By Sam Akadoro / Special Correspondent, Sapele
President General of Urhobo Progressive Union, Chief Joseph Omene, has described his supposedly impeachment by a faction of UPU as unconstitutional, saying that article 29 of the constitution of union states that at least seven members of the executive shall form a quorum and these seven members must include the president general and secretary.
He, however, stated that the meeting at which he was impeached did not meet the criteria, as neither himself (president general) nor the secretary was present, adding that the said meeting was illegal and unconstitutional.
“All those present at the meeting were holding assistant positions and did not have the constitutional right to call for a meeting. Whatever Chief Onoge is doing is null and void,” Omene said.
He argued that his supposed impeachment was fallout of UPU consultations with stakeholders with respect to who should be endorsed as Urhobo candidate for governorship of the state.
He said this was done because of the alleged marginaliation the Urhobo nation, saying 14 out of 15 positions were given to Delta North at the federal level.
He said the capital of the state is in Delta North, asking, “if 14 out of 15 federal positions can be hijacked, what will a governor from the North not hijack? The dream of UPU is to achieve the position of the governor of Delta State, how to achieve this dream is a different ball game.
“UPU met with the president generals of the 24 kingdoms of Urhobo land and other stakeholders and they said Ogboru should be endorsed. APC was invited at a time to state their stand on the governorship position; their team was led by Frank Kokori, who told them that then, they did not have a governorship candidate.
“UPU is not against any political party but their concern is support for an Urhobo candidate irrespective of the party he/she belongs. Today, UPU has endorsed Great Ogboru as their governorship candidate while people like Chief Onoge and others wanted UPU to endorse Oterga, but before Ogboru was endorsed, Oterga was called and he said he was in London attending to important issues.
“It was after UPU had endorsed their candidate that he came up with his intention/ambition of governing the state. UPU’s intention is to field only one Urhobo candidate for the election and this is not the first time it has happened; it happened with Ibru, Okumagba etc. Even recently, the deputy governor was asked to step down for Chief Edevie during PDP primaries and he did so; nobody sought to crumble UPU in all these.”Omene continued: “A school of thought advised UPU to wait till after the Presidential election before endorsing anyone. These same people that gave the advice left the UPU meeting and went to endorse an Urhobo candidate in the person of Oterga. It was Chief Onoge, who suggested in one their exco meetings after Uduaghan had presented Obuh as PDP candidate for the PDP primaries, that UPU should not close her door to other Urhobo candidates and Ogboru’s name was mentioned in that meeting. It was only Ogboru that has come to present himself to UPU for the position of governor. It was later that Oterga came to him to indicate his interest and he advised Oterga to wait for another time but Oterga refused. It was then decided to watch his how he will fare during the campaign to see how popular he will be.”
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