Oborevwori/Onyeme: Building Bridges Of Unity Beyond Delta
By Fidelis Egugbo
Life is about trust, and in a democracy, trust is everything. The electorate cast their votes for whom they trust and the elected officials are challenged to uphold such trust, partly for a stable polity.
In Delta State, the beauty of democracy is palpable, with the style of governance of Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori, the Governor of the state. When he was campaigning for the seat, he made it clear that he would listen more and do more, and went further to encapsulate his development blueprint in the MORE Agenda. MORE is an acronym for M – Meaningful Development, O – Opportunity For All Deltans, R – Realistic Reforms, and E – Enhanced Peace and Security.
The single greatest requirement for sustainable development is having reliable people working with one as dependable lieutenants. Ideally, nobody can be as close to one as one’s Deputy. Once one has a trusted and reliable Deputy, the job becomes easy, hence the leader can take responsible liberty with reasonable freedom from work because of reliable followers.
Delta is usually blessed with Deputy Governors who know their onions, and the working relationship that exists between Governor Sheriff Oborevwori and his Deputy, Sir Monday Onyeme, FCA, is so seamless that those who want to understand how Governors and their Deputies should work comfortably for the good of the people, could do well to understudy Delta as a reference case.
Sir Monday Onyeme’s background as a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), a man who has worked in several organisations as an Accountant has endowed him with the knowledge of how to relate with people. In some quarters, Sir Onyeme is a model to be studied. His office is saddled with a lot of responsibilities which he carries out with equanimity and elating efficiency.
On Friday, July 4, 2025, he was at Kaduna for the marriage ceremony between Faruk Ahmed Sa’idu Alkali and Salaha Abdulazeez Yola. In Kaduna, as someone who does not believe in “African Time,” he entered the Sultan Bello Mosque, long before the commencement of the marriage which was done according to Islamic rites.
Surprisingly, on hand to receive the Deputy Governor and his team made up of the Commissioner for Economic Planning, Hon. Sonny Ekedayen, the Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of Delta State, Dr. Barry Gbe, yours sincerely, among other Deltans, was the Chief Imam in charge of the Mosque, Sheikh (Dr.) Muhammad Abu Sulaiman, who came back from Saudi Arabia four days before our arrival.
The Deputy Governor, as a man who has transversed the length and breadth of Nigeria, naturally multilingual and lived in several towns in the North, blended easily with the Northerners and Dr. Suleiman who is a very influential figure among Moslems internationally, took the Deputy Governor to a very small room that can be interpreted as a private prayer room bearing in mind that it had a prayer mat. As a preacher, Dr. Suleiman who lectures in Kaduna State University, did not waste time in telling the Deputy Governor and his team about Islam. To him, Islam is a peaceful religion , apart from the bad eggs who are painting it as a religion that promotes violence.
From religious teaching, the Deputy Governor, as someone who believes that Nigeria will be a country where one does not need to close his doors before he sleeps, and members of his team, especially Hon. Ekedayen and Dr Gbe, ventured into academics and financial language register.
As an inquisitive journalist, I found out that Sir Onyeme, Hon. Ekedayen and Dr. Gbe have a lot in common – they were all bankers at certain times, hence, their reasoning blends much.
We were still at the Mosque when a man wearing a red cap was ushered into the small space that we were trying to manage (a space so small that one could barely stretch one’s legs); he greeted the Deputy Governor and his team warmly, and, on inquiry, we found out that he is the Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Chief Uche Geoffrey Nnaji. The red cap had set him apart as our brother from the southern part of Nigeria.
From there, the Imam went to the main hall for the rites and the Deputy Governor had to pull off his shoes to join other dignitaries who included the Vice President, Kashim Shettima and the Governor of Kaduna State, Senator Uba Sani. The marriage ceremony did not last up to 30 minutes, but leaving the Mosque for Government House, Kaduna venue for the reception became a herculean task. Why? More than 25, 000 persons, according to the Imam, worship at the Mosque and the road to the Mosque was not wide enough. The reception ground was mainly for men, which made an observant friend, ask, “o boy, no lady here?” To this, I responded that women are hardly seen or heard among men in a moslem setting.
As stated earlier, a leader is comfortable when he has organised, efficient followers- people who know what is expected of them and are ready to execute their jobs to clinical precision. So, while Governor Sheriff Oborevwori was with President Bola Tinubu at the 17th meeting of the Global South and the Emerging Economies bloc, BRICS, on Saturday in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Deputy Governor Monday Onyeme led leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) from Delta State to the South South Stakeholders’ meeting in Benin City, Edo State.
It is worthy to state that Nigeria is the ninth partner country of BRICS. Other countries include Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Thailand, Uganda, and Uzbekistan.
In Benin City, in his characteristic manner, Deputy Governor Monday Onyeme, was among the first set of persons to enter the Victor Uwaifo Creative Hub, venue of the meeting.
It was an eventful meeting that had delegates from all the states of the South South, with the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, presiding. Personalities from Delta State who attended the meeting included former Governor Ifeanyi Okowa, Prof. Sam Oyovbaire, Sen. Ned Nwoko, Chief Godwill Obielum, Hon. Ndudi Elumelu, Sir Fidelis Okennmor Tilije, Hon. Ben Ibakpa, Hon. Ngozi Okolie, Barr. Sam Osasa, Hon. Nicholas Mutu and Hon. Nnamdi Ezechi.
Several resolutions were reached at the meeting but the applause that greeted the endorsement of President Bola Tinubu and Governor Sheriff Oborevwori for a second term, respectively, was deafening. With the endorsement of Oborevwori, the All Progressives Congress may have an affirmative primaries as there will be no opposition to the return of Oborevwori and his Deputy, Sir Monday Onyeme to the Dennis Osadebay House, Asaba.
It is also expected that, with the collapse of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Delta State into the APC, the Governor and his Deputy will also emerge as consensus candidates as no other political party will field candidates against them bearing in mind the successes that they have also recorded in the implementation of the MORE Agenda of their administration.
Delta always speaks with one voice when it comes to general elections but one zone in the state that is always united in election matters is Delta North Senatorial District.
So, while Deputy Governor Monday Onyeme was in Kaduna on Friday, July 4th, in Benin City on Saturday, July 5th, on Sunday, July 6th, he was in Asaba where he played host to Delta North APC leaders’ meeting. Present at the meeting which was presided over by Sir Onyeme were former Governor Ifeanyi Okowa, Chairman of APC in the zone, Ogbueshi Adizue Eluaka, Sen. Peter Nwaoboshi, Chief Godwill Obielum, Rt. Hon. Christopher Ochor, Hon. Ndudi Elumelu, Chief Nkem Okwuofu, Pharm. Paul Enebeli, Barr. Sam Osasa, Chief Festus Ochonogor, Hon. Emeka Nwobi, Dr. Festus Okubor, Ide Tony Nwaka, Chief Moses Iduh, Ide Austin Izagbo, Chief Fidelis Tilije, Chief Chris Agbobu, among several others.
Reading the resolutions reached at the meeting, Deputy Governor Monday Onyeme said, “we have agreed that we must work for the unity of our party, take the issue of opposition very seriously, leaders should communicate the decisions of government and the party to the grassroots level to avoid ambiguity; party meetings should be held at neutral grounds, and we should discourage the issue of old and new APC and advocate that the next state Chairman should come from Delta North Senatorial District.
“We also agreed that our local government Chairmen should be supported to enable them succeed.
“We also resolved that we should replicate this leadership meetings at local government and ward levels.
“We also resolved that we should work to bring more persons into the APC, mobilize our people to register in our party and work to translate the registration to votes.”
Just as I was about to file in this features, a call came in that Deputy Governor Monday Onyeme will be at the Event Center, Asaba for the premier of the movie, “Making The Difference,” as part of activities to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the existence of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). The movie premiere scheduled to commence at 7 pm on Monday, July 7, 2025 we hope will be a tonic and relax the nerves of those who believe that the NDDC is not doing enough for the people, especially, the oil producing communities of Ndokwa ethic nationality where their signboards are hardly found not to talk about projects. The less than six kilometers Ugiliamai/Ossissa road, an important road linking Ndokwa West and Ndokwa East local government areas of Delta State are still begging for attention, even grading of the road by the local government council.
There is no doubt that the Office of the Deputy Governor of Delta State is a busy one. This is generally because, the Governor is happy to have a trusted Deputy and both are working assiduously for the benefit of the people of the state in general.
As a Deltan or someone residing in Delta State, the challenge is that if we made the right choice by voting for Governor Sheriff Oborevwori and his Deputy to pilot the affairs of the state, as an individual, what are you contributing to make the state better?
Yes! Making Delta great is a collective responsibility; the Government will not come and clean your residence, and they will also, caution you not to dump refuse in the drains.
However, the onus is on you to do the right thing because the benefits inherent in engaging in right actions are multifaceted.
For instance, flooding will greatly be reduced if you do not dump refuse in the drains. As such, as an individual, do the right thing and encourage others to engage in the right actions and we will achieve Delta of our collective dream, a largely crime-free state that is socio-economically buoyant, for the benefit of all.
God bless Delta State!
The author, Comrade Fidelis Egugbo, is the Senior Special Assistant, Media to the Governor of Delta State and the Chief Press Secretary to Deputy Governor Monday Onyeme.
