From Ben Dunno, Warri
A prominent youth leader of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the Udu Council area of Delta State, Mr Elvis Kporoh, has urged members of the public to discountenance a statement by a faceless group to discredit him and other PDP stakeholders that genuinely stood by the party in the recent Governorship elections.
Describing the publication as being sponsored by individuals who do not have the boldness and courage to come out publicly to make such allegations by themselves, Kporoh, noted that the names of the signatories in the said statement were fictitious as no such names of individuals existed in Udu community.
He disclosed that the statement was being sponsored by some saboteurs and mischief makers within the party in Udu who were no longer relevant politically and hiding their true identity in order to misinform the public on what transpired at the elections, so as to earn cheap credit and claim undue glory to salvage their failed political careers.
According to him, “Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have responded to the statement by this group because it is faceless and you can see that from the fact that it doesn’t have a name to it and the signatories are names of individuals who do not exist in Udu or anywhere.
“Obviously, the fictitious names used as undersigned in the said statement and the group were concocted by some mischievous politicians in the area who are not courageous to use their real names but desperately want to claim cheap glory to defend their failed political careers both in Udu and the state.
“These are the same people who had gone around prior to the election disparaging our Governor-elect, Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori, describing him as a tout who does not have what it takes to govern a state like Delta and now wants to take credit for what they did not contribute toward his success at the polls.”
Continuing, he said: “For the purpose of clarification, let me state categorically here that Chief Henry Sakpra, who was said to have worked for party interest in that publication failed in his ward with a wide margin as a serving Commissioner in the state and it is on record that he had always failed to deliver his unit and ward even right from the time of Chief James Ibori.
“For me, in Ward 10, I controlled two units and delivered both for PDP. Although we lost at the ward level by a margin of 26 votes but you cannot compare that to Henry Sakpra who lost in his ward 7 by 134 votes and still want to take cheap glory.”
Kporoh noted; “At my level, I’m not supposed to be using units as yardsticks to judge my political relevance in Udu because I’ve passed that stage politically, as am supposed to be delivering my wards now. The same manner someone like Sakpra should be ashamed of losing his ward when he’s supposed to be delivering his local government area as a serving Commissioner in the state.
“Nobody should come to deceive us here or want to claim underserved glory just to be politically relevant in Udu when we know and have their records of monumental failures in Udu since 1999. We all know where our political alliances within the party started even before the primaries.
“While some of us had been with Governor Okowa on his choice of Rt Hon Sheriff Oborevwori as Governor from the beginning, unlike Sakpra who was first with the Deputy Governor, Bar. Kingsley Otuaro and later crossed over to Chief David Edevbie, before reluctantly joining us here to work for the Governor-elect. So he cannot claim to be more committed to party success than us,” he stated.