Olise Imegwu, former Speaker, Delta State House of Assembly in a recent interview, said emphatically that ex-Governor James Ibori cannot leave the party owing to his dissatisfaction with outcome of the Delta State governorship primaries and also maintained that it is also wrong to make Ibori the scapegoat of the crisis.

Imegwu said it is extreme speculation that chief Ibori would collapse his PDP structure to support APC’s Omo-Agege.

According to him, “Chief Ibori can never leave the party he co-founded with others. The process of reconciliation is on-going. I understand Chief David Edevbie is in court, Chief Amori won and his daughter also won and it is also being rumoured that he supported Governor Okowa’s emergence as Vice Presidential candidate,”

Commenting specifically on the crisis rocking the party, he said “It is true that when two elephants fight the grass suffers. In this particular context of Delta State politics, it is wrong and unfair to make Ibori the scapegoat. The “polarising factor” is not one-dimensional as you may want to paint it, it is pervasive and multi-dimensional. There are other polarizing factors in Delta State PDP at the wards, LGAs and state levels. Because they have been beaten down, oppressed, intimidated, harassed, threatened and “contractised/hypnotized”, I suspect, doesn’t mean that all is well.

“Take for instance, myself, a former Speaker, National Assembly member, a scholar/philosopher, and particularly, a national convener, who with Chief Ibori, our leader, Prof. Oyovabaire, Governor Ifeanyi Okowa, Senator James Manager, Senator Nwaoboshi, Mrs. Nkem Okuofu, Late Chief Humphrey Iweriebo, to mention a few, were the foundation members of PDP. From PTI Warri, we retired to Palm Grove Hotel, where we set up the first PDP State Executive Committee and Senator James Manager and Nwaoboshi emerged its chairman and secretary, respectively.

“Today, in PDP at the wards, LGAs, Ndokwa/Ukwuani Federal Constituency and Delta North Senatorial District, I am not consulted when major party decisions are taken at these levels. You now can see that if the aggrieved at these levels across the state have what it takes to remove the chains of oppression around their necks, it will then be obvious that Chief Ibori is just one of the factors and not the only factor. The primaries have come and gone and having emerged the winner, if there is no challenge, he becomes the candidate of the party to fly its flag, the legal challenges notwithstanding.”