Delta PDP Chairman, ex-PDP National Chair’s wife, fight in public
It was like a cut from a Nollywood film on Friday in Delta State when the wife of a former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Mrs Mariam Ali and the current chair of the party in the state, Mr Peter Nwaoboshi, engaged in a physical fight.
The event was supposed to be the presentation of vehicles to the 25 local government party chairmen in the state at the newly-built state secretariat where the party stalwarts were waiting for the State Governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan.
Though it wasn’t clear who struck first, those in the know said that the two politicians publicly exchanged slaps and tore each others’ clothes while those present at the occasion watched bemused.
The Nigerian Times gathered that there had been a cold war between Ali, a medical doctor by profession and Nwaoboshi over feelers that she (Ali) is opposed to the aspiration of the PDP chairman to represent Delta north, the same place Ali hails from, in the senate next year.
Another issue Ali, who hails from Asaba, had against the state chairman was that he (PDP chair) manipulated the congress list by removing the duly elected executive members.
It was gathered that Ali, who apparently met the others already seated, allegedly went and sat down on the seat reserved for the Deputy Governor.
An infuriated Nwaoboshi was said to have walked up to the female politician, who holds the traditional title of the Enyi-Kpakpando Ahaba of Asaba and demanded that she stood up.
According to those who witnessed the show of shame, the heated argument led to the exchange slaps between the duo, just before the party thugs mobilised to take their own pound of flesh.
The PDP chairman said he was the one who calmed down the restive youths from physically assaulting the woman, said to be a Board of Trustees member of the party.
“Despite the provocation, I did not retaliate even when she slapped me twice and tore my dress to shreds. She could have been lynched if not for my intervention and the elders of the party,” Nwaoboshi said.
“She was the one who attacked me, tore my shirt, and slapped me twice. She went and sat on the chair reserved for the state deputy governor, and the security agents approached her to look for somewhere else to sit, and she flared up,’’ added the state party chair.
However, Ali stated that the story was the other way round, noting that the party chairman in the state had deliberately ignored her concerning the goings-on in the PDP in the state.
Ali averred that on arrival at the meeting, she met two vacant seats besides the former deputy governor, Chief Benjamin Elue, and the speaker, Mr. Peter Onwusanya, where she sat down before the Master of Ceremony publicly announced that the seat wasn’t for her.
“As that was happening, the state party chairman, Peter Nwaoboshi, was called to the scene, and walked up to me, and asked me to stand up from the seat. And before anyone could say, ‘Jack Robinson,’ he gave me several severe slaps on my face, and started fighting me, and I sprang up from my seat in defence and immediately, over a hundred youths gathered and started attacking me, and tore my clothes,” she said.
Ali, who is said to still have an interest in becoming senator, had through the influence of her husband, former PDP National Chairman, Ahmadu Ali, in 2007, contested the same position which her then lackey, Nwaoboshi, who currently has his campaign billboards everywhere in Delta, is now bent on taking over.
She contested and won the PDP primaries in Delta against Senator Patrick Osakwe, who with the support of then Governor Chief James Ibori, crossed over to the Accord Party, which Ibori had allegedly funded for any of his supporters who was denied PDP candidacy.
She however lost the election to Osakwe at the time.
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