NEWSVENT examines the issues surrounding the rift:
The icy relationship between Ifeanyi Okowa and Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, seems destined to endure with the arrest, last week, of some retired public servants by the anti-graft agency, EFCC.
A political associate to the former governor, Chief Tony Obuh, a former perm-secretary in charge of Government House during Uduaghan’s tenure and governorship aspirant of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the build-up to last year’s governorship election in the state, was among those that were quizzed by the anti-corruption agency.
Also quizzed were Mr. Friday Aghedo, a secretary to Obuh and Mr. Benson Oburo, Obuh’s immediate successor as Permanent Secretary of Government House, who was redeployed to the Bureau of Special Duties as soon as Okowa became governor.
There has been no love lost between Okowa and his predecessor since the race for the coveted number one seat in the state began in 2015. Reliable sources said Okowa has always nursed a grudge against Uduaghan for sponsoring the likes of Obuh and the current Commissioner for Finance, Chief David Edevbie and others against him during the 2015 PDP governorship primaries.
Okowa was said to have been particularly miffed that Uduaghan compounded his lack of support for his governorship ambition with an open campaig against him at the venue of the governorship primaries. The former governor, on his part, was said to have been irked by Okowa’s public revelation of the gory details of his administration’s financial transactions, which he felt was a deliberate attempt to discredit him.
On assuming office last year, Okowa, in an address he delivered at the Delta State House of Assembly seeking a review of the 2015 budget of the state, had called to question the previous administration’s role in the rise of the state’s debt profile to more than N600 billion.
It was learnt that the ex-governor is particularly unhappy at the manner some projects, which his administration tagged five projects, are being handled. For instance, the neglect of Delta State’s tertiary health institution Delta State University Teaching Hospital, Oghara, where expatriate staff head hunted during Uduaghan’s regime are languishing without salaries and other emoluments.
The icy relationship between Ifeanyi Okowa and Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, seems destined to endure with the arrest, last week, of some retired public servants by the anti-graft agency, EFCC.
A political associate to the former governor, Chief Tony Obuh, a former perm-secretary in charge of Government House during Uduaghan’s tenure and governorship aspirant of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the build-up to last year’s governorship election in the state, was among those that were quizzed by the anti-corruption agency.
Also quizzed were Mr. Friday Aghedo, a secretary to Obuh and Mr. Benson Oburo, Obuh’s immediate successor as Permanent Secretary of Government House, who was redeployed to the Bureau of Special Duties as soon as Okowa became governor.
There has been no love lost between Okowa and his predecessor since the race for the coveted number one seat in the state began in 2015. Reliable sources said Okowa has always nursed a grudge against Uduaghan for sponsoring the likes of Obuh and the current Commissioner for Finance, Chief David Edevbie and others against him during the 2015 PDP governorship primaries.
Okowa was said to have been particularly miffed that Uduaghan compounded his lack of support for his governorship ambition with an open campaig against him at the venue of the governorship primaries. The former governor, on his part, was said to have been irked by Okowa’s public revelation of the gory details of his administration’s financial transactions, which he felt was a deliberate attempt to discredit him.
On assuming office last year, Okowa, in an address he delivered at the Delta State House of Assembly seeking a review of the 2015 budget of the state, had called to question the previous administration’s role in the rise of the state’s debt profile to more than N600 billion.
It was learnt that the ex-governor is particularly unhappy at the manner some projects, which his administration tagged five projects, are being handled. For instance, the neglect of Delta State’s tertiary health institution Delta State University Teaching Hospital, Oghara, where expatriate staff head hunted during Uduaghan’s regime are languishing without salaries and other emoluments.
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