Tinubu’s aborted visit and Omo-Agege’s phantom N150m donation to Delta flood victims: Another version of APC lies
By GbramatuVoice Editorial Board
On Tuesday, November 2, 2022, at Osubi Airport, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, the All Progressive Congress (APC) governorship candidate in Delta state and current Deputy President of the Senate, said that he has donated N150 million worth of relief materials to flood victims in Delta state, while the presidential candidate of All Progressive Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, on his part, donated N50 million cash, thereby totaling N200millon.
While the claim looks alluring/praise worthy for non political watchers in the state and those listening to the Deputy Senate president for the first time, to us at GbaramatuVoice, Omo-Agege’s latest ‘April Fool’ has rekindled the believe that neither the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) nor the All Progressive Congress (APC), is ready to serve and save the state from its current leadership starvation, economic deprivation and infrastructural decay.
Addressing party loyalists at the Osubi Airport in Osubi, Delta state, Senator Omo-Agege, said; “The essence of this gathering today is to welcome our incoming president by God’s grace, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. The reason for the visit is to show solidarity, empathy and sympathy with our people as a result of the devastating flood in most of our communities here in Delta State. And also to provide leadership in our fight to uproot bad governance imposed in Delta State in the past seven and half years. But today as you all know, because of the strike in the aviation industry, and his reason for coming here is to visit IDP camps’’.
While the above statement looks good in principle, there are salient points that make GbaramatuVoice believe that it was saturated with half truths and innuendos.
First, beginning with the aborted visit to the flood victims by Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Chief Omo-Agege knew abinitio that he (Tinubu) will not make that visit, yet, he dragged innocent Deltans to Osubi airport under ‘false pretence’ that they were going to welcome their so-called ‘next president’. He wasted the peoples time and resources.
As the incumbent Deputy Senate President, there is no way he can convince Nigerians of not being aware of the ongoing industrial action by the aviation sector. Or was he expecting Bola Tinubu, the APC standard bearer to fly self down to Delta state?
The truth is that while indulging in this voyage of lies, Senator Omo-Agege appears to have forgotten the words of Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, where he among other things stated that “There is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hopes soon to be swept away”.
In our views, this is not the best way to commence electioneering.
On the purported claim that APC is in the state to provide leadership by uprooting bad governance imposed in Delta state in the past seven and half years, GbaramatuVoice believes that APC as a party lacks moral justification to make such comment as they are not in any way better than the PDP.
Looking at the current situation in the country, (the high level of insecurity, galloping inflation, unprecedented youth unemployment and rubbished Naira against the Dollar, among others) can Ovie Omo Agege say that the Party has done any better than the PDP?
Is it not a shame that under APC led federal government, industrial action has become part of our national life? If not Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), it will be Non Academic Staff Union or better still the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), The Nigerian Police, and the Judiciary. Now it has gotten to the ridiculous stage of the aviation sector. Yet, Omo-Agege has the temerity of using it as an excuse for Tinubu’s non coming to visit the flood victims.
This is a shame!
Without doubt, Governor Okowa’s led administration in Delta state is a disaster. But at GbaramatuVoice, we hold the opinion that if what is happening in the state is a challenge, what has taken place under APC watch at the national level is a crisis. APC and PDP are in the newspaper’s view ‘same of the same’.
We challenge Omo-Agege to disclose where he stored the procured food items, cement, mattresses, rice, roofing sheets as claimed at the airport. Can he make the receipts of the said procurement available to the public? We also challenge him to appoint Deltans of impeccable character who are non politicians in the distribution of the items, that is, if he bought in the first instance.
Certainly, we know that Nigeria is faced with nagging inflation as a result of APC led Federal Government mismanagement of the nation’s economy and destruction of other valuable assets needed for normal life. That notwithstanding, it has not gotten that bad that N150 Million worth of food items could be bought without being noticed. Ovie Omo-Agege must not fail to remember that is morally wrong to exploit the misfortunes of flood victims for political gains.
While Deltans in the interim continues to entertain this season of lies, with more expected, it is now evident that the two major political gladiators in the state are not only insincere in their pursuit of power but ‘political jobbers’ looking for every opportunity to reap Deltans off.
The experience of Deltans in the hands of these politicians quoting Richard Templar has been ‘harrowing and unpleasant’. They (politicians) have in the last two decades of democracy in the state proved to be selfish, narrow minded and petty. Their antics habitually involve getting things done by lying and other dishonest means.
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