Indication has contiune to emerge on behind the scene plot on how the Urhobo Progressive Union (UPU) screening committee ended up with David Edevbie as it's preferred candidate.
Information sourced by Secrets Reporters stated that the UPU set up a screening committee with one Justice Shekaro (an Urhobo, not Hausa) as the Chairman of the committee, mandating them to present a worthy Urhobo aspirant who can gun for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) primaries ticket on December 8th.
The committee was set up on 29th November and to report their result on December 3rd, which they immediately set out to do. Our source who was part of the committee confided in us that while the screening was ongoing, the Judas Iscariot in the person of the President General, Chief Omene alongside the National Secretary and few executives were summoned to Abuja by Delta State Governor, Emmanuel Uduaghan through the Minister of Niger Delta, Steve Oru.
A meeting we gathered was held on 30th November and December 1st in a yet to be identified location. According to our very reliable source; at the meeting, Oru told the visiting UPU executives that they should not bring a candidate whom they cannot work with. When asked who among the Urhobo aspirants they can work with, Uduaghan was consulted and he chose little politically known David Edevbie as his choice.
Rattled by the choice of Edevbie; we gathered that Joe Omene initially refused to accept Edevbie. But when the sum of $1 million (One Hundred and Seventy Million Naira) was offered, the PG and the secretary of the UPU who nominated the Justice Shekaro as chairman of the screening as well as the Secretary accepted Uduaghan proposal to give UPU a name to recommend, thereby outsourcing Urhobos right to choose her candidate.
Unknown to the PG, the screening committee had finished their work and were in the process of collating its results. An insider among them told Secrets Reporters that at that time, three members of the committee had revealed their results, which clearly showed that Obaisi Ovie Omo-Agege was leading with a wide margin. At this junction, the PG put a call across to committee to immediately stop further collation results, thereby making the panel to submit it's report on schedule. The results which ought to be announced on December 3rd was ‘miraculously’ delayed and shifted to December 5th in order to give the committee room to carry out the order of Steve Oru and the Governor.
By the time the panel resumed two days later to complete it's results, all six members who did not disclose their results before the order from above to stop collation turned in results that were significantly altered to favour Edebvie in accordance to Uduaghan desire.
While the screening committee collected their own share of the $1 million booty to manipulate the results, Secrets Reporters got a call from a brother to the Committee Secretary brother, who incidentally works in Sir Anthony Chuks Obuh camp, and revealed to us that he learnt that in the new result which will be released soon, Edevbie was leading and may thus be the UPU choice.
True to his call, when Secrets Reporters began to investigate, the strange call prophecy came true that truly Edevbie had emerged as the topp candidate in the panel report.
David Edevbie according to a source is part of the game plan in all of this to see him emerge, haven agreed to a pact that he will become Deputy to Obuh after the primaries. Various political wizards who can pull the strings in Delta are unaware of the name Edevbie being in the governorship race, and have expressed dismay to our reporters over the actions of the UPU, stating emphatically that Edevbie can never mount the saddle of the State Governor, especially as he is not known to them in the PDP top hierarchy.
The decision to bring out the weak Edevbie by the governor is not unconnected with the fact that he cannot deliver even his ward during election, and thus can easily fall under the mighty hands of the State Governor.
The alleged $1 million bribe is currently tearing the UPU and Urhobo apart. Political observers told secret reporters that what has played out in UPU screening committee is typical Uduaghan strategy who always wait until INEC has declared results from Delta North and Central before bringing out results from the 3 Warri LGAs.
What has happened to Omo-Agege reminds us of the sad experience Chief Moshood Kolawole Abiola who was already winning the 1993 presidential election, before, the electoral body was ordered by the military to stop the announcement of results.
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