BEVERLY HILLS, CA, October 13, (THEWILL) – Democratic Peoples Party (DPP on Saturday faulted the Delta Central Senatorial District by-election in Delta State, describing the exercise as a sham.
A statement by DPP chairman in the state, Chief Tony Ezeagwu, alleged that the Urhobo people had been denied the collective right to choose a senator of their own.
Ezeagwu’s statement read in part: “The proposed election to elect a senator is now emerging as a complete sham which we can not associate with under any guise.
“The scale of impunity and violence by the PDP, thugs/cultists and ‘security agents’ is just unimaginable.
“The involvement of state security apparatus is particularly questionable. We are at a loss why and how such violence and external interference have to be brought into Urhobo in the name of election. We dissociate ourselves from the so-called election.
“There was no election and we know the conflagration that could follow if we do not stop our people early enough from going to collation centres to witness the collation of fake results.
“It is our responsibility to prevent a total breakdown of law and order. We therefore call on all our agents and election officials to avoid the temptation of physically challenging the PDP and security and INEC officials, both real and fake, at any designated collation centre.
“We urge our people to hold the peace no matter the anger, intimidation and violence.
“As law-abiding people, we in the Democratic Peoples Party (DPP) do not give credibility to that which is undemocratic, threatens the unity of our people and makes us a laughing stock.
“We believe in the vision of our leaders to make our people great based on the finest ideals of democracy. We shall continue to explore all lawful options to this end.
“Today, most unfortunately, our people have been set back but our commitment to democracy and justice remains unshaken.
“We trust our candidate, Chief Ede Dafinone, who was set for a landslide victory and all our members and supporters to abide by our value of peace even in this clear case of extreme provocation. This value has brought us this far and we have no doubt it will always prevail.”
The DPP chieftain representing Udu /Ughelli Federal Constituency, Honorable Austin Ogbaburon, had defected to the PDP with his supporters just before the election.
The move, many believe, may have weakened the chances of DPP in the by-election since Ogbaburon was the only structure remaining for the party after the death of Ewherido who had before his demise also move part of party structures to join the APC’s merger.
Ogbaburon’s defection is considered as the end of the political fortunes of DPP since Great Ogboru’s political structure collapsed after the re-run election which saw Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan re-election.
Ogbaburon , a former strong member of PDP before he left the party to contest under the DPP platform is believed to have a strong control o his Udu constituency while his counterpart in the State House of Assembly, Honorable Keston Okoro , who was also in PDP before he left is another emerging force in his Uwvie LGA. Their return to the PDP on Thursday thus became a big blow for the DPP.
