As the battle on who becomes the next council chairman of Aniocha south local government area of Delta State, takes centre stage, the State Commissioner for Technical Education, Hon. Pastor Joan Onyemaechi fondly addressed as Ada Anioma by her teeming admirers, has said Ubulu Clan, would complete its two terms as Chairman of the council.
Onyemaechi said this in an interview with journalists in Asaba, on Saturday 4th May 2024, while reacting to a protest by a group called Nsukwa Clan Concerned Youth, blackmailing her for getting what she called “political patronage”.
Onyemaechi, who is among the few women standing politically in Aniocha/Oshimili, Anioma nation and Delta north in general, said those behind the protest are jostling for power in the wrong way.
The female political juggernaut who attributed her political success in life to Aniocha south, said she was proud of the council area, disclosing that she has enjoyed political patronage from the local government.
“I have recently established that people do not really understand what it means to have power and being in power.
“It is the clan that is complaining? Of course no. Like I said, individuals who do not understand that governance and patronage, is not a right, it’s a privilege. If government for whatever reason is patronizing me, I shouldn’t be stupid to think I should begin to dictate for government of the day.
“Whoever dictate to the governor or president who should be made a commissioner or minister, it sounds very funny. Commissionership and the position of a minister, is at the pleasure of the president and at the pleasure of the governor. I don’t know when they started zoning Commissionership position, I am just hearing it for the first time”, explaining that in governance, one lobby through someone who has the ears of the governor and not dictate.
Speaking further, she said: “They moved from there to the issue of sibling, that their problem is that I have a younger brother who is a council chairman and because he is my brother, he should not run for an office? She queried.
“A position that is zoned to Ubulu clan, you wake and say they will not complete the zoning again because they are siblings. The council office has maintained a zoning formula.
“Nsukwa Clan, went on elective position, there was a break, Governor Emmanuel Eweta Uduaghan, did not carry out election immediately after, he did transition, he took another Nsukwa Clan person to complete their tenure.
“So, they did both the elective and the appointive/transition, he completed their tenure.
“Ogwashi-Uku man came there, did six years, completed it even when there was an initial contention that before 1999, he had been to the council before and that doing two terms again will mean three terms, some of us stood for him and he completed the two tenures under this dispensation of 1999.
“Let’s even take it from 1999, Ogwashi completed their two tenures, then it came to Ubulu. Ubulu, did their first tenure, this is the second tenure and somebody is saying because the elder sister of the council chairman had just been made commissioner, then that zoning should no longer stand.
“So, that council should move to somewhere else because the governor of Delta State, Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori, made me a commissioner? So, we should now go and tell Ubulu people that the two tenures Nsukwa and Ogwashi did that Ubulu will no longer be able to do theirs. God forbid because there is a Commissioner somewhere?
“What is the relationship between being a commissioner and completing a pattern that has been zoned to everybody. By the grace of God Ubulu will complete their second tenure this 2024 to 2027”, she declared.
Continuing she said: “you are fighting that Ubulu clan should not complete the council, they should do only one term because they now have commissioner. So, when you wake tomorrow morning and the cabinet is dissolved.
“The immediate past administration dissolved the cabinet twice and some persons were dropped. Thank God Ubulu is not stupid. If Ubulu was to listen to any blackmail that is baseless because the blackmail of siblings is baseless, not even in Nigeria.
“Assuming but God forbid because Ubulu clan is not senseless, assuming Ubulu clan says come and take what is not your own and tomorrow they dissolved the cabinet, what happened? Do you give what you don’t have? You don’t give what is not your own. Again, the Commissionership is at the pleasure of the governor.
“Nobody can blackmail me because I am an appointee of Government and my brother at the same time is contesting for the office of Chairman in our local government area.
“I am not the first person who had been favoured to be in government and at the same time having a relation who is also in government.
“My appointment is at the discretion of the Governor, while that of my brother is his right to contest, and based on the zoning arrangement in my local government area, he deserves to do a second term as Chairman.
“The Nsukwa clan did theirs for two terms, the Ogwashi clan completed theirs of two terms, now is the turn of Ubulu clan.
“The young man had done one term and he deserves his second term in office. How is it my fault that I am patronized by government with an appointment? Our party, the PDP and government respect zoning.
“They knew that my brother was the chairman of our local government before appointing me as Commissioner.
“Well, what I see today, is human beings not been able to manage their lives.
“When you are desperate, you are desperate onto a fault and you are desperate onto unhappiness. It is funny that somebody comes with falsehood to say that the last election, 2023 election, that I lost my unit and ward to Labour Party.
“That was part of what they wrote in their story to the government house. When they went to government house with some funny people I saw including the person that was supposed to be presenting a document that couldn’t read the document that was handled over to him.
“I heard something like in the last election, she lost all her unit to Labour. Well, I am from ward 5 in Aniocha south and I have five units in the primary school where I vote. In the five units, I have 78, 98 as against APC 20 and Labour 51.
“Where I voted in particular, unit 7, 138. The conclusion is that PDP 973, APC 402 and Labour 719, that is the results of my unit and my Ward.
She bereted them for making mockery of themselves by been cheap blackmailers, on a futile blackmailing mission, saying “because you were desperate to damage who you think or imagine you can damage that you can never succeed to. You go with a printed document, stupidly handed it over to a government official, maintaining that she didn’t lost her unit neither ward in the 2023 election.
“I wish people will learn that power belongs to God and what God cannot give you, better don’t be desperate to have it, otherwise, you will be full of regret”.
She advised the older politicians to stop making mockery of the youths, “let us stop this thing, people are looking beyond us. When we think we are smart, we forget that people are smarter, maintaining that people should be thankful and be contented and take things the way they are.
The former House of Representative member for Aniocha/Oshimili Federal Constituency, insisted that Ubulu clan would complete their two terms as Chairman of the Council.
