Youths of Oko Communities in Oshimili South Local Government Area of Delta State, have debunked a damaging report published online on Wednesday December 7, 2022 by Punch Newspapers, alleging that the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Ndudi Elumelu and the Delta North PDP Ward Campaign trail were chased away from their community.
The Youths in a press conference held on Friday December 9, 2022, at the NUJ Press Centre, along Okpanam road, Asaba, spoke through the Chairman of the Oko Youth Leaders Forum, Ijomah John Obika and Rossi Afamefuna of Oko Amakom Youths Forum.
They affirmed the report was false and a deliberate attempt by politicians to use genuine and sincere agitation of Youths in the community as an opportunity to score cheap political goals and pull down their opponents, saying that they never prevented Hon. Elumelu, the Campaign trail or anybody from coming to campaign or leaving thereafter.
“It has come to the notice of Oko Kingdom in Oshimili North, Delta State that the Youths of the community chased away Hon Elumelu, Hon, Ned Nwoko and other political aspirants that came to Oko for their Campaign. If I must say, this is political season and everybody is trying all they can to pull their opponents down.
“The issue trending that Elumelu and others that came for campaign were chased out is a big lie from the pit of hell. All what the youths agitated for was a peaceful and sincere deliberation with Hon. Ndudi Elumelu and Prince Ned Nwoko to notify them about the bad state of Oko road and the electricity issue which Elumelu gave explanations on, including the state of the road.
“The Oko Youths and the elders were made to understand that the road was once awarded to a company that was unable to carry out the work and the amiable Governor of Delta State in the person of His Excellency, Senator Dr Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa had to revoke the contract and re-award it to SETRACO.”
They said with the sincere engagement they had with Elumelu and Ned Nwoko, the youths became hopeful that the two would be able to impress it on the State Government and the Contractor on the need to speed up and complete the road project in no distant time.
The Youth leaders maintained that they do not have any reason to chase Elumelu or Ned away from their community, saying that they had benefited immensely from Hon. Elumelu’s representation in the House of Representatives, even as they listed all that they had benefitted from him to include, provision of water borehole, stands of solar street lights, health care facilities, construction of a 26 point landing bay with eight (8) brand new 22 seater boats as well as human capital empowerment of the people of the community, including the youths.
On the Issue of the report that Oko youths dragged Elumelu and Nwoko to the Community Shrine where Oath was administered on them, the Community youth leaders also debunked the report and said that nothing of such happened.
“Oko, no matter what, is a civilized community, and we want the general public to know that Oko has outgrown that level of taking candidates of Political Parties to Shrine for Oath taking. These people, by the way, are not community people. You can only take somebody for an Oath taking in matters that have to do with communal crises and such people must be from the community.
There is no way Oko Youths would have taken Elumelu or Ned Nwoko to the community Shrine for the purpose of Oath taking, like I said before nothing of such happened.
On the trending video showing where Youths barricaded a section of the road, the representatives of the Youth leaders had this to say; “This is campaign period, any negative situation could be used against your opponent and that was what happened in the case of the video trending. We were done with our engagement with Ned and Elumelu which was highly successful and the party done with the campaign. The campaign trail was about going and some youths decided that the vehicles had to pass through a particular culvert, instead of passing through land that belonged to an individual in the community. It was the land that they barricaded and not the road.
“The idea was for them to feel what the people of the community feel. However, when our attention was drawn to that situation which was not approved by youths in general, we came and gave a directive and the barricades were immediately removed and the campaign trail moved on, not knowing that somebody video captured that particular situation with mischievous political intentions.”
