Ovuozorie Macaulay: The Weeping Of A Sore Loser

Until the 6th day of October, 2018, nobody knew how manifestly ordinary Comrade Ovuozorie Samuel Macualay, the immediate past Secretary to the Government of Delta State, was, in the politics of Isoko North. Macualay who sponsored his protégé, Hon. Mike Ogwah, against the incumbent, Hon. Barr. Tim Kome Owhefere KSC, was roundly disgraced, crestfallen and demystified by an army of progressives who queued behind the Delta Assembly Leader, in a gritty struggle for a new political order in Isoko North. Macualay’s fall was an underdone testament of the transitory nature of power; an affirmation that his days of unheard arrogance, tyranny and leadership of brut and scorpion were over.

Prior to the election, Macualay perhaps still banking on his faded (hitherto unknown to him) political might, had boasted to whoever cared to listen that Hon. Tim, was on his way back to Akiewhe-Owhe. He has insisted that over his dead body will Owhefere return to the Assembly. In his narcissistic self-deification, Macualay had stated that Owhefere had never won election in his life. In fact, with an air of caustic aplomb likened to that of an overfed wrestler challenging his chi to a duel after a good meal, Macualay said he has always been the one contesting and winning elections for Tim, and that this time around, he had decided to transfer his grace to another person.

At that point, the reality dawned on Tim Owhefere that he was in for a battle of his life. Beyond the surface cubicle of the Assembly primaries lied a larger battle to exonerate his image from the Macualay narratives of his previous electoral successes. Owhefere knew the time was ripe to rewrite his story where Macualay will feature as one among thousands of political allies who had stood by him in time past and not his sole appointer. Indeed, it was an immense battle to return man from the place of God.

The result of that election is today an object of stupefaction. Macaualy’s anointed, came second with 48 votes while the winner scooped 70 votes.  Weeks after the election, Macaulay is yet to come to terms with the reality that a new order has emerged. Having been patronized bountifully by the Governor with contracts and appointments for himself and cronies, one ordinarily expected Macaulay to be sportsmanly enough to accept the outcome of the Assembly primaries and be the leader of all, but the thin god in him won’t let him. Day after day, Macaualay has made inflammatory statements suggesting he will only work for Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Senator Ifeanyi Okowa for President and Governor respectively. He has left behind the party’s Senatorial, Reps and Assembly candidates and am sure he will work for their opponents in other parties.

In a message widely publicized by his Press Secretary, Comrade Itiveh Ekpokpobe, Macualay was quoted to have campaigned vigorously for Atiku and Okowa without a mention of other party candidates. Aside that, Macualay has since withdrawn from all activities of the party at the Ward and Local Government levels. At the recently held LGA party meeting in Ozoro, Macaulay’s seat was conspicuously empty. Not only did he stayed away, rumour had it that he fixed another meeting for his supporters and cronies for that same date and time but was compelled to cancel it at the eleventh hour. From Mike Ogwah to Patrick Ferife, Prof. Aghalino, Chief Dan Odhomo and all other supporters of Macaulay were all absent at the party meeting.

Just last week, the formal lunch of the Party’s Campaign Committees took place at the Countryhome of Rt. Hon. Leo Ogor. Macaulay, again was absent. Days later, the Party’s Assistant Publicity Secretary, Comrade Emmanuel Akukwata, in a press statement, frowned at the activities of “some supposed leaders of the party which constitutes anti-party, and are unbecoming of people who have benefited so much from the PDP”. Although Akukwata did not mention names, but it was however clear that the arrows were pointing at the Owhelogbo man.

That Macualay is now the weeping child is something that should teach everyone a lesson. When Macualay was in charge, everything to him was right. He gave to those he chose to give, and suppressed every voice that seeks to ask questions. Macaulay was tyranny personified. Given the enormous powers Governor Uduaghan gave him, Macualay saw in himself the sole administrator of Isoko North and declared himself the “Jesus” with whom and only through; you can see god. He crushes dissenting voices and richly empowered the intellectually weak with no dexterity to see beyond their noses. Today, Macualay is caught in the web of his own construction. Whatever becomes the case with him, history will remember him as the man without proper education who anchored Isoko news on Television from where fortune smiled on him to join politics and rose to become one of the most powerful men in Isoko political history, but lost all to over-ambition, political miscalculation and excessive display of wickedness.

Raymond, a Freelance Journalist and Public Affair Commentator, writes from Ovrodo.