political stardom, the above Achebe’s descriptions of Okonkwo of his Things Fall Apart clearly fit into the characteristic pattern of the former’s political ascendency. In order words, Senator Peter Nwoboshi metaphorically represents Okonkwo of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.
Similarly, as Achebe equally narrated how Okonkwo sought assistance from a wealthy farmer in his community named Nwakibie:
There was a wealthy man in Okonkwo’s village who had three huge barns, nine wives and thirty children. His name was Nwakibie and he had taken the highest but one title which a man could take in his clan. It was for this man that Okonkwo worked to earn his first seed yam.
Graphically interpreted in metaphorical terms, to those familiar with Peter Nwoboshi’s political ascendency, that wealthy farmer called Nwakibie here represents Obi (Senator) Nosike Ikpo who could in the allegorical fashion be described as a wealthy political farmer.
One major character that perfectly cut out Senator Peter Nwoboshi in the true image of Okonkwo of Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is his chronic syndrome of the fear of failure constructed on obtuse loquacity woven in boastful arrogance, provocative indifference to competition, and fatalistic value orientation, which often misjudges the basic principles of morality in political competition.
For such a person his relevance among his people only lasts so long as his political orientation fits into their immediate needs at a given moment. Beyond this level of circumstantial role-importance he paradoxically reverts to the status of an ordinary citizen with a largely ceremonial status.
And going further into the thematic depth of the novel one would agree that Senator Peter Nwoboshi appears to be playing out the Okonkwo character of Things Fall Apart. But whether Senator Peter Nwoboshi will eventually end up politically suicidal his vainglorious sojourn in APC as in the case of Okonkwo, remains not a matter of political conjecture but a matter of time.
There is no doubt that Senator Nwoboshi was a self-made man admirably positioned as a self-achiever role-model founded on the instinctive force of the Igbo cult of Ikenga. Similarly, in matters of principle his recent foray into the leprous political field of the ruling APC is not only suicidal in political orientation but smack of political harlotry embellished with acute political stupidity, lack of self-reflective historical consciousness and, a blurred vision of what he believes to be his celebrated political marksmanship.
Yes, as Achebe succinctly noted, Okonkwo was a very successful and influential man among his Umuofia people, a typical example of the Igbo man’s ability to wriggle out of poverty through the sheer effort of individualism.
Okonkwo had brought honor to his Umuofia town by throwing Amalinze the cat in what was described as the greatest wrestling contest ever since their forefather engaged the spirits in a similar battle. He was a renowned warrior with celebrated booty of human heads. He had taken the two major titles that elevated him to the status of an elder among his people.
His achieved status readily qualified him as a representative of his revered ancestors through the cult of Egwugwu (Masquerade), and further to the level of a diplomat and subsequent custodian of the resulting collective human-booty of the community named Ikemefuna.
Talking about wealth, he was self-sufficient; a status that afforded him the ability to acquire three wives. Okonkwo was indeed a man of the people among his Umuofia people, and seeing himself as such he recklessly felt his words were law among his people and his actions the acts of the gods. But both his people and the gods said no to Okonkwo.
Forgetting his humble beginnings, he became steeped in naked arrogance and deep-seethed in reckless disobedience to his people and to the ancestors of the land. Hence at every point of his iniquitous misdemeanor he was confronted which a chastisement that tended to remind that he was subject to the laws of the land and the collective will of the people and not the other way round. He was made to understand that he was never above his people and therefore cannot as one man among all the people decide their political future. This was the unresolved predicament Okonkwo ignominiously placed himself and, which consequently resulted to his tragic end.
When Okonkwo became deeply conceited with his attainments against the background of his humble beginning and referred to his compatriot Osugo as a woman, his people did not only waste time to caution him but as Achebe wrote, he was reminded that “those whose palm-kernels were cracked for them by a benevolent spirit should not forget to be humble.”
When Okonkwo felt that with his high level of influence among his people he could disobey the customs and tradition of his land with impunity by insanely assaulting Ojiugo— one of his wives during the annual week of peace, he was not spared either. The Ezeani made him to pay for the insolence against their ancestors.
When Okonkwo decided to personally kill the doomed child Ikemefuna kept in his custody by the town to prove his vainglorious gallantry against the wise counsel of Ezeudu—“That boy calls you father. Do not bear a hand in his death”; he paid for it in blood. For it was during the occasion of the burial of the same Ezeudu that Okonkwo accidentally killed the former’s son with his Dane-gun. And for killing an innocent citizen even his closest relations and allies did not spare him in their execution of the ultimate judgment.
Finally, when Okonkwo decided to behead the Whiteman’s Messenger against the will of his people, he was abandoned and left to face the consequences alone. Could it therefore be said that Senator Peter Nwoboshi’s sojourn in the widely discredited APC is likened to the beheading of the Whiteman’s Messenger?
What Senator Nwoboshi does not know is that people made him what he is today. People voted him in an election under the platform of a political party to become a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He forgot to understand one fundamental element of Nigeria’s election—people generally vote more for political parties than they vote for individual candidates. The people of Delta North Senatorial District did not vote for Senator Peter Nwoboshi as Mr. Peter Nwoboshi but as a candidate of a political party.
There is no gainsaying the fact that Senator Peter Nwoboshi as an individual cannot win the Council Chairmanship of his home-Local Government Area Oshimili North as an independent candidate. But as a member of a popular political party he could even win the Governorship of his home-State—Delta without even the support his home-base.
Believing therefore that his shameful decamping to the most discredited political party in Nigeria’s history—the APC, can swerve the political conscience of the most patriotic and independent-minded people in Nigeria—the West Niger Igbo, is an uncalculated political ruse, a charade of the most monstrous order and a calibrated act of crude political conspiracy founded on self-centeredness and supercilious self-importance.
If Senator Peter Nwoboshi believes that being a Senator by the grace of his people equates to political task-master among the people of Delta North, he should be made to understand that the people of Delta North are neither Imo and Ebonyi States nor Cross River State where chronic self-destructive political contractors masquerade as their State Governors and leaders. The conscience of the indomitable scions of the great Ekumeku uprising can neither be bought with illicit political money nor be slavishly sequestered by any intimidating political force.
The people of Delta North did not vote for APC and will never do so under any free and fair election. They voted for PDP first and foremost and not Peter Nwoboshi. The people of Delta North are neither fools nor stupid like the people of Ebonyi, Imo, and Cross River States where, amidst the obvious cases of deadly Fulani murderous onslaughts and forceful colonization of their ancestral land, their so-called State Governors decided to shamelessly submit to Fulani slavery and impudent islamization.
It is highly ridiculous that at a time when the Fulani-led Federal Government of Nigeria is openly backing their killer-squad Fulani kinsmen under the official names of bandits, herdsmen and kidnappers in their mission of bloodletting, a man of Senator Peter Onyelukachukwu Nwoboshi’s political orientation and sophisticated cultural background will be celebrating the heinous political crime of selling his people’s mandate entrusted to him to the same perpetrators of genocide among his people. This is a simple case of serving the people of Delta North clean water with a leprous hand.
It is an act of political timidity and sheer incivility to see Senator Peter Nwoboshi standing with the so to say President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as the climax of his ascendency to political stardom. May be he could have as well dug up the likes of Idi Amin Dada of Uganda and Muammar Gaddafi of Libya from their ignominious graves and stand with them as well as a way prove the ultimate crowning of his political goal, since shaking hands with anybody standing as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria makes him look like next to God.
It needs to be stated that Senator Peter Nwoboshi is the least of the lame-duck political show-men clothed in shameless cloaks of political Judas Iscariot who believe they can use their privileged political positions to act as malevolent vanguard of Fulani jihad among the intrepid sons and daughters of Delta North. Politically, Senator Peter Nwoboshi has never been a grassroots politician but has ridiculously manipulated himself through to positions of political importance through the framework of party structures from above.
At his hometown Ibusa it is obvious that Senator Peter Nwoboshi has dramatically been transformed to a political Amalinze the Cat by his erstwhile political points-man Mr. Innocent Esewezie—the current Executive Chairman of Oshimili North Local Government Area. The irony of the relationship between Senator Peter Nwoboshi and Hon. Innocent Esewezie is likened to that of a man who brought a baby lion into his household to help him in warding off other deadly wild animals but later turned against the man as soon as his claws became strong.
Some close associates were aware of the time Hon. Esewezie brought a giant bearded he-goat to solicit for Senator Peter Nwoboshi’s political god-sonship and immediately afterwards, Hon. Esewezie was elected as a Councillor in place of Peter Nwoboshi’s close kinsman Hon O-level Okonji. From being a Councillor Hon. Esewezie rose phenomenally to become the Caretaker Chairman of Oshimili North Local Government Council, before being formally elected as the current Chairman of the Local Government Council.
One might in moral terms tend to accuse Hon. Esewezie of stabbing his master on the back for not standing behind him in his inordinate ambitious quest for a three-term re-election into the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. But the point is placed on the relative political balance, as a Local Government Council Chairman elected on the platform of PDP, to whom does his primary allegiance go to: Senator Peter Nwoboshi or Governor Ifeanyi Okowa? Does Senator Peter Nwoboshi expect Hon. Innocent Esewezie as elected Chairman of Oshimili North Local Government Council to join him in his abysmal political hara-kiri melodrama?
Indeed, in principle going by the extant evidence from Senator Peter Nwoboshi’s political dictionary, political back-stabbing does not exist. This is because Senator Peter Nwoboshi himself grew in political circles by back-stabbing his close allies and political soul-mates. A few instances will suffice to reveal the depth of the characteristic quisling instinct of Senator Peter Nwoboshi which clearly invalidates his orchestrated political self-importance. At his home base the records speak volumes but only a few cases will be mentioned.
First was the case of Mr. Peter Okocha’s gubernatorial ambition which became for some appreciable periods a political gold-mine for Senator Peter Nwoboshi before he finally dumped him.
Second, The case of Hon. Dr. Mrs. Felicia Nweze, one of the finest members of Delta State House of Assembly ever to come from Ibusa, who was constantly ripped-off her resources by Senator Peter Nwoboshi then a serving State Commissioner under Governor James Ibori with the promise of supporting her second-term re-election bit, only to be jettisoned by Peter Nwoboshi, but later defeated Senator Nwoboshi’s candidate.
Third, there was the case of Chief Godwill Obielum, once the most popular politician in Delta State and possible successor to James Ibori. It is revealing to note that while working as the Director General of Obielum Gubernatorial Campaign Organization, unknown to Chief Godwill Obielum, Peter Nwoboshi was clandestinely working in concert with Governor James Ibori to install his cousin Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan as his successor, which eventually turned out to be, with Peter Nwoboshi being rewarded with the position of PDP State Chairman.
Fourth, the case of Dr. Mrs. Miriam Ahmadu Alli was quite a dramatic instance which led to public fisticuffs between the two— a clear case of public two-fighting between a man named Peter Nwoboshi and a woman named Miriam Ahmadu Alli. It is instructive to note that as the Delta State PDP Chairman Peter Nwoboshi gave his blessings to Mrs. Miriam Ahmadu Alli’s Senatorial ambition and was indeed campaigning for her. However, midway into the campaign for the Primaries, Peter Nwoboshi switched over his support for Mrs. Ahmadu Alli’s Senatorial bid to his Senatorial self-ambition and subsequently utilized the same network of supporters he constructed for Mrs. Ahmadu Alli as the State Party Chairman to clandestinely smuggle himself into becoming the PDP Senatorial candidate.
Fifth, it is further instructive to note that the present mouth-watering Senate Committee Chairmanship on Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) was handed to him by erstwhile Senate President Bukola Saraki against the opposition of the majority of Senators from the South-South Geopolitical zone. Surprisingly, the same Senator Peter Nwoboshi is not in speaking terms with Senator Saraki.
Sixthly, the cases of the revered Chief Edwin Clark and his close ally Chief Sobotei need not be expatiated here since they are readily in the public domain. In the case of Chief Edwin Clark it took a long-drawn multifaceted intervene by many notable Delta traditional rulers to who Senator Nwoboshi ran to for refuge before Chief Clark could acquiesce to fatherly forgiveness for an unrepentant political prodigal son.
The big question is what difference does it make in the chronic betrayal pattern of Senator Peter Nwoboshi’s political lifestyle if he decides to even cross over to a more Satanic-driven political party than APC? The point is that as the people say, the leopard can never change his spots much as one cannot tame the lion from eating its habitual fresh meat.
Indeed Senator Peter Nwoboshi shouldn’t have done better in moral terms even if he had not publicly joined the murderous APC, because right from the emergence of the present Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria his spiritual vibration has always been there.
This explains why when the DSS consulted him over the consequences of eliminating the present writer Dr. Nwankwo Tony Nwaezeigwe, he simply told them that nothing will happen because he is an insignificant element in the town.
But Senator Peter Nwoboshi does not understand is that just as the leopard can be skinned to remove its spots, the lion can as well be caged from eating undeserved fresh meat. Senator Peter Nwoboshi knows exceedingly well that crossing over to APC in the wake of the party’s prevailing leprous stigma simply spells his political doom within the political perimeter of his home base.
To begin with his immediate Isieke village which is within his Umuekea Quarters of Ibusa, the presence of the characteristically humble Onowu Anene Chigbue will definitely check-mate him, just in the same manner it happened to him during Hon. Felicia Nweze’s election day. Within the Umuekea wider Quarters, the combined forces of Anene Chigbue and his erstwhile political hatchet-man Hon. Innocent Esewezie will in like manner pull him down on his knees.
Going further to the Otu Iyase sub-clan, not only will the Hon. Felicia Nweze factor be strongly re-played out, the current State Secretary to Delta State Government Mr. Ukah from the neighboring town of Okpanam who has a strong maternal relation with Ogbeowele Quarters will suffice to neutralize every bit of Senator Nwoboshi’s influence there. Moreover the fluidity of the strong sentimental attachment between Ibusa and Okpanam does not permit sectional politics among the two communities.
On the Otu Odogwu sub-clan front, even with the presence of Chief Austin Izagbo at Umueze Quarters and Hon. Austin Nnabuife at Ezukwu Quarters on the side of Senator Peter Nwoboshi, the appointment of Hon. Uche Ofuonyewadi and Mr. Nnaji Adigwe respectively from the two Quarters as Political Assistants to the State Governor will present the required forces to counter whatever influence Senator Peter Nwoboshi might have exerted among the population of ardent PDP supporters.
The Otu Uwolo sub-clan is indeed a no-go area for Senator Peter Nwoboshi with the presence of such political big-wigs as Mr. Peter Okocha, Dr. Augustine Obidi, and the double force of Chief Fred Ajudua and his wife who currently represents the people at the State House of Assembly.
All these people have been resistant to Senator Peter Nwoboshi’s misuse of every political opportunity given to him for his exclusive personal ends. Indeed to these people and the great part of Delta North Senatorial District, Peter Nwoboshi’s exit from PDP was a good riddance, an act they see as the right opportunity to confront him frontally on the battlefield.
In summary, within the contextual definition Senator Peter Nwoboshi’s political influence within his immediate community, he stands on a shifting-sand of political deceit and wobbling image of a General without troops.
And one could readily observe this through the hordes of inconsequential political peasants that thronged his so-called reception after his pre-arranged discharge from financial fraud prosecution. The question is how many notable PDP members within and outside his Ibusa hometown actually graced the said reception in his Ibusa country-home?
Elsewhere in Delta North, Senator Peter Nwoboshi’s exit from PDP was celebrated with great fanfare and so there is no question of arguing over his political debility outside his home base of Ibusa. The other communities representing the second half of the his Local Government Area have the Secretary to the Delta Sate Government and so there is no gainsaying the fact that Senator Peter Nwoboshi’s political influence among these people is buried for the better.
Similarly notable people from Oshimili South Local Government Area led by the likes of Dr. Mrs. Mariam Ahmadu Alli—Kpakpando Ahaba and the indomitable Adaora Ahaba Mrs. Theodora Giwa-Amu are poised to extract their political pound of flesh from Senator Peter Nwoboshi and so the Local Government is already a defined political grave-yard for Senator Peter Nwoboshi.
In Aniocha South Local Government Area consisting of the three Clans of Ogwashi, Ubulu and, Nsukwa, it will be incomprehensible to see such notable PDP gladiators as Hon. Pascal Adigwe of Nwaoranine fame, the Ejiofors and Ofuanis, among others condescend so low as to dance to the political hara-kiri dance of Senator Peter Nwoboshi by joining the blood-stained APC.
In the same vein, the Aniocha North Local Government Area political battle sector with its diverse community of three Clans of Ezechime, Odiani, and Idumuje, cannot similarly choose to become the slaves of the murderous Fulani oligarchy under the political cacophony of Senator Peter Nwoboshi.
Needless to state that the Ika Federal Constituency consisting the two Local Government Areas of Ika Northeast and Ika South, being the home-base of the State Governor Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa is perpetually closed to Senator Peter Nwoboshi’s political permutations.
Similarly the Ndokwa Federal constituency consisting the three Local Government Areas of Ndokwa East, Ndokwa West, and Ukwuani cannot in like manner choose to be propelled by the servile and self-centered political tendencies of Senator Peter Nwoboshi. It is obvious from the Heavens that the living Spirit and body of Chief Godwill Obielum will not permit the politically conscious people of Ndokwaland to embark on the heinous promenade to the political land of Egypt miscalled APC with a Senator Judas-Iscariiot Peter Nwoboshi.
It is instructive to note that the so-called bill trending at the Senate for the establishment of a Federal University of Agriculture at Aboh is a political ruse, a scam of the highest order manipulated by both Senator Omo-Agege and Senator Peter Nwoboshi to clandestinely swerve the spirited political conscience of the people of Ndokwaland into an unholy political concubinage with the Fulani-run APC.
The critical questions are, first does a legislative bill have to be introduced before a Federal University is established? Second, did the last five new Federal Universities announced by the Federal Government pass through the National Assembly by the act of legislative bills?
Thirdly, at what point in time did Governor Okowa introduce the bill for the establishment of the three new Delta State Universities at Agbor, Asaba, and Ozoro to the Delta State House of Assembly? Was it before or after the announcement of the establishment of the new universities?
Senator Omo-Agege knows in his wildest imagination that Senator Peter Nwoboshi will not win a third term re-election bid to the Senate under the prevailing political circumstances. But to him Senator Peter Nwoboshi needed to be sacrificed for his Governorship ambition in order to enable him to politically sequester Ndokwa from the rest Delta North. Hence the twin-deception of a spurious Federal University of Agriculture at Aboh and the clandestine campaign of being an Ndokwa man the Urhobo town of Orogun in Ugheli North Local Government Area because of the bilingual identity of his Orogun hometown.
But the people of Ndokwaland are too politically matured to degenerate into the ominous status of political pawn through the devious manipulation of infantile ethnic identity. Orogun is in Urhoboland and so remains by every ethnographic definition part and parcel of Urhobo ethnic nation. Even in their oral historical tradition the people have always denied their Igbo root.
The above graphic portrayal of Senator Peter Nwoboshi’s political concavity clearly explains his restive political declivity into the political abyss of a leprous APC as soon as he heard the first shot of Governor Okowa’s ambition to go back to the Senate. As a political oracle which he claims to be, he could have at best for the honor and integrity of those who elected into the Senate consulted humbly with Governor Ifeanyi Okowa and other political stakeholders in Delta North for a possible soft-landing political pad. But because he believes that our people have no sense of political commission he instead chose the path of sheepish confrontation with the Governor, seeking in the process to sacrifice the political future of his people for a mess of selfish political portage.
As a Commissioner under Governor James Ibori, Dr. Okowa proved to his Ika immediate constituency that his primary objective of being in politics is the protection of the collective interest of his Ika people like most sensible and foresighted political leaders. He lined up behind him a throng of trusted and well empowered sub-political gladiators who are ready and willing to defend his political cause any moment the need arises. He continued on this wise political thoroughfare even as a Senator and as a State Governor he went further to expand his political tentacles by cross-cutting political empowerments across ethnic board. Can Senator Peter Nwoboshi match such a man on any form of political play-ground whether rough or smooth?
On the other hand, for Senator Peter Nwoboshi his sole mission of going into politics is anchored on distasteful primitive accumulation to the exclusion of those around him. To him the sense of empowering trusted supporters of higher class is fundamentally seen as a threat to his political future and as such an unacceptable political paradigm to him. This explains why he chooses to surround himself with incendiary political morons with no sense of political advancement beyond the Local Government level as well as intellectual lilliputs whose sole objective of being around him is anchored on “Our Lord’s Prayer—Give us this day our daily bread.” One can noticeably see this even among his close relations bearing the same name and the throng of ravenous political scavengers masquerading as his followers.
There is no doubting the fact that Senate Peter Nwoboshi is not politically intelligent, otherwise he would not have demonstrated the vile carriage of a political dummy being used to achieve another man’s desired political objectives. Immediately after his acquittal from fraud charges by the High Court it was crystal clear by the manner of his spontaneous attack on his State Governor and the subsequent inglorious decamping to APC within a time space of 72 hours, that his acquittal was politically motivated, possibly part of the understanding that he should decamp to APC once he is freed from the legal battle.
A reliable source has also emphatically asserted that through the secret prompting of the Deputy Senate President Senator Omo-Agege, who was eager to have Senator Peter Nwoboshi in his gubernatorial campaign kitty possible as his Deputy Governorship aspirant, he was given the option of joining the APC or be removed as the Chairman of the lucrative Senate Committee on Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), since according to the Senate President he cannot be occupying such a sensitive position while being a member of the opposition.
It is ridiculous that Senator Peter Nwoboshi should be comparing Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan to Governor Ifeanyi Okowa in performance. Has Senator Nwoboshi forgotten that it was the same Governor Uduaghan that even as the State PDP Chairman alienated him from his Government, and in order to salvage him from political decapitation in his Local Government Area, the present writer Dr. Nwankwo Tony Nwaezeigwe was recruited as the spokesman for Oshimili North Local Government PDP Stakeholders to challenge the State Governor for that reason?
Has Senator Nwoboshi forgotten that during the said speech delivered at the Government House, Asaba before the Governor, the present writer frontally accused the Governor of a possible secret love affair with Hon. Mrs. Pat Ajudua for which reason the Governor spontaneously shifted from his seat and in denying the accusation ordered the present writer to destroy the speech? Was Senator Peter Nwoboshi speaking about the same or another Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan?
Has Senator Peter Nwoboshi forgotten how as the State Commissioner of Agriculture and natural resources Governor James Ibori divested him of the lucrative aspects of his Ministry by transferring the multi-million naira Songhai Agricultural Project to the Office of the Secretary to the State Government under his cousin Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan?
Has Senator Peter Nwoboshi forgotten how Governor Ibori treated him with political disdain by appointing him to the austere and non-existent Commissioner of Delta State Abuja Liaison Office? It is indeed quite interesting to see the same Nwoboshi masquerading as the champion of Urhobo political cause.
Has Senator Peter Nwoboshi forgotten so soon how the same Governor James Ibori clandestinely worked with Chief Fred Ajudua and other members of his Cabinet to undermine him politically in Ibusa and for which reason the present writer Dr. Nwankwo Tony Nwaezeigwe was drafted from Lagos where he was serving under Chief Frank Ovie-Kokori of NUPENG to save him from obvious political waterloo and, which he did most diligently?
Was he not the major neutralizing force against Chief Fred Ajudua and his hordes of Onu-Anioma supporters for which reason he subsequently became a close friend of Chief Fred Ajudua?
Has Senator Peter Nwoboshi forgotten as a State Commissioner the memorable battle between his entourage of which the present writer was a part and Fred Ajudua-led Onu-Anioma supporters right at his Isieke ancestral village square, during which all his supporters and so-called thugs ran away and abandoned him and it was only the present writer Dr. Nwankwo Tony Nwaezeigwe and his Police Orderly from Middle Belt that stood still to protect him and eventually shoved him off safely to his residence? Has the same Dr. Nwankwo Tony Nwaezeigwe not turned a villain before the same Senator Peter Nwoboshi for the same sake of selfless struggles against calculated injustice? This is the irony of dealing with a Senator Peter Nwoboshi of which Nwankwo Nwaezeigwe’s experience is not an isolated instance.
One has thought that as a man with first degree training in history before foraying into law that Senator Peter Nwoboshi should be most conscious of his past and be properly guided by extant moral laws. At any rate, the good people of Ibusa and Oshimili Local Government Area including the wider Delta State are glad to miss Senator Peter Nwoboshi.