Nigeria Content Online

The crisis rocking
the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Edo State chapter, reared its ugly
head again yesterday, as Ehigie Uzamere (senator, Edo South) hit back
at Owere-Dickson Imasogie, the Edo South PDP leader (Tony Anenih’s
faction), who had earlier berated Mr Uzamere for his role in the
clearance of the Edo State representative on the Niger Delta
Development Commission (NDDC) board.

Mr Uzamere had
aided the hitch-free clearance at the Senate, of Don Omorodion, an
Action Congress candidate, for the NDDC job. This, however, did not go
down well with Mr Imasogie who, in an interview granted to a
Benin-based weekly magazine, said, “Uzamere must explain” his apparent
romance with an opposition party’s candidate.

But Osaretin
Enogieru, an aide of the senator, said in a press statement issued
yesterday that it is curious that Mr Imasogie did not complain when Mr
Anenih nominated three commissioners into Adams Oshiomhole’s cabinet.

The statement also
made reference to Mr Anenih’s call to the other two senators from Edo
State to support the nomination of Jude Ise Idehen, also of the Action
Congress, by the presidency for the NDDC job, which Mr Imasogie never
complained about.

“If you castigate
the senator for clearing Mr Omorodion, an AC candidate, what will you
do to Mr President who is the party’s number one leader?” Mr Enogieru
said.

He further stated
that Mr Omorodion, who was nominated by Goodluck Jonathan, has no
established or proven legal or constitutional impediment to warrant his
rejection, as was the case with the first nominee (Jude Ise Idehen).

Diabolical wickedness

“It would have
amounted to diabolical wickedness on the part of the senator to lobby
for Omorodion’s reject without a good cause,” Mr Enogieru said.
“Senator Uzamere had a duty to honour and respect the wishes of senior
citizens of Edo South who symbolize the sociopolitical and cultural
conscience of Benin Kingdom and who wanted Omorodion cleared, and to
Edo State which was losing out in the affairs of the NDDC during the
period because the state had no representative on the board and a Delta
State representative was overseeing Edo.

“The electorate and the people of Edo South remain the centrepiece
of Senator Ehigie Uzamere’s sociopolitical policy, as his mandate is a
cross-partisan mandate freely given by indigenes and residents of Edo
South, irrespective political bias, religious affiliation and sex. His
responsibility, therefore, is to all without let or hindrance.”