UIO Replies Omo-Agege, Says Urhobo Stands with Okowa's Govt

A socio-political group in Delta State, the Urhobo Integrity Organisation (UIO), has described the reported call by Senator Ovie Omo-Agege for Urhobo people to quit the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as misguided and politically myopic.

 

The group's National Secretary, Mr Jerry Eruvbedede, explained that the call by the Labour Party (LP) senator representing Delta Central, abandoning the PDP for the All Progressives Congress (APC) would only amount to going "into political wilderness in the state."

 

Notably, he said it was "counterproductive" and "politically suicidal for the largest ethnic group in the state to give in to what he termed ‘political opportunism’ which the senator is evidently advocating.

 

Chatting with journalists in Ughelli, Eruvbedede said Omo-Agege was "clearly indicating his readiness to embrace political opportunism, dump the L P under whose platform he contested and jump ship into the APC."

 

According to him, "Joining APC will be counterproductive as such a move would only have the effect of consigning Urhobo to opposition status in a state in which they are the majority ethnic nationality."

 

To heed the misleading advice by Omo-Agege would mean succumbing to his "attempt to entice the Urhobo people to embark on political self-castration", stressing that as the ruling party in Delta State, it was erroneous describe the PDP as an opposition party.

 

"With PDP as the ruling party in Delta State, it is those in APC and of course Omo-Agege’s present Labour Party that are in the opposition", Eruvbedede noted.

 

Urhobos are already committed to the party in power in their home state and could therefore not be regarded as being in the opposition, he said. "Omo-Agege is actually asking the Urhobos to abandon their present ruling party status and wallow in the opposition and certainly not the other way round."

 

The newly inaugurated senator was clearly exhibiting self-centeredness by "trying to lure Urhobos into committing political suicide in their own state, in the hope that this will suddenly make him a darling of Mr President and the APC national leadership he is already groveling before, even when he is yet to formally decamp to the party."

 

The Urhobo Integrity Organisation further claimed, "Omo-Agege is vainly trying to hoodwink the highly cerebral people of Urhobo-land into falling for the hogwash that being in the ruling party in their state instead of the ruling party in Abuja now amounts to being in opposition.

 

"What will Urhobos gain by abandoning the PDP which Okowa-led government in has given more political appointments to Urhobos and is presently executing mega projects in Delta Central senatorial district?”