By John Ogunsemore
A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Delta State, Dr Festus Goziem Okubor has urged the new State Chairman of the party, Solomon Arenyeka to call Senator Ned Nwoko to order.
Okubor, from Ika North PDP Ward 9, made the call in a letter addressed to the state party boss and made available to Daily Sun.
Copied in the letter were Delta Governor, Elder Sheriff Oborevwori; former Governor, Dr Ifeanyi Okowa; and Nwoko.
Okubor, who congratulated Arenyeka on his election, said Nwoko must be called to order as the senator’s actions since his election to the Senate amounted to “anti-party conduct”
Okubor said, “I am constrained to make this statement, having borne the indignity of having a senator representing me in the Senate of the Federal Republic, speak recklessly and act childishly on a continuous basis.
“The Senate is our highest legislative chamber in Nigeria and ought to be populated by men and women of knowledge, experience, and integrity. A senator can not be pedestrian and ought to be a good example of good conduct to the younger generation.
“A senator is not allowed to speak before thinking. He or she must be a team player and a team builder. The hallowed chambers of the Senate sits people of humility and hard work. Men and women who are zealous in patriotism to the nation and their constituents. They are not lords of any manor but servants of their people.”
Okubor said it was from this understanding that he felt “humiliated by the conduct of Senator Ned Nwoko, who represents the Delta North Senatorial District, my constituency, in the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria”.
He added, “Within a month of being in the Senate, he hugged social media like a gown proclaiming himself as the best senator we have ever had.
“He daily harasses the sensibilities of constituents with all manner of false claims, being a judge in his cause at all times. He clearly has contempt for silence as strength. Quietude, as a needed spirit for contemplative work, was alien to him and his back office staff.
“When he started talking of Anioma State and the deceitful misuse of our people’s trust, I called him privately and advised him on the need to have had wide consultation with constituents to know if that was a need of the people before embarking on this project that could have very wide implications.
“I needed to educate him that we, the people, ought to be a source of his actions. I have defined a leader as one who accepts to be led by the people to accomplish their dreams and aspirations. He should be knowledgeable enough to guide them, but ultimately, it is the people who lead.
At another time, I visited him, and he was very profuse in complaining of certain understanding of occurrences in our party and constituency that he had.
“I admonished him on the need for a calm approach to solving perceived problems. I encouraged him to be strong in dialogue as he could discover that his perceptions of persecution were unfounded.”
Okubor said he gave the explanations to show the length he had gone to engage the senator as a “brother”.
However, he said Nwoko’s recent “misguided vituperations against the former Governor of Delta State, his constituent, and a former senator, too, is to say the least, disheartening”.
He added, “To also join Governor Sheriff Oborevwori in his concoction of lies is the worst he can do to diminish the office of a Senator. Ned never spoke to the governor. Had he done that, he would have known that the debts that the governor is admirably liquidating without borrowing a farthing, are accumulated debts from all previous administrations in the state and not borrowings of Senator Dr Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa.
“He would have known the resource application of government today. He ought to have known, and he would have known that the Okpai power project and the Ogwashi Uku dam project are federal government projects that can not be whimsically taken over by a state government.
“He could have been educated that he just couldn’t arrange foreign borrowing to be paid back from collections, as he put it, without exposing the state to economic harm.
“It was a session of senatorial recklessness and infamy.
“The bigger worry for me, really, is the impact of a senator on the platform of the PDP speaking in such manner of his PDP Governor and government of his PDP state.
“We are a party-based, democracy-practising state. Inherent in this is a no place for individual rascality.
“Ned never consulted the party on any of these issues. I asked the senatorial and the state chairmen of the party, and there was no conversation with Ned on any of these issues.
“Leaders and members of a political must exhibit discipline. No society can survive with indiscipline as a norm. There must be a careful balance between ego, freedom, and discipline.”
