There is a fierce battle between the political camps of a retired Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Defence, Chief Mike Okibe Onoja and Senator David Mark over who would represent the Idoma people of the Benue South senatorial district in the Senate come 2015. Onoja says it is time for Mark to go because he has done nothing for his people. On the other hand, Mark’s political agents say replacing him is political suicide for the Idomas, writes correspondent, SUNDAY OGLI.
The stage is again set for another political Brigadoon in Benue South Senatorial District, where the present Senate President hails from. Sen. David Mark rode to the Senate in 1999 after he returned to the country from self-exile. He fled after a disagreement with former military Head of State, Gen Sani Abacha on issues bordering on the administration of the country then.
He is today the President of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Mark on return from exile joined the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP after much consideration. Gen. Geoffery Ejiga (rtd.) officially received him into the party at the then popular park bordering the state library in Otukpo, in 1998.
Senator Mark declared his intension to vie for the senatorial seat, a decision that brought him face to face with Sen. Ameh Ebute, a one-time Senate President of the federal republic, who was then also a member of PDP. The two locked horns at the primary election and Mark emerged victorious and that victory heralded him into the Senate in 1999 and indeed into Nigeria’s political theatre.
Mark’s second term ambition brought him in collision with Gen Lawrence Onoja (rtd). Gen Onoja is considered by some as the political archrival of Mark who himself is a retired general. Unfortunately, for Onoja who was a PDP breed like Ebute, the primary election did not favour him and so he left the party for the defunct United Nigeria Peoples Party, UNPP. Like Ebute, Onoja also lost at the polls.
But Mark was not yet done with the two terms he spent at the Senate and therefore put in for a third term in 2007. In fact, at that time, it did not occur to anyone that he had the ambition of becoming the President of the Senate. That bid was to take him to the Court of Appeal in Jos, Plateau State, where he won his appeal against the judgment of the election petition tribunal in Makurdi.
His opponent, Young Alhaji, who had won the first leg of the judgment at the election petition tribunal in Makurdi, expected that the higher court would toe the line of the lower court, but that was not the case.
The drama that preceded his ascension into the exalted seat of the Senate is still fresh in the memory of most political actors and watchers.
The then governor of the state, Sen. George Akume, who today is the Senate Minority Chief Whip, had plotted Mark’s fall by mobilising government functionaries to work against his ambition.
Then, nobody thought that Akume, who though, was going to be a first timer in the Senate, had his eyes on the Senate’s plum seat. In fact, when reporters prodded him to know if he had his eyes on the seat, he replied by saying that he would not be that foolish to contemplate such a thing since he was a new comer.
But he did the opposite. While other senators who threw their hats into the ring backed out of the fight, Akume was adamant and fought Mark until he also lost.
The story was the same in 2011. Onoja again contested against Mark and lost, not just at the polls but also at the election tribunal and the Court of Appeal.
And just like the previous elections, aspirants in the senatorial district have started rolling out their ambitions, not just for the senatorial election but other elective positions ahead of 2015.
The lone contester so far at the senatorial turf is Chief Mike Okibe Onoja, though Mark is yet to declare whether he will vie for another tenure at the upper legislative chamber or not, the retired Permanent Secretary has rolled out the drums of war, threatening to chase Sen. Mark out of the Senate.
Speaking to Association of Benue Journalists, ABJ in Abuja recently, Onoja stated that Mark had overstayed at the Senate doing nothing and therefore should be pushed out before he makes the place his everlasting abode.
He boasted that he would square up against Mark on all fronts, harping on the issue of pipe borne water, bad roads and state creation as challenges still facing the Benue people.
Even in Makurdi, the state capital, 95 per cent of the populace depends on water vendors for their water supply. This is even so with the commissioning of the multibillion naira Greater Makurdi Water Works and other water facilities at Otobi, Katsina-Ala and Anyiin by President Goodluck Jonathan a couple of years ago.
But the truth must be told, Onoja has the constitutional right to contest for any elective seat in his fatherland, including the Benue South Senatorial seat, which is not the exclusive preserve of anybody, including Mark.
According to an interview, which was widely used in several newspapers, he noted that the Idoma people are tired of Sen. David Mark and have baptised him (Onoja) to go and take over from him.
But the political camp of the Senate President has declared that the moves being made by Chief Onoja to unseat Sen. Mark at the Senate will fail.
Speaking with newsmen recently Chief David Attah, noted that contrary to Onoja’s expectation, “the Senate President, David Mark’s purported plan to return to the Senate will be a smooth sail.”
Attah said though Onoja reserves the legitimate right to contest for the senatorial seat, he is not likely to go far in view of what he described as ‘special political circumstances and exigencies of the moment.’
“Onoja has the legitimate aspiration to contest the election to the Senate, but I am of the view that the political circumstances and the exigencies of the moment are stacked against him,” Attah said.
The former image maker to Gen. Abacha, posited that, “at the moment, Sen. David Mark, by virtue of his position as the Senate President and the third most powerful Nigerian in the current political dispensation represents the voice of Idoma people. His reelection, in fact, will make him the highest-ranking Senator in the land. For Idoma people to shop for another person to replace him at this material time will be tantamount to embarking on a political suicide mission.”
Meanwhile with the stiff opposition from both ends and the reported resilience by Chief Onoja to stop Sen. Mark, has the end finally come for him as a senator? Only time will tell.