2015: UDUAGHAN DROPS SENATE BID

AHEAD of tomorrow’s senatorial primaries of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta State, yesterday, withdrew from the Delta South Senatorial race. He said his decision is in the interest of peace and security of the state.
The withdrawal, which some observers described as a masterstroke has nipped in the bud what was a panning out as a pitch battle between the governor’s camp and that led by Elder statesman, Chief Edwin Kiagbodo Clark, Senator James Manager and ex-militant, Tompolo.
Jonathan’s intervention
Saturday Vanguard gathered that Uduaghan dropped his bid after a tripartite reconciliation meeting brokered and hosted by President Goodluck Jonathan between Thursday and yesterday in Abuja.
The truce in Delta came as PDP stalwarts in Rivers including 19 governorship aspirants warned that President Jonathan may lose two million Rivers’ votes in the 2015 election if former Minister of State for Education, Mr Nyesom Wike is imposed as the governorship candidate in the state. Specifically, they threatened to defect to opposition parties if the president and the PDP hierarchy failed to resolve the lingering crisis rocking the party in Rivers.
Senatorial election not do-or-die, says Uduaghan
Briefing newsmen in Asaba, Uduaghan said he has to offer himself as a sacrifice to sustain the peace and security in the state.
The governor, who aspired to represent Delta South Senatorial District after his second term on May 29, 2015, a move that would have hurt the ambition of serving Senator Manager, said he is quitting because the election is not ‘’do or die” and there has been ethnic tension which seemed to be ‘’threatening peace and security of the state.”
Insisting that he would do everything to stop anything that would threaten the peace and security of the state, he said he came in at a time when the state was being faced with a lot of security issues ‘’but the state is much more peaceful now than I met it”.
He also said his withdrawal would give him the leverage to manage the affairs of the state in the transition period as well as ensure the re-election of president Jonathan.
Uduaghan, however, described Senator James Manager as a friend and brother, adding that he was not forced to withdraw from the race.
Manager to work with Uduaghan
At the Abuja meeting, sources said the President was touched by Uduaghan’s ‘’sacrifice’’ and he ‘’asked Senator James Manager to work with the Delta State Structure to ensure that the candidate favoured by the majority of PDP stakeholders emerges as the party’s governorship candidate and the party approached the 2015 elections as a united front in Delta.’’
Source: Vanguard