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Marcus Aligwe
The issue of the successor to Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (Gburugburu) in 2023 has dominated political discussions in Enugu State and beyond. Reasons for the attention it has gained span from Enugu, the Coal City, being Eastern Nigeria’s heritage and political hub of not just the present South East geopolitical zone but also as the epicentre of Nigeria’s third leg of the tripod.
Since the return of democratic governance in 1999, the state has been blessed with smooth electoral processes, contrary to some other states whose cantankerous electioneering had severally put them as flashpoints anytime elections are conducted in the country. The Enugu blessing of peaceful politics could be traced to the state’s torturous past, when it headed the fight for the liberation of Wawa people from the clutches of its southern Igbo brothers that politically relegated the areas in present-day Enugu and Ebonyi states.
One of the heroes of the Wawa liberation movement, Chief Enechi Onyia, SAN, in one of his accounts of the horrific road to the creation of Enugu State, gave graphic details of how it was a taboo to ask for liberation, state of own or self-determination, like in the case of present-day agitators for re-actualisation of sovereignty for a Republic of Biafra.
Perhaps, having come that far from a background of a chequered past, the state needed all the peace to catch up with not just human capital development in comparison with its sister states, but also of infrastructural equilibrium. No wonder, since 1999, Enugu State has experienced smooth transition from one governor to the other.
One of the cardinal principles that has safeguarded peaceful transition in the state is the principle of rotation among the three senatorial districts, which is an unwritten agreement but a convention willingly submitted to by the sages who understood the diversity of the people of Enugu State and how cohesion could be built to accelerate development in every part of the state.
Unfortunately, the rotation treaty in Enugu State has today been made a subject of scrutiny because, from such a humanitarian concept, individuals have been built that they now have the boldness, and probably the finance, to stand up and challenge their ‘chi’ like little Nza bird did after an elaborate feast. It is said that those whose palm kernels were cracked for them by a benevolent spirit should not forget to be humble, so it should be for any politician who in the present-day Enugu State has acquired much wealth or connection to the extent that he now feels that he can challenge his ‘chi’ to a wrestling combat to truncate his foundation.
It is time for Enugu people to be wiser than the man with the palm fronds (igu), because they are not goats, and insist on the rotation principle, which has done the people a lot good in the past 21 years.
Maintaining rotation of governorship in the state is a task that should be upheld, but requires eyes beyond the façade of the ordinary to select the best man for the time. In Enugu East Senatorial zone, whose turn it is unarguably to produce Ugwuanyi’s successor in 2023, there are many new kids on the block, but among them conspicuously stands out the man of the moment, the rave master and one with inherent love, push and passion for the old and new order in the state, Dr. Josef Umunnakwe Onoh.
Young Josef Onoh, as chairman, Enugu Capital Territory Development Authority (ECTDA), has proved with the little opportunity offered to him by the Ugwuanyi administration that, if given a bigger task, the state would be returned to one of the resilient and fastest-growing states in the globe.
Unlike the biblical prophet without honour in his country, Onoh has people he has crossed paths with in his bid to sanitise the Enugu Capital Territory, but it takes an eagle eye to make an in-depth appraisal of a job such as his. For me, Onoh represents the new Enugu, not trapped with vestiges of background baggage, but born, nurtured and armed with strong leadership traits.
Issues in recent times have showcased Onoh as a true son of his father, the Aninefungwu himself, meaning, the land that grows a great tree will always produce great trees, and so have the Onohs continued to regenerate in Enugu State, and the young Josef has continued in the foot path.
If there was anything J.J. Emejulu, the man who demolished Enugu Airport fence, did without knowing, it was the affirmation of Onoh as a brutal enforcer of compliance with law and order. Whereas outrage trailed Emejulu’s demolition of a Federal Government asset at Akanu Ibiam International Airport, yet people did not know that Onoh’s office had long found Emejulu’s property deficient alongside other properties in the axis and already secured a court order against the property. In Onoh, Emejulu met his match and if Emejulu was a gangster, Onoh was the Al Capone.
Practically unassuming, at the point Onoh accompanied Minister of Aviation, Sen. Hadi Sirika, on inspection of Emejulu’s demolition, where the minister threatened fire and brimstone, no one knew that the ECTDA had obtained a court order to remove Emejulu’s house from the waterway.
Young Onoh’s enforcement of capital territory’s regulation is no doubt a modern-day replication of his father Chief C.C. Onoh’s objection to the inglorious dichotomy and segregation and discrimination against the Wawa by the southern Igbo. The late C.C, as the older Onoh was fondly called, brought confidence and restored the dignity of Wawaman in Igboland.
That being the case, in every single form, Enugu State should not be looking for another person to succeed Governor Ugwuanyi other than the man who has helped the administration sanitize the state and, coincidentally, comes from the choice senatorial district, Enugu East.
The year 2023 will make it 30 years since 1983 when Josef’s father, C.C. Onoh, occupied Enugu’s Lion Building for three months. Who knows if the young Onoh would be the one that would complete the dream that the military junta snatched and cut short of the Onoh governorship in the old Anambra state?
The way his father had protected Enugu and indeed Wawaland, guarding it jealously, has continued to re-echo in his enforcement of sanity and preservation of Enugu heritage. I, therefore, give my vote to Onoh as Enugu State governor, come 2023.
•Aligwe, a retired school principal, wrote from Agbani Road, Enugu
