Delta state governor and vice-presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Sen. (Dr) Ifeanyi Okowa, has responded to the allegation of betrayal levelled against him by the quartet of Edwin Clark, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, Dr. Dru Bitrus, and Professor George Obiozor over his acceptance of his nomination as Atiku Abubakar’s vice-presidential running mate.
Clark, who is the leader of the Pan-Niger Delta Forum, and Adebanjo, who heads the apex Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, had in a joint statement on Friday, June 17, slammed Governor Okowa for betraying the calls for Igbo presidency by agreeing to be paired as Atiku’s running mate.
According to reports, president of the Ohaneze Ndigbo worldwide and the Middle Belt Forum, Obiozor and Bitrus, had also appended their signatures to the statement which described Okowa’s action as “treacherous and tantamount to a despicable pawning of the political future of the people of Southern Nigeria.”
However, Okowa, on Friday evening, said he didn’t betray Southern Nigeria, while noting that he respects the Southern and Middle belt leaders’ opinions, The Vanguard reports.
The Delta state governor stated that, “I want to respect our leaders, I believe that they have their opinions. I do also believe that they are well meaning leaders, and I don’t want to have issues with them.
“However, the important thing is that I belong to a political party, and I was part of the decisions of the political party, and we did agree that the best pathway for us to rescue this nation and to rebuild this nation was to throw open the presidential race in our party.
“I had submitted myself to be a politician, to belong to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and ruled by the policy of that party as it is.
“And since we had all committed to the fact that we wanted to throw the presidential candidacy open, Atiku Abubakar, the former vice president did emerge.
“The onus for us is to support him to win. We were not expecting to have a candidate from the north and also have a vice president from the north.
“That will lead to further division in this country, and we are talking about rebuilding this country, rebuilding our unity and to a large extent, we had to make the right decisions.
“And within our party, I think that having submitted myself to be a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), I would have to submit myself to the decisions of the party, and that was exactly what happened.
“That does not mean that it is disrespectful to the views of those leaders, they are leaders that I respect so much but under this condition, they have to understand that I have committed myself to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as a politician.
“If I’m not a politician, it may be different but I am a politician and I’m entitled to my views.
“I’m entitled to play along with the rest of the party because it is collective decision, and I want to appeal to them that they need to actually look at the issues as it is and understand that, yes, while we are making our comment as it concerns Nigeria, at this time that we have crisis within the nation, the rebuilding process means that we need to rebuild confidence.
“And in rebuilding confidence, we need to be very cautious about the stands that we take, and we need to be very cautious about what we do,” he added.
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