THE ARENA: Now that Sheriff has been Screened and Duly Cleared…

The Movement for Stronger Delta, MSD have been reading with growing disgust and revulsion, the unprovoked, unmitigated, and uncensored attacks on Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori, Speaker, Delta State House of Assembly, Deputy Chairman, Conference of Nigerian Speakers, and the leading PDP Delta State Governorship aspirant, since it became obvious that he is the man to beat in PDP.

This calculated spate of attacks targeted at him, in the run-up to the Party’s Gubernatorial Primary, was anchored on a bogus report based on the dubious investigation of two, out of about eleven aspirants, with the unequivocal instruction to excavate any ‘dirt’ on the person of Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori and the documents he submitted to the Screening Committee, with the obvious intent to deploy such information with a dark, acrimonious and destructive motive.

As to be expected, they found a number of perceived ‘discrepancies’ and quickly saturated the social media space, and even wrote a letter to the National Chairman of PDP, raising all manner of unfounded and baseless alarms and urging the screening panel to disqualify Sheriff.

We had wisely refrained from joining issues with anybody and opted to keep our gunpowder dry, until the screening exercise and appeal were done and dusted and happily we are proud to announce to the whole World that Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori, as we choose to address him affectionately, has been screened, cleared, and is now fully ready and prepared to coast home to a well-deserved victory at the PDP Guber Primary, on May 23rd.

The law of propaganda often attributed to Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Reichmeister and Minister of Propaganda, in Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich, notes that: “A lie told very often will soon enough adorn the garb of truth and if unchallenged, it becomes the truth”. But no matter how long the lie lasts, the truth will surely shine through las las, as we say in Delta State.

But it has also been consistently posited by psychologists and psychoanalysts too, that the ‘illusion of truth’ can be a dangerous weapon in the hands of propagandists, like Joseph Goebbels and most disturbingly like the ones we are witnessing now from a particular camp, in this Delta PDP Guber race, where every truth has been turned on its head and sophisticated lies, couched in post-modern sophistry, have become the order of the day. So let us start by stating some real truths for the records.

First of all, Rt. Hon Sheriff Oborevwori, has been duly cleared by the PDP South-South Screening Committee, as well as the appeals panel to contest the May 23 PDP Guber Primary. Infact, from the serial number on his clearance certificate, he was arguably amongst the very first aspirants to be screened and cleared by the panel, who simply told him to take a ‘bow and go’ after about fifteen minutes.

He was thus able to join Governor Ifeanyi Okowa and take his rightful place as Speaker of the Delta State House of Assembly, as they received the PDP National Chairman, Senator Iyorchia Ayu, on his August visit to commission projects in Delta State.

Since the woeful failure of that wasted and ill-advised effort to stop him at the Screening Committee, some desperate ploy to sustain that ill-fated negative propaganda, with unnecessary and convoluted permutations have been attempted, all to no avail.

They have even deployed elementary clairvoyance by telling Deltans what is in Governor Okowa’s mind, which has left us wondering who exactly these people listen to, especially when they make such idiotic claims and write crude, juvenile sentences like “Delta Governorship: Okowa disgusted with Oborevwori…” or “Okowa “Regrets not fielding Agas” or even the latest puerile stories titled “Okowa set to betray Delta Central” and “Delta 2023: Okowa Intensified Effort To Impose His Candidate With Billions Exposed”.

How do these people even get to conjure these insane, dubious, and horrible stories in their dark, warped minds and imagination? It’s truly incredible how far desperation can go.

Of course we know that some of their informants are con artists, rumour mongers, or inebriated Johnnie Walkers, who trade in lies, which desperate people would only be too eager to consume and deploy.

Sadly, this kind of debilitating falsehood is not only a clear manifestation of their hopelessness taken perilously too far, but simply leaves one speechless and amazed by the sheer mind-boggling propensity of how far the publicists of these aspirants will go to concoct and manipulate falsehoods and non-existent scenarios, just to win a primary election.

Is this what they teach them at all those schools abroad? Na wa o!

In fact what has been playing out in the PDP guber race since Sheriff became the clear front runner, is like the story of the two women who came before King Solomon in a child custody dispute, each claiming to be the mother of the child. However, when King Solomon suggested that they divide the child into two, which would have certainly led to its death, one woman said: “Yes, divide the child since I can’t have him”, but the other woman, the real mother of the child burst into tears, knowing that a mother cannot afford to lose her child like that.

She told the King to give the child to the other desperate woman instead of dividing it, because she could not bear to see her child, whom she went through pains to give birth to and nurture, die like that, when she could save him.

Of course we all know what King Solomon’s judgement was and in the end, the rightful mother got the child and the desperate mother was left empty-handed. This is exactly what will happen after the PDP Guber Primary on May 23rd.

In fact, we have heard some aspirants even boasting and threatening, that they are ready to leave the PDP and join forces with the opposition, if they don’t get the ticket, just like the woman who wanted to divide the child, knowing full well that she’s not the mother.

The irony is that even if they go elsewhere, they will still not get the ticket, or if they do, they won’t have the structure to win the election. It’s like cutting their nose to spite their faces, just to undo PDP. But of course, they will not succeed. The PDP is too big, too strong, very well prepared, and overwhelmingly popular across the three Senatorial Zones to fear any sabotage.

And finally, now that they have realized that there is no stopping Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori, after he has been screened and officially cleared to contest the Delta PDP Guber Primary, on May 23rd, 2022, they have resorted to the spurious allegation that the delegates list has been hijacked or that they are being prevented from seeing the delegates; the same delegates they have been taking photos with and shared all over social media before now.

Perhaps, seeing that all their efforts have failed, they are frantically looking for delegates and want to bribe them and maybe force them to take a blood oath, as they have even confirmed in an earlier write up, now that the primaries are upon us.

PDP delegates already know that the Governorship ticket is for the true, loyal, and committed party man, who has been with the party from the beginning; who has defeated opponents and won elections under the umbrella; who has brought pride, respect, harmony, and immense recognition to the party in the discharge of his duties and responsibilities of his position, and who will hold the party together through the battle ahead to secure victory and not the one that will go and do a deal with the opposition at the expense of the party.

PDP delegates know where their best interests lie and who will protect their interest if they give the person their mandate, and not a stranger who will use ‘modernization’ to sideline them and treat them as inferiors, second or third-class citizens. The delegates know who is the man of the people, both in Asaba and at the grassroots.

They know the man who understands the ways of the party and accepts that the “Party is Supreme” all the time.

The delegates know that the man who the ticket fits is Sheriff Oborevwori and he is the only aspirant, amongst all of them, who embodies the spirit of party unity and sportsmanship.

This is what every loyal and committed member of the party should be preaching and embracing now.

PDP delegates will not succumb to cheap blackmail or be intimidated by threats. They will vote for their real man when the time comes.

That, as we have always maintained is the SIMPLE Agenda.

© MOVEMENT FOR STRONGER DELTA, (MSD).