Delta State Inter-party Advisory Council (IPAC), has raised alarm that the Senator (Dr) Ifeanyi Okowa-led government in Delta State has moved to destroy opposition political parties in the state by setting aside the whooping sum of N25 million at a time the state could not boost of infrastructural development.
The Senior Special Assistant (SSA) to the Governor on Inter-Party Relations, Mr. Moses Abeh, was fingered as the one being used by Okowa to perpetrate the evil for attempting to muscle some opposition parties in the state.
This came a month after the result of the elections of the group threw members into a deep cleavage, mutual distrust and suspicion with two factional chairmen piloting the affairs of the council.
In a communique issued after an enlarged meeting of the opposition parties and signed by the factional Chairman and Secretary of IPAC in the State, Mr. Fred Obi and Comrade Peter Emuakporje (JP), alleged that the SSA on Inter-Party is plotting to polarize and weakens the opposition parties through displacement of duly elected party chairmen and imposition of non-party members in their place in order to stop some chairmen from receiving government annual grant to the opposition parties.
“It is also very disappointing that the SSA to the Governor on Inter-Party Relations has even gone as far as calling National Chairmen of our political parties in an attempt to compromise them to toe his ignoble move”.
It could be recalled that the last IPAC election in Delta State was fraught with substantial irregularities as some government political appointees were alleged to have acted under instructions of the Delta State Governor, openly supported and helped to prop up one Frank Igwebuike for IPAC Chairmanship as against Fred Obi, the popular choice of political parties.
The communique reads in part; “that our support for Mr. Fred obi as our preferred choice for IPAC chairman remains unchanged even as we maintain that Mr. Frank Igwebuike’s emergence as Delta State IPAC chairman was fraught with unacceptable irregularities.”
Continuing; “That our political parties support the efforts of the Delta State Government to bring development to the State. That our support for Fred Obi rather than Frank Igwebuike was not intended to be an affront to the Delta State Government. That our principled stance on our choice of Fred Obi as Delta State IPAC chairman was originally endorsed by almost all the Political Parties including the SSA to the Governor on Inter Party Relations before his last minute political summersault which led to division and bickering among the political parties.”
The communique however, called on our respected National Political Party chairmen to shun persistent calls from government agents in Delta State who are bent on interfering with the internal administration of opposition parties for his selfish ends.
The opposition parties frowned at an attempt to coerce members into submitting to the whims and biddings of the SSA Inter-Party Relations as a condition for the disbursement of grants to the concerned political parties.
