EXPOSED: OKOWA’S SMEAR CAMPAIGN AGAINST UDUAGHAN IN THE RUN-UP TO PDP PRIMARIES IN DELTA STATE by Eloho Emonefe

Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, the PDP flag bearer for PDP in the Delta State Governorship Election, mounted a secret campaign of calumny against the sitting Governor, Emmanuel Eweta Uduaghan. I will expose the smear campaign in this article and present full evidence of his insidious attempts to force Uduaghan to support his candidacy or see Uduaghan completely discredited and rendered irrelevant. They also had the aim of ending Uduaghan’s Senatorial ambitions. I will show how Okowa supplied ‘insider’ information to two of his campaign strategist posing as journalist; who used the information to make serious and scandalous allegations against Uduaghan, his wife and other associates; using blogs, other social media platforms and later spreading to mainstream newspapers.

Early in 2014, Okowa had begun to deploy a carefully orchestrated strategy to secure his candidacy for the PDP Delta State primaries. His plans were hashed both in Nigeria and Israel through his associate, one Alex Okunbor, a self-named ‘News Personality’ who ran a blog/news page called http://www.dna-nigeria.com. In reality, Alex Okunbor is a relative of Mrs. Okowa and is the chief strategist for Okowa. He is said to have developed the project ideas for the Okowa campaign and all his proposals from Healthcare to Agriculture. Between Okowa and Alex Okunbor, they recruited Fejiro Oliver, a self-named ‘Investigative Journalist’ who claimed to have investigated Uduaghan and always seemed to have credible sources for the information he published at his online blog, http://www.secretsreporter.com; he is also self-named Managing Editor of Daily Voice NG (http://www.dailyvoiceng.com) where some of his articles are still live. The two platforms usually carried the same news as well as sharing their articles across other social media platforms particularly Facebook and on Delta political Facebook groups like Liberate Delta People’s Movement and forums named after Okowa’s campaign. I started to notice the trend in both platforms, usually sighting sources and using highly sensitive information. I began to monitor the two individuals and kept a record of their activities. Recently however, Fejiro Oliver and Alex Okunbor have carefully DELETED all the articles about Uduaghan from their pages but I have full records of all of all their articles and proof that they published them on Facebook Pages. I will show that these to individuals were not Journalist at all but were full members of the Okowa campaign team and the source they had in government was indeed Okowa himself.

I will also show that Okowa used these two individual to smear both his friends and foes and as the campaign developed it spread to organisations like, the Vanguard Newspaper, the Urhobo Progress Union (UPU), they attacked Mrs Roli Shiela Uduaghan, Anthony Obuh when it was clear that Obuh had Uduaghan’s support; they attacked the former Speaker of the Delta State House of Assembly, Victor Ochei and they attacked many others including E. K. Clarke, David Edebvie, the UPU President General, Chief Omene and President Goodluck Jonathan to name a few. They spread rumours of fraud, bribery, corruption in this Okowa’s smear campaign revealing details of private conversations and meetings, which can be demonstrated that Okowa was present at those meetings. All the while, they unashamedly promoted Okowa, singing his praises as the God-appointed next governor of Delta State and a decent honourable man.

I started following Oliver from as far back as September 2014 when he published an article entitled ‘Gov. Uduaghan Chase Journalist Away from Assignment for Being an Opposition Reporter’. This was surprising I had seen other articles from him praising Okowa and PDP and felt that he was working for PDP. It was the sign of a schism within the PDP that drew my interest. Then on October 7^th 2014 he published an article entitled – ‘Dirty politics: Gov Uduaghan Release n200 million tax payers money to his anointed guber candidate thanksgiving’; where he alleged that Uduaghan was desperate to impose Anthony Obuh and that “Daily News NG can reveal that…Uduaghan has taken the stake of godfatherism higher”. A follow-up article on the 13^th of October announced ‘The Danger of allowing an Uduaghan Sponsored Puppet Gov. In Delta State’ purportedly written by one John Onwuyai Okafor. The article branded Uduaghan as a man who “has demonstrated the acute myopia of his vision, the poverty of his intellect, the bankruptcy of his conscience and the infinity of his greed’.

The REVELATION of who Oliver Fejiro is working for came on October 22^nd 2014 which this so-called Investigative journalist published an article entitled, ‘Gov. Uduaghan @ 60, give us this governor as your birthday gift’. In this article Fejiro pleaded with Uduaghan, ‘As you bask in the euphoria of celebrating a worthy 60^th year, Deltans have pleaded with me to plead with you to depart gracefully and leave behind a legacy of a worthy successor’; he went on further to say, ‘Delta State is too complex to be left in the hands of professional civil servants… because they are your die hard loyalist’. Fejiro then boldly, and without any journalistic integrity, announced ‘Sir, on this day… with the blessings of God accrued to you, and the ultimate crown of making you a governor against all odds; we are asking you for this birthday gift; give us Senator Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa as the next governor of Delta State’ Voila – its was now very clear that Fejiro was not a journalist but a campaign manager. I have it on good authority that this particular article was carefully prepared by the dynamic trio of Fejiro, Alex Okunbor and Okowa himself.

Of course, things didn’t go as planned and Uduaghan apparently continued to puch Anthony Obuh, Okowa had to step up the pressure on Uduaghan and Fejiro Published an article on the 6^th of November entitled ‘The hidden Monumental Corrupt details of Gov Uduaghan of Delta State (PT 1). This article represented a significant escalation as it revealed many serious details that only a very senior insider must have revealed to him. Fejiro introduced the article that ‘as the race to 2015 heats on… many Deltans are not aware of why… Uduaghan is fighting tooth and nail to install his successor’. He went on to say that his investigation had unearthed ‘many cans of worms’. He then made the following allegations:

1. That Uduaghan bought Shell Hospital, and 60% Shell Housing Estate Ogunu
2. That Rave TV which airs on Startimes Channel 125 and believed to be own by Agatha Amata, is actually owned by Uduaghan (‘Revealed by a reliable Source’)
3. That the ‘chubby Delta State Governor’ is the majority shareholder in Heritage Bank which bought over Enterprise Bank and where Uduaghan has ‘stashed away millions’.
4. That Uduaghan owns a hotel being built in Asaba and that a man named ‘Tuoyo’ is fronting the ‘N300 Million’ project.
5. That Uduaghan is a ‘philanderer’ and awarded a N1.9billion to a company named Hekerbella which is own by Uduaghan’s girlfriend ‘Laikan’.
6. That Uduaghan has ‘created financial problems for the incoming government’ by plunging the State into N200billion bonds with banks including Zenith Bank.
7. That Uduaghan sold Delta House known as Guinea House in Lagos to his ‘crony’ Peter Nwaoboshi, former PDP State Chairman for the sum of N805 million when it was estimate at the value of N4.5billion.

The article closed by urging anti-corruption agencies to look into the State’s financial records. Who is this ‘reliable sources’ that has such access to sensitive and secretive information to give to an investigative journalist?

The Part 2 of his article followed on the 9^th of November 2014 and was aptly titled ‘Photo News: Gov Uduaghan, Wife & Aide billion Naira properties (pt. 2)’ and it was a sensation. As the title suggest it was full of photos of properties alleged to belong to Uduaghan, his wife and his ‘front’. A ‘Tuoyo’ who works for NDDC. The additional allegations in this part 2 included the following:

8. That Uduaghan owns a 10 storey hotel which will be named Hilton and which is under construction along Mariam Babangida Way, Asaba and is fronted by ‘Tuoyo’
9. That Uduaghan is purchasing a land along DBS road where there is currently a primary School.
10. That Mrs. Roli Shiela Udaughan duped the House of Assembly to acquire a land claiming it would be for a ‘Women Praying Ministry’ but instead built a private primary and secondary school on the site.
11. That the Chairman of Delta State Board of Internal Revenue, Hon. Joel-Onowakpo Thomas shares N800 to N1 billion to Uduaghan, SSG, Board Chairman and key appointees on a monthly basis
12. That the same Hon. Thomas is building a billion Naira hotel along DBS Road.

Fejiro provided full photos of all the buildings mention in full colour, highlighting the extent of the time, money and other resources that would have gone into the commissioning of the investigation and the intimate knowledge of Uduaghan’s affairs that the directing hand of Fejiro’s activities must have. The final article in the triple series was published on 14^th November with the title of ‘Womanising Governor: The high profile ladies Gov Uduaghan has broken their marriages – (PT3); in which he alleged that ‘reliable sources with his (Uduaghan’s) government’ revealed the following:

13. Uduaghan had a taste for ‘high profile’ married ladies including the wife of Sunny Ofili, a special adviser to Uduaghan on ICT who died in a plane crash.
14. That Uduaghan was doing ‘kerewa kerewawa’ with Mr Ofili’s wife and Mr Ofili was aware but could not do anything for fear of losing his job.
15. That Uduaghan had an affair with Agatha Amata, the wife of Fred Amata and that this led to the end of their marriage and that Uduaghan employed her as Media consultant to the Delta State government and was paid ‘N50 million’ per month
16. That Uduaghan used Agatha Amata as front for Rave TV which he secretly owns
17. That Uduaghan had an affair with Ngozi Okoli, that he destroyed her marriage and she relocated to the US to a house that he bought for her.
18. That Uduaghan also had an affair with an unnamed member of the House of Assembly and a ‘beautiful’ Commissioner from Isoko, also unnamed but is standing for House of Assembly.
19. That a ‘canary bird’ also told him that Uduaghan is also have an affair with Commissioner for Infrastructure.

As the primaries battle intensified Okowa and his strategist began to target the presumed candidate of Uduaghan, Anthony Oboh. Alex Okunbor published an article on his blog, ‘Gov. Uduaghan Annointed Candidate Obuh Breaks Civil Service Rule to Cover Corrupt Practices’ was the outlandish headline. The Article went on to allege that ‘Sir Anthony Chuks Obuh… the immediate past Permanent Secretary, Government House has broken the civil service rule just to cover up his suspected fraud’. The went on further to allege that Obuh handed over to ‘Mr Benson Oboroh, a level 13 admin officer, while there were six officers ahead of him’. Towards the end of November 2015, it was clear that Obuh had built strong momentum and others candidates we worried about their prospects. This gave rise to the famous meeting in Abuja where the other PDP candidates (including Okowa) signed a communiqué against Uduaghan and Obuh. What was interesting was that Fejiro and other of their team were almost reporting this meeting live on social media. It culminated in an article titled ‘THE DELTA STATE COMMUNIQUE THAT GAVE UDUAGHAN SLEEPLESS NIGHTS AND THE LIES BEING PEDDLED’; in which the sponsor of Fejiro Oliver and the source of his information was made very clear. ‘If there is one thing that will forever haunt Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan, it will be the very day that some of the guber aspirants formed a formidable force to look at him boldly in the face and dare him to anoint Obuh as a candidate for the PDP’ he asserted. Fejiro said that some were peddling rumours that the signature on the paper is not real but the he Fejiro Oliver, ‘for the records, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa was at the meeting and I can authoritatively say that what he penned down as his signature is his… I can speak for Senator Ifeanyi Arthur Ekwueme Okowa’

These are some of the major articles in which Okowa and his team smeared the name Uduaghan and his colleagues in PDP and the government of Delta whilst pretending to Deltans to be a gentleman and the new face of PDP in Delta State went on a backstabbing spree, taking no prisoners and giving no thoughts to who might be collaterally damaged (the families of the people they named) in his quest for power. What follows is a list of other articles published by the Okowa team as part of this major scandalous smear campaign:

1. 18 November 2014 Vanguard Newspaper: They threw honour to the pigs to please Uduaghan
2. 24 November 2014 – This Is secretsreporters: Gov Uduaghan and his cabinet of fraud; their multi billion Naira mansions
3. 1^st December 2014 – This Is secretsreporters: Despotic Gov. Uduaghan plots UPU downfall by endorsing his Deputy, Utuama
4. 5^th December 2014 – The big fraud: this day publisher, Nduka and Gov. Uduaghan uses arise TV to loot N371 million
5. 7 December 2014 – Before delta delegates vote tomorrow; hear this
6. This is Secretsreporters: Gov. Uduaghan, UPU, Omene and the million dollar shame that will lead to their downfall.
7. This is secretsreporters: Gov. Uduaghan meets upu pg, Joe Omene; congratulates him for doing his…
8. This is secretsreporters: Exclusive: Gov Uduaghan bribes UPU with $1 million to bring out…
9. This is secretsreporters: Exclusive: Gov Uduaghan bribes UPU to nominate David Edevbie as their…
10. This is secretsreporters: Again, Gov Uduaghan pockets N6 billion after deceiving students to…
11. This is secretsreporters: Gov, Uduaghan out of shame congratulates senator Okowa after losing…
12. Last-minute-looting-Gov-Uduaghan-budget
13. Uncovered: plot to link Senator Ifeanyi Okowa with Agbe death surface
14. $1 billion dollar fraud against Uduaghan, Okowa, Hillary and Thomas; how come?

I have provided ample evidence of the insidious activities of Okowa and his time and I have photographic evidence and documents of the websites and Facebook postings to back up every statement made here. I have tried to chronologically present the evidence and use direct quotes to avoid confusion. What Okowa has revealed might be true but there is clear evidence that there is targeting and colouring and exaggerations; but more importantly he did it not in the interest of justice but in the interest of furthering his own ambitions. The treacherous activities of Okowa and the fact the his is also implicated in the activities he reports leads me to conclude that he is not a fit and proper person to be governor of Delta State or a holder of any public office.

By Eloho Emonefe

oyibocha@hotmail.com