Anorom-Onwem Ogbodo
Detestable, this is the best word to describe the piece written by Chimezie Ogenna Nwodo Esq, published in The Sun Newspaper of Thursday, May 14, 2020, dripping with hate, and divisiveness, no better example of hate speech can be found in recent times than that rejoinder on the same topic written by Mr. Julius Aneke, which was also published in The Sun Newspaper of Friday, May 8, 2020.
While dismissing Mr. Aneke’s essay with a wave of the hand, Mr. Chimezie Nwodo found for himself a veritable platform to bring to the public glare his people’s disdain and prejudice against the people of Isi-Uzo LGA while also dismissing in a rather very uncharitable manner any interest or ambition that any person or persons from Isi-Uzo LGA might have towards the 2023 governorship election in Enugu State.
This is what he wrote of Mr. Aneke’s essay simply because he included Isi-Uzo LGA as the one of the six local government councils in the zone from which the next governor of Enugu State might come from after the tenure of His Excellency, Rt. Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, in 2023: “Howbeit, in spite of Mr. Aneke’s painstaking efforts, my delight vanished upon noting the rather rattling brevity he employed in treating such a serious issue that is capable of imploding the extant political structure, and completely altering the magna carta of the state. To say the least, Mr. Aneke’s thesis ended before it started.”
Really? When has the length of an essay or the brevity of it become the measure of the validity or substance of that essay or even the rectitude of the writer’s opinion? Perhaps, as a way of contributing his clerical tonsure or in his bid to augment the mantra of “Madu agwu na Nkanu? (Is there nobody left in Nkanu land?),” Mr. Chimezie Nwodo is over-stretching his thin literary ability to its elastic limit in order to pander to the whims and caprices of his clan.
Let it not be lost on the readers that the historical adumbration of Nkanuland is of intense polarisation. Nkanuland has for long been troubled by obnoxious and parochial tendencies of caste system and indigene/non-indigene or settler dichotomy. Truth is that Nkanuland has always been embroiled in schism of the worst order, its people have an appetite and taste or, if you like, tradition for prejudice and discrimination that has refused to diminish in form or velocity in spite of the preaching of the good people among them or even direct government intervention, nor would they embrace the prevailing worldview of equality of rights and privileges for every person under the sun.
It is this tainted and blemished social and political template that Chimezie Ogenna Nwodo Esq is striving so hard to impose on the electoral process and the governorship race of Enugu State by unilaterally disqualifying any person or persons from Isi-Uzo LGA who has ambition, simply on the basis that he or she, according him, did not come from “core Nlkanuland.”
Hear him, “It, therefore, does not matter that some persons from other cultural zones have spilled over to the senatorial district specifically meant for Ndi Nkanu. The choice of who should occupy the Lion Building should be left for the ‘core Nkanu Clan’ to decide.” So, all that Isi-Uzo LGA amounted to this Nkanu irredentist and his ilk in the political calculation of Enugu East Senatorial Zone is that we spilled over from Nsukka Cultural Zone, and, therefore, we will never be allowed to occupy any tangible position meant for the zone? A very dubious assumption to hold by someone without a shred of conscience.
And to push further this biased perspective, all manner of falsehood, half-truths, and outright conjecture and even blackmail upon the incumbent governor of the state are brought to bear upon the debate. The implication of his assertion that the former Speaker of Enugu State House of Assembly Hon. Eugene Odo’s ambition to succeed His Excellency, Sullivan Chimef as governor was truncated largely because, even though he is from Igbo Ettiti LGA in Enugu North Senatorial zone, he is of the Agbaja Cultural Zone is profound.
If we accept that Eugene Odo is of Agbaja Cultural Zone, it would mean that the only person who has been governor of Enugu State from the Nsukka Cultural Zone is Rt. Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, because His Excellency, Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo, whose brief tenure as governor of the state is also recorded as a tenure for Nsukka Zone and he is also from Ukehe in Igbo-Ettiti LGA, an so an Agbaja man.
Chimezie Nwodo’s attempt to blackmail the governor as having a body language that “many believe is subjective of a likely support for someone from Isi-Uzo from Nsukka Cultural Zone” is also childish and futile. Even when he owns up that “It was not uncommon for the man at the helm to overtly support or oppose candidates” he implies in his article that such rights are exclusively reserved for Ex-Governors Chimaraoke Nnamani who is from “core Nkanuland” and Sullivan Chime from Agbaja Cultural Zone.
If truth be told, Isi-Uzo people are becoming disenchanted with being treated as mere spectators in the political affairs of Enugu East Senatorial Zone, where we are supposed to be equal stakeholders. The so-called “core Nkanu people” have forgotten so easily how their leaders came pleading with all manner of promises in 1997 when the zone was about to be created for Isi-Uzo to join them, invoking our cultural similarities as evidence that we are one and the same people.
Truth still is that at that time of constituency delineation across the country under a military regime, everything was in a state of flux and particularly in Enugu State. Any of the LGAs at the border like Isi-Uzo, Igbo-Ettiti, Nkanu West, Awgu and Aninri could have gone to any zone with the stroke of a pen of the men in uniform then.
Twenty-three years down the line, all the major elective and appointive positions given to the zone have gone to the said core Nkanuland and its component LGAs. Nkanu West LGA has produced a governor of the state, secretary to Enugu State government, minister of the Federal Republic, chief of staff to the governor of Enugu State twice, federal permanent secretary, chairmen and board members of federal and state parastatals and agencies.
Nkanu East LGA has produced two deputy governors of the state, minister of the Federal Republic, federal permanent secretary, SSG, chairmen and members of boards of federal and state paratatals and agencies and even produced the first Inspector-General of Police from the South East.
Meanwhile, Enugu South LGA indigenes have gone to the Senate twice and also produced the Senate President, Minister of the Federal Republic, Chairman and Board Members of Federal and State Parastatals and Agencies and it also produced the first executive governor of Old Anambra State, though that was before the merger of Isi-Uzo to Nkanuland.
In the same vein, Enugu East Local Government has sent its indigene to the Senate twice, produced the incumbent Speaker of Enugu State House of Assembly who is on his second tenure of office, and also Chairmen and Members of Boards of Federal and State Parastatals and Agencies.
While Enugu North LGA which is a mixture of Ngwo and Nkanu people, and non-indigenes who are in more proportion has also produced a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Chairmen and Members of Boards and Heads of Federal Parastaltals Agencies. Also like Enugu South LGA it has produced the former Executive Governor old Anambra State.
Isi-Uzo LGA on the other hand has only been given the opportunity to produce a member of the House of Representatives thrice and some other auxiliary positions since we were joined to Enugu East Senatorial Zone. It is within this context that the immediate past Vice Chancellor of Enugu State University of Technology (ESUT) from Enugu East Local Government Area was used to suppliant Prof. Denchris Onah who was earlier announced as coming tops at the interview but was withdrawn almost immediately to pave way for a “core Nkanu persons” as the saying goes.
This is the true state of our union with NKanu Land, yet somebody still has the effrontery to discountenance us, the good people and obedient people of Isi-Uzo LGA from the race to the Lion Building, Enugu State in 2023 on the utterly preposterous and negative claim that we are not Nkanu enough. Our prayer is that the good people of Enugu State whose inalienable right it is to choose their leaders will weigh in on the side of truth when the time comes and liberate us from our captive base.
•Anorom-Onwem Ogbodo, a Journalist wrote in from Enugu.