Uduaghan’s Second Tenure Under Threat, Woos Acting President, E.K Clark

PHOTO: L-R: DR. EMMANUEL UDUAGHAN, CHIEF JAMES IBORI AND DELTA SENATOR, CHIEF PATRICK OSAKWE.

Asaba Feb 12, (THEWILL) - Following Dr. Goodluck Jonathan’s elevation to acting president in the absence of ailing Umaru Musa Yar’Adua who has been incapacitated for more than 80 days at a Saudi Arabian hospital, multiple Delta State sources following the political calculations in Delta State say the current governor’s second tenure ambitioned may be on the line.

THEWILL checks showed that incumbent governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan who is on three-week vacation had relocated to Abuja for some days in a bid to woo the acting president as opposition to his second tenure bid continues to grow in some quarters in the state.

Uduaghan’s move according to our checks was because of the obvious protracted political feud between the acting President’s camp and the Chief James Ibori’s camp. For those who are new to Delta politics, James Ibori was a former governor of the state and was instrumental to the emergence of his cousin, Uduaghan as governor.

Sources alleged that James Ibori was one of the politicians who relentlessly laboured to ensure that Goodluck Jonathan did not assume full presidential powers, using the likes of former controversial attorney general and minister of justice, Michael Kaase Aondoakaa who was hitherto removed from the justice ministry and reassigned as special duties minister.

A Government House source who confided in our reporter and pleaded anonymity disclosed that Ibori’s influence on the governor was one of the reasons why Uduaghan was unable to identify with Jonathan all along adding that his (Jonathan) ascension to the number spot in the country has the put the Ibori camp into a panic mode raising questions on the governors ability to secure a second term in Delta State.

Ibori has built a strong and reliable political base in the state using his wealth and influence in the Yar’Adua administration to shore up his hold on the state while he was assisted by Aondoakaa in his fight to stay out of prison over anti-graft charges. But with Andoakaa’s removal, a change at the presidency, and a very new EFCC resolve to bring him to justice over alleged financial impropriety committed while he was governor, the already exhausted former governor may have his hands too full to help deliver the state to his cousin.

The level of panic in Ibori’s camp came to light when a misleading report that the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Farida Waziri was invited to Aso Rock on Wednesday by the acting president. Our Asaba source said the news of her invitation threw the camp into frenzy until the EFCC spokesperson Femi Babafemi debunked the news.

During the various Governors’ Forum meetings where Yar’Adua’s illness was discussed, Uduaghan was careful not to be seen as strongly against Jonathan’s ascension to the presidency.

Dr. Uduaghan who was in Abuja for a while and only returned to Asaba on Thursday after cancelling a trip to New York, United States because of the extremely bad weather in the city has been wooing all aggrieved Delta PDP politicians including the influential Chief Edwin Kiagbodo Clark, a strong Jonathan acolyte, who spearheaded the opposition against the governor’s imposition on the party by Ibori in the last election.