By Prof. Oguejiofo T. Ujam
After a series of interventions on the buildup to the Enugu State governorship race and reviews of the critical issues of geopolitics in the state, I have concluded that a few individuals have sworn to keep governance at a pedestrian level in the Coal City State.
It is obvious to any keen observer of Enugu State politics that the issue of zoning has tended to crowd out serious considerations of the essential qualities needed in Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi’s successor. I do not think that as a people, we, Ndi Enugu, are asking relevant questions as the 2023 general elections draw near.
Painfully, based on the peace and social harmony that has pervaded the state in the last seven years, our people are not getting assurances that the next four or eight years would not go down to the dogs. Apart from the recent climate of insecurity spurred by some creepy characters, the Coal City State has remained as peaceful and contented as ever.
However, one is appalled by the echoes of impending trouble and disharmony caused by the stalwart efforts of some political freewheelers to upturn the consensus resolve of the Enugu people for peace as the undertow of prosperity and progress.
One is further disturbed that just like obtains in the wider Nigeria, where a former Lagos State governor insists on running for the Presidency, despite 16 years’ occupation of the seat of headship of federal government by his geopolitical zone variously as President and Vice President, a fifth term Senator is unabashedly positioning himself to contest the governorship of Enugu State.
Patriotism and statesmanship lie through respect for the feelings of others, particularly the recognition of diversity as a fundamental feature of representative democracy.
In recent times, hirelings and acolytes of a former Deputy Senate President (DSP), Ike Ekweremadu, have been all over the place pushing the anti-zoning narratives as if their principal is a superstar. Truth be told, Senator Ekweremadu has made the best out of Nigeria’s electoral imperfections, because only a man with his head in the moon would dismiss the political pedigree of a five-term Senator, whether his repeat mandates were products of opportunism, impunity or even bamboozling gullible constituents.
Yet, just as the literary legend, Chinua Achebe wrote, those whose palm kernels are cracked by a benevolent spirit should not forget to be humble. Ekweremadu seems to believe that things will fall apart in Enugu State unless he is allowed to be governor against the run of play.
The Senator forgets that his party has a leader in the person of Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi and tends to believe that the best way to go about his aspiration is to attack the power-sharing arrangement in the state, which focuses on the distribution of political offices as well as orderly rotation of the governorship among the three Senatorial Zones of the state.
Though the Senator’s hack writers do not waste time mounting media attacks on whoever tries to talk reason to their paymaster, all men of goodwill from Enugu State are united in the resolve that neither Ekweremadu nor his twenty years’ stay in Nigeria’s Senate should be the issue in Enugu 2023 politics.
The idea behind the deceptive “Ike is coming” campaign by various faceless groups seemed to be anchored on the strategy of defaming and destroying the reputation of Governor Ugwuanyi in a bid to alter the mindset of Enugu State voters away from the governorship rotation arrangement in the state.
Also, as a follow up to these antics, Ekweremadu’s supporters have been feeding the rumour mills with a dubious claim that the Senator entered into a pact with Governor Ugwuanyi to handover to him at the expiration of the governor’s tenure in 2023. It is possible that the spin doctors want to create the impression that a cabal was rotating the governorship among its members.
How that will make Ekweremadu governor of Enugu State is not easy to fathom. Only those who could look beyond the shenanigans of the five-term Senator would recognise the subtle attempt to make the 2023 governorship election in Enugu State a referendum on Ekweremadu’s performance or otherwise in the Senate.
The folly of ‘Ike is coming’, which the Senator’s hirelings occupy beer parlour discussions with is that Ekweremadu is troubled by his impending years outside the corridors of power. And, as an opportunistic politician who came before his time, he thinks that there is a deal to be made with a stated ambition for governorship no matter how unrealistic that may be.
While the former DSP pursues his elusive governorship ambition, he tactically pulls the wool over the eyes of his constituents by distracting them from holding him to account for the 20-year-mandate he held on their behalf. Being clever by half, the Senator calculates that side by side with his governorship chase, he would negotiate for the emergence of a crony to take his place as the representative of Enugu West Senatorial zone in the forthcoming 10th Senate.
It is left for the people of Enugu West to open their eyes to the machinations of this self-seeking politician. But, as a registered voter from Enugu East Senatorial zone, to which all men and women of goodwill in the state expect to produce the next governor, one is constrained to remind Ekweremadu that he lacks the capability, competence or political sagacity to deny Enugu East the 2023 governorship.
It is not for nothing that the sunrises from the East. Therefore, any attempt to disrupt the flow of the rotational format of the Enugu State governorship would earn nothing less than a political waterloo for the protagonists.
Ignoring Ekweremadu’s distractions, one believes that what the people of Enugu East should do is to ensure that only the best and brightest is supported across the major political parties to succeed Governor Ugwuanyi in 2023.
In pushing forward that suggestion, one is relieved that the incumbent governor, Ugwuanyi, has not shown any inclination towards Ekweremadu’s wild goose chase for the governorship ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
If Ugwuanyi was supportive of such odd and narrow political calculations, PDP would have already paved the way for its first loss of Enugu State to an opposition party. Enugu voters may not be assertive or combative in opposing unfair political manouvres, but their resolve to shame greedy politicians has never been found wanting during decisive polls.
When Chief Gbazuagu Nweke Gbazuagu was running all over the place as General Sani Abacha’s man Friday, nobody restrained him from name-dropping or comporting himself as the man to beat in any governorship election in the state. But, when the chips were down, it took a returnee young medical doctor from America, Chimaroke Nnamani, to put him into the political wayside that accords with his standing.
Enugu voters have the penchant for remembering the hidden sins of politicians during elections. That was why a Professor of Political Science, Prof. Odenigwe could lose to a lowly rated Ogbu Nwobodo at the constituent assembly election.
Ekweremadu may think that after his 20 years’ stay in Abuja, the masses of Enugu State have forgotten how he sewed aprons to ripoff okada riders in the state around 2002. Who knows, in the unlikely event that PDP hands him the governorship ticket, the voters may be waiting to give him the Gbazuagu or Odenigwe treatment.
But, before that eventuality happens, the conversation about Enugu State’s 2023 politics should revolve around elevated thoughts and not the shenanigans of career politicians that have nothing to offer in the emerging knowledge economy of nations.
With the not so savoury tales that surround his constituency projects, one is inclined to say that Ekweremadu is not and cannot be the issue in Enugu State politics. Just as he went too early for the Senate, he is too late for the governorship of the Coal City State.
*Prof. Ujam, writes from Department of Pure and Industrial Chemistry, University of Nigeria, Nsukka