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Nigeria went up in smoke for most of the last two weeks. But for this unfortunate incident, the proposed senatorial by-election in Imo and 10 other states would have held last weekend. Indeed, the attendant needless carnage and wanton destruction of properties that trailed the #EndSARS protest is regrettable and most unfortunate.
However, it serves as a warning to the electoral umpire and security operatives to take note of activities and utterances of political gladiators, especially with regard to Imo North, to ensure peace and order prior, during and after the election, whenever it is rescheduled. This becomes necessary in the face of obvious pranks by self-evident losers.
It seems that as Imo North zeroes in on D-Day, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its standard-bearer, Emma Okewulonu, are aware of imminent crushing defeat. Moreover, having shot itself in the leg and ended up in a dead end that has left it rudderless without any executive, the Imo PDP, and certain hirelings, out of desperation, has become an agent of misinformation and vile propaganda.
One shudders at the level of lies heaped at the doorsteps of the Minister of State for Education, Hon. Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, whose only crime is exercising his fundamental human right and supporting Sir Frank Ibezim, the candidate of his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC). The mischievous propagandists accuse the minister and Governor Hope Uzodinma of imposing Ibezim on them, whereas Ibezim emerged from transparent primaries supervised by the party’s representatives from Abuja, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and security operatives.
Unfortunately, even as almost all of Ibezim’s former co-aspirants have pitched tent with him and are active in his campaigns, some bad losers have resorted to spreading falsehood and causing distraction through an ineffectual lawsuit and the insipid argument that Nwajiuba is running for Senate by proxy. None has explained how this would play out since the nomination processes stipulated by INEC have since elapsed and the substitution window also closed. It is sad too that Obowo, in promoting the candidature of their son, Chief Emmanuel Okewulonu, have adopted a clannish approach to this brotherly contest.
Now, we need to straighten the records: In the past 21 years of senatorial representation for Imo North, Okigwe North took eight years via Sen. Ifeanyi Ararume (who is fruitlessly seeking a comeback); old Etiti, comprising Obowo and Ihitte Uboma, took eight and five years, respectively, while Ehime Mbano is yet to taste that seat. It is a shame that some people in Obowo are making a mountain out of a molehill of Ibezim and Nwajiuba hailing from the same Nsu town in Ehime Mbano. They pretend not to remember that when Chief Charles Ugwu from Obowo was minister, Senators Sylvester Anyanwu and Matthew Nwagwu also came from the same Obowo. Even currently, Hon. Chike Okafor, a two-term member, representing Okigwe South Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, also hails from the same area as Hon. Kennedy Ibe of the Imo State House of Assembly. Likewise, Okewulonu, who is also from Obowo, joined his brother minister and Senator when he was appointed a Federal Commissioner in the Fiscal Responsibility Commission in Abuja. Nobody begrudged them on account of where they came from.
Even the election of the late Senator Ben Uwajumogu would never have been possible if others had exhibited such myopic mindset. It is obvious that Obowo have had more than a fair share of representing Okigwe Zone. Haba, greed is evil and must be called by its name!
Sadly, they are not content with repaying evil for good; they are also casting reckless aspersions on their superiors. If nobody resented Obowo when their kinsmen, Sam Anyanwu, was senator, and Charles Ugwu, a minister, why will it be a problem now that an Nsu son wants to be senator when another Nsu man is minister? It is even annoying the way they are describing Nsu in undeserved derogatory terms. Anyway, like someone rightly said: When opposition is bereft of issues and ideas to move a people forward, they become clannish and start throwing sand, which means they have accepted defeat before the contest. It is only fair that the old Etiti axis should wait for another time, instead of sowing evil seed that may germinate to haunt them tomorrow.
Another faux invention of drivers of the PDP candidate is calling wolf where there is none. Apparently preparing excuses ahead of imminent defeat, they have raised false alarm of unravelling plans to rig the by-election on October 31. This could just be a deliberate plot to distract, coming from a party whose prowess in that area is well known, especially in the recent past where humongous Mbaise votes alone were used to determine who governed the state before the Supreme Court intervened. Indeed, since INEC, security agencies and other relevant stakeholders are allegedly complicit in the plot, there is urgency for them to get to the root of this ‘kind tip’.
It is also funny that the Presidency is being dragged into the senatorial mix. Obviously, PDP has become afflicted by the worst form of debasing befuddlement. If, as the party rightly admitted, the President allowed democracy to prevail in the Edo gubernatorial election, how could he now meddle in an ordinary senatorial by-election in Imo State?
The PDP and its candidate have actually embarked on an illusory journey in its political jeremiad. To also posit that Nsu clan has rejected Ibezim is to say the least, extreme chicanery, as Nsu is solidly behind their son, Ibezim, and I am in a vaulting position to say so. One thing I don’t understand about politics is whether it must be perfidious. I would advise that they leave Nsu alone and desist from sowing seeds of discord among brethren.
Of course, it is possible that a few individuals may be opposed to Ibezim; that is what democracy is about, and Nsu has no problem with that. So, despite the groundswell support Ibezim’s candidature enjoys even among PDP faithful in Nsu, there may still be die-hard party optimists, who would sink or swim with PDP, not necessarily because of Okewulonu, who is having it rough in his own Obowo clan because of his political antecedents, a heavy baggage Ibezim does not carry.
No doubt, Okewulonu is well qualified to go to the senate. That is why he is assumed to be in the reckoning for the two-horse race. However, he should encourage his promoters to be as decorous as Ibezim’s supporters; he should stop them from casting barbs at opponents because people inside glass houses should avoid throwing stones.
It is fundamental to note that the People that matter in Obowo, and, in fact, greater number of Obowians, are kicking against Okewulonu because he was never known to have supported previous candidates from his area, such as Matthew Iwuagwu, Sam Anyanwu and Chike Okafor. People see things clearer now and as a payback are deserting him in droves. He should actually work hard to patch up his leaking roof instead of stoking fire in Ibezim’s very tight home base as well as resolving the scattered and ragged house of PDP in Imo State.
Obowians are asking salient questions of their eminently illustrious son, who has been in the thick of buttered appointments since 1993 despite some lackeys’ stealthy attempts to hoodwink the people? He should provide them with answers notwithstanding the damage rapacious hunger had done to the psyche of the men, ripping him off. Otherwise, is it not baffling how few ‘anywhere belle face’ flunkies still hang around political adventurers, waiting for miserly crumbs to drop from vanishing tables?
I leave politics for politicians but I insist that it is self-defeating for Okigwe Zone to send an opposition candidate to the Senate, no matter his assumed credentials. Currently, there is nothing anyone can do about the fact and truth that the APC occupies the Aso Rock Villa in Abuja and Douglas House in Owerri. The NASS from Imo and the State House of Assembly are also in the firm grips of APC. Likewise, commissioners, advisers and local government administrators are APC. Therefore, Okigwe must exorcise itself of whatever deluding witchcraft spirit that would make her send a lone ranger to the Senate; he would definitely return home overwhelmed, bereft and broken, to the colossal detriment of Ndi Okigwe. Tufiakwa!!!
