2023: APC raises alarm over Gov Okowa’s N25bn loan, warns ‘Don’t use Delta money to sponsor Atiku presidential campaign’

It is coming a day after the governor was announced as the Vice Presidential candidate of the main opposition party, by former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, who emerged the PDP flagbearer three weeks ago, at the party’s convention in Abuja.
The Delta APC Gubernatorial Campaign Organization, with Deputy Senate President, Owvie Omo-Agege as the candidate, in a statement, signed by Ima Niboro, unequivocally warned Okowa not to use state funds to finance Atiku’s campaign and other political activities, saying it had become necessary for the party to warn early enough “in the light of credible intelligence at its disposal that the 2023 General Election is a PDP conduit pipe to loot the state.”
The statement oted that the use of taxpayers’ funds and collective resources of Deltans to fund personal political ambitions was unacceptable, callous and inhuman.
“This is coming barely 49 days after the embattled PDP candidate, Okowa’s yes-man and Speaker of the state Assembly, Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori or Francis approved a controversial N150 billion loan.
“We have sufficient grounds to suspect that these loans are being taken to prosecute Atiku’s presidential campaign. We will not stand by and watch Okowa impoverish our people in order to enthrone a man who has nothing to offer Deltans in particular and Nigerians in general.
“If Governor Okowa had devoted half of the time he used in pursuing his Vice Presidential ambition to focus on governance, we wouldn’t be where we are today.
“As of today, the government is owing retirees over seven years of gratuities, pension arrears and death benefits while the state goes on autopilot for Okowa to pursue his personal ambition. Most retirees have resorted to commercial tricycle, popularly called Keke, for survival, some are bedridden, others have resigned to fate or even died while waiting for the present administration to pay their entitlements after 35 years of meritorious service to state and country.”
The party stressed that the path of backwardness and crippling debts which the Okowa government had sentenced the state was undeserved given the huge, abundant human and natural resources the state was blessed with.
They advised Okowa to borrow a leaf from his counterparts in Rivers, Borno, Ebonyi and other states that are blazing the trail with legacy projects, turning their states into massive construction sites, while paying outstanding gratuities and pensions, rather than take loans with nothing to show at the end of the day.