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The most effective lie is the one that has the shortest distance to the truth. The
Ngwa Social Club seems to have ostensibly joined the vitriolic outbursts of the
ukwa la ngwa who are out to confuse people with their definition of “justice, equity and fairness”. What is fair in tainting a documented fact with barefaced falsehood. They are simply scoffing at the genuine demand of the Abia North
Senatorial Zone. How could power Rotation now be along clanish considerations
rather than the senatorial Zones which the books prescribe? If it were by such
considerations, would an Ngwa man have had a turn by 2015, given that Orji
Kalu with whom it started in 1999, comes from Igbere which is different from
Item, different from Isu-ikwuato, different from Ohafia, different from Bende,
Nneato, Abam, Ihechiowa, Arochukwu, Abiriba, Alayi, Isuochi etcetera. Or would
the former Governor, Senator T.A Orji not have gone to Ikwuano, Ubakala,
Ohuhu, Oboro, etcetera, to find a successor? The position being canvassed in
the article is as alarming as it is condemnable.
Only a couple of days back the same Ngwa people reacted with vile insults
against Senator T.A Orji, just for stating the obvious on same issue. Their outrage
poured like torrents from different groups as though the elder statesman had
no freedom of speech. This desperation to retain power is assuming a level that
makes people lose their rationality. A document that predated the creation of
Abia State and Ebonyi State could not have intended to operate as sacrosanct in
the present configuration of Abia as a State.
That ‘the Old Umuahia District has ruled Abia for 16 years’ was not a function of
ethnic sentiment. It was rather on the basis of a fair and equitable rotation of
power, along the constitutionally recognised basis of senatorial Zones. In the zoning arrangement, the present Abia North Senatorial Zone is mainly of the Old Bende people and multi-clanish in setting, and the Abia Central Zone is made up of a combination of equal number of the two divides; three local governments
of Umuahia North, Umuahia South and Ikwuano, all of old Bende, while Isiala
Ngwa North, Isiala Ngwa South and Osisioma Local Governments of the Old Aba
Zone populate this three local Governments.
When Orji Uzor Kalu finished his eight years in 2007, he shifted power to Abia
Central Senatorial Zone of multi clanish geopolitics, with Ngwa people, Umuahia
people, Ikwuano people, etcetera. but Sen T.A Orji from Ibeku emerged as his successor. It would have been unfair if Sen T.A orji finished 8 years and rooted for Ikwuano or any other clan on such sentiments, Dr. Alex Oti or Dr. Uche Ogah,
as is being canvassed by the Ngwa Social Club. He rather continued in the clockwise trajectory, to Abia south of the Ngwa and Ukwa people. The lot
favoured Okezie Ikpeazu as an Ngwa person from Abia South. During these times there were always the isolated incidents of aspirants from other zones who
hotly contested this positions, without recourse to the so called zoning
arrangement, but what has always stood clear against them is the sway of
Executive support.
When Dr. Alex Oti contested same position in Abia 2015, the argument was that
he is not of Abia South extraction, not because he was not Ngwa. He is fully Ngwa and proudly so. He was very popular, with a massive war chest and an
enviable political networking, yet he lost to the present Governor, because the
sway of Executive support was massed behind Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu against the
sturdy Alex Oti, purely on the principle of the power rotation along Senatorial
Zones in a clockwise fashion. Ditto with Dr. Uche Ogah who is from Abia North.
If this ethnic consideration informed the thinking of the Establishment, there is
no possibility by which Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu of the Ngwa land would have
emerged.
Hear them, “therefore let it be well known and clearly understood that Ngwa
Nation cannot and will not be intimidated or bullied into accepting this atrocious
and completely repugnant view being canvassed by some misinformed and/or
deceitful persons who obviously do not mean well for our dear State”.
What impudent rascality is such statement?! Alluding to an elder statesman as
“misinformed”, “deceitful” and “not meaning well for the State”, all because he
stood firm on principle by declaring that power should shift to the North in the
same manner that he insisted 7 years ago that made you a beneficiary in Dr.
Okezie Ikpeazu. The tragic significance of this hollow campaign is that a Party
ticket to the Ukwa Ngwa on this premise will certainly spell doom for such a
Party, as the days of ‘writing election results’ are over. Engrossed in an
overmastering desire to retain power, the Ngwa people have caused a stir in the
Abia political space and deeply despised elders who dare speak the truth. What
a shame!
Truth be told, the dramatist personae in this controversy is the governor, whose
continued silence in this raging war suggests a veiled nod to this groups. If the
Governor would take a cue from his predecessors and insist that power got to
him because it was a clockwise trajectory along Senatorial Zones, and therefore should not become a pendulum under his watch, this controversies and
vituperations would cease.
What consolation would you offer the Abia North Zone to make him wait beyond
16 years before taking power, when he knows that in a fair and equitable power
rotation arrangement, no zone can wait beyond 16 years. It has been
established that no one can cry more than the bereaved. Only a
Governor from Abia North will be able to tackle the developmental needs of
Abia North with the requisite zeal.
In the fervent activism of the this period, provoked by the Ngwa clamour to hand
power over to themselves, the ancient injunction that honour be given to whom
it is due, has been consigned to the trash can. They have become intolerant of
any form of dissent in very high voltage, as is made known in their subtle threat.
They have primed their people to a frenzy not withstanding the far reaching and
disastrous consequences it might lead to when they loose this ‘fight’ they have
begun.
The Ngwa groups undertaking this campaign of calumny are advised to observe
a strict boundary between civility and rascality in their choice of words, not to
further widen the polarisation of Abia polity. Surely, as sure as the seasons,
when that time comes, reason will prevail, the Governor will not be deceived and those who propound and push this agenda will be defeated in their own turf!!
Michael Kalu is of Abia North Senatorial Zone, in Abia State
