Delta 2015: Utomi dumps APC, prints PDP governorship posters

Prior to this, it was highly speculated across the state that Utomi, because of his fraternity with APC leaders in the state, would contest on the platform of the party

The surprises that are associated with partisan politics in Delta State have played out again.
Prof. Pat Utomi, a renowned Economist and Director of Lagos Business School, who has been hobnobbing with the leaders of the All Progressives Congress, has declared to succeed Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan next year on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party.
The professor’s posters now liter the streets of Asaba, the Delta State capital.
Prior to this, it was highly speculated across the state that Utomi, because of his fraternity with APC leaders in the state, would contest on the platform of the party.
However, on Wednesday, pundits were shocked to see his governorship posters, adorned with the ruling PDP’s umbrella.
The Eagle Online gathered that Utomi’s elegant entry into the political scene of the state have sent panic into the camps of other aspirants from Delta North Senatorial District.
Among those said to be shocked were Senator Ifeanyi Okowa and the former Speaker of the state’s House of Assembly, Engr. Victor Ochei, who have since last year engaged in the race to succeed Uduaghan.
Utomi, a former presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Mega Party, first hinted of his desire to join the governorship race of the state “to contribute his quota to the good governance of Governor Uduaghan” when he attended the meeting of APC Leaders’ Forum held in Ibusa, Oshimili North Local Government Area of the state.
The meeting was chaired by Engr. Hyacinth Enuha, about three months ago.
At the meeting, Chief Fidelis Tilije, a three-time running-mate to Chief Great Ogboru, the governorship candidate of the Democratic Peoples Party, maintained an “enough is enough” stand on PDP supremacy in the state since 1999, urging Utomi to join the governorship race to correct “all the wrongs and starvation the ruling party has inflicted on people of the state.”
APC leaders at the event carpeted Governor Uduaghan and his “selection” by a former Governor of the state, Chief James Ibori, maintaining: “Everything about Uduaghan’s administration is voodoo, mere cosmetics and media propaganda.”
But instead of Utomi yielding to the calls of the APC to see 2015 as “the favourable time to redeem the state”, his posters showed he had declared for the PDP.