As criticisms continue to trail the exclusion of former Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan from the honour list of the Delta State Traditional Ruler’s Council for his contributions to the development of the state, the Ovie of Oghara kingdom, HRM Noble Eshimetan, Orefe III, has clarified why the former governor was excluded.
Orefe III is the paramount ruler of the kingdom where former Governor James Ibori hails from and one of the recipients of the monarchs’ award.
Delta traditional rulers had come under criticism by Deltans including the All Progressives Congress (APC, for exempting Uduaghan during a reception it organized in honour of Governor Ifeanyi Okowa, his deputy, Kingsley Otuaro and former governor James Ibori.
According to a report by Vanguard, the Ovie of Oghara denied claims that the traditional rulers intentionally excluded Uduaghan under whose administration the state recorded massive infrastructural, educational and health development.
The monarch, who was a member of the planning committee, said it was not true that Uduaghan who is the immediate past governor of the state, was not honoured because he failed to perform in his eight years in office.
Uduaghan ruled Delta for two terms on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) but later defected to the APC following unresolved disagreement with the sitting governor, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa.
He contested the 2019 Delta South Senatorial election on the platform of APC but lost to Senator James Manager of the PDP.
Oghara monarch explained that nobody in the planning
committee and general meeting of traditional ruler’s council dropped another
name to be honoured saying; “It escaped me as well, but the intention was not
to take him (Uduaghan) out as someone who did not perform, he was a good man to
us and the state and it was not a deliberate thing to exempt him.”
