By Charles Okogene
The clarification of the earlier statement credited to the Accountant General of the Federation, AGOF, Idris Ahmed, by the media that the controversial £4.2m looted from Delta State confers by its former Governor, Chief James Ibori (who ruled the state between 1999 to 2007), that the money has been returned to the oil rich state when nothing of such has happened is a blessing in disguise for Governor Ifeanyi Okowa.
Okowa is currently fighting a political battle of his life as a result of the recent dissolution of his cabinet.
The AGOF had last week told the media that the money had been returned to the state. But almost immediately, the Chief Press Secretary to Delta State’s Governor, Mr. Ifejika, fired back and told the world that the money was not yet in the confers of the state. This was before the AGOF rose from a seeming self-induced slumber, to eat his words on the issue.
But before he did that, Mr.Sylvester Imonina, whom the Peoples Democratic Party, Delta State Publicity Secretary, Dr. Ifeanyi Osuoza, discribed as an ‘ill-mannered, unrefined attack dog of APC,’ had gone to the press deriding Okowa and calling him all sorts of names.
Anybody who knows or understands how divided Delta State is along ethnic lines, no doubt, will agree with that God has vindicated Okowa and there is need for all men of good conscience in the state, to join him on May 29 (today) in praising the almighty.
Perhaps, if the AGOF did not swallow shame and took back his words, the state would have been set on fire litterally as both supporters of APC and PDP would have been on each other’s jugular calling for their share of the loot or be waiting to see the use the government of Okowa would put the money into; equally, the rogues in the government in the state would have by now been perfecting plans on how to re-loot the money.
But all that has been put on hold by the AGOF’s clearification. The Urhobo/Anioma war the money issue would have ignited would have seemingly surpassed the second World War as no mortal in the state, indeed in Nigeria, would have believed the statement of Ifejirika that the money was yet to be received by the state government.
Okowa, like they say in pidgin, ‘na God save you.’
They would have turned the state into a battle ground so much so that he would have spent the next two years explaining what happened to the money more so when he was a part of the government when Ibori stole it and also the secretary to the state government when his predecessor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, a first cousin of Ibori, denied that such amount was missing from the government.
• Okogene is the publisher of Newdawn online newspaper.