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By Bennett Nwanguma
In the last one month, the dots seem to have connected in the best of places for Hope Uzodimma, the governor of Imo State and a former senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. First, he received the highest honour bestowed by the Government of Rivers State, a neighboring state to his home state of Imo. Next, he received the highly coveted national honour of Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON), and soon after, he also emerged the Chairman of the Progressive Governors Forum – an umbrella group of all the state governors elected on the platform of APC. While the most prestigious of these honours is the national honor of CON, the most significant and most influential must be his emergence as the Chairman of the Progressive Governors Forum.
Uzodimma’s meteoric rise in the national political sphere is rather remarkable. It can all be traced to April 2018 when Uzodimma defected from PDP to APC, while still serving as a senator. When this happened, political observers wondered what the attraction to APC was. At the time of his defection, he was a distinguished two – term senator and a prominent member of the main opposition party, PDP. He also seemed to be enjoying a healthy relationship with his constituents and the PDP family, especially in his home state of Imo. The speculation then was that the office of the President of the Senate had been zoned to the South-East geopolitical zone, but there was no ranking APC senator from the zone to occupy the office. If this was the reason for the defection it failed to materialize because the incumbent President of the Senate, Dr Bukola Saraki, had other plans and held on to his office until the very end of the 8th senate.
Uzodimma’s next big political move was to join the race for the governorship of Imo State. At the time he formally declared his intention, it looked more like a gamble and a mission impossible. The question on every lip was, “why would this political strategist give up his safe senate seat for a bigger, but uncertain political office”? The uncertainty of this new move was attributable to a number of factors which stacked the odds against him.
First, the central APC government led by President Buhari had been unpretentious and unapologetic in its marginalization of the South-East. It was ironic, therefore, that this advocate of politics of national integration and equity would pitch his tent with APC – a party that apparently enjoyed the least of support amongst his Igbo kinsmen. As a senator, Uzodimma had written books and delivered countless lectures in which he bemoaned the unfair treatment of Igbos. In one of those lectures, he traced the history of Igbo marginalization to the civil war and blamed all the post-war administrations for complicity in the unfair treatment of the South-East. The next challenge was that Rochas Okorocha – the then incumbent governor of Imo state – had literally ruined the goodwill of APC and made the party virtually unelectable in the state. The people had seen through the deceit behind his promises and bogous claims. They had figured out the emptiness of his free education programme, the Imo Air and other similar phantom and white elephant projects across the state. Others loathed him for also appropriating state-owned properties, including a university, in utter disregard for the rule of law. Besides, Governor Okorocha had perfected a plan to have Chief Uche Nwosu, his son-in-law, a political rookie, succeed him as the next governor of the state. This created an additional obstacle that made Senator Uzodimma’s ambition more of an uphill task. The most dicey of these obstacles was to secure the ticket that would make him the flag bearer of APC in the state. In an attempt to clear the way for his anointed successor, Chief Okorocha openly announced the political “retirement” of all those he perceived as viable threats to his plans, and this included Senator Uzodimma and other political heavyweights in his party, namely, Prince Eze Madumere, his deputy, and Senator Ifeanyi Ararume.
To the surprise of many political observers, Uzodimma secured the APC ticket. Undeterred, Governor Okorocha facilitated the departure of Chief Uche Nwosu to another party, the Action Alliance, where he easily emerged the gubernatorial candidate. This resulted in the further weakening of APC in the state. Governor Okorocha went on to deploy the vast resources at his disposal as an incumbent governor behind Chief Nwosu. Senator Uzodimma was literally left to drive a vehicle whose tyres had been deflated. Determined as ever, Uzodimma sought to galvanize the remnants of APC membership in the state, and got them to unite behind him. Some of these party loyalists had worked with him to abort Okorocha’s plans, and were therefore willing to go the whole hug with him. It was this weakened APC that Hope Uzodimma inherited in Imo State. Going into the elections, Uzodimma’s strongest opponent was Rt. Hon. Emeka Ihedioha, whose party, PDP, had enjoyed the historic sympathy of the South-East. Emeka Ihedioha, a former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, was contesting for the second time, and hailed from Mbaise – a populous and easily the most homogenous group in Owerri zone. At the time of the election, Owerri zone was making a valid claim that it was their turn to produce the next governor of the state. Because Ihedioha had lost the last elections to Okorocha, his supporters included all those who were not pleased by Okorocha’s leadership as well as all those who felt Owerri zone should provide the next governor of the state for the sake of equity. At the end of the election, Ihedioha was announced the winner and declared the governor of the state. Convinced that this did not reflect the true outcome of the elections, Uzodimma went to court to contest the result. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court and Uzodimma was finally declared the winner of the election in January 2020. This judgment brought the tenure of Ihedioha to a sudden end – just six months after his inauguration.
Soon after assumption of office, Governor Uzodimma was confronted by a rather hydra–headed type of political opposition. The PDP and their supporters were top on the list. Their disappointment at the outcome of the court case was likened to yanking a baby off the mother’s breasts. There were also by-standers who doubted that the new governor would have the courage to recover the stolen assets of the state from his predecessor, since both of them were technically in the same political party. This doubt was strengthened when videos of both men celebrating the court verdict with their party chairman, Adams Oshiomole, went viral. However, Governor Uzodimma knew he had his work cut out for him. When he vowed to recover the commonwealth of the people this was seen as a direct a confrontation with his predecessor and his cronies. Uzodimma also had to contend with the not so good sentiment associated with APC in the state. Being mindful of these challenges, the new governor was eager to make a name for himself. He quickly studied the mood of the people, identified the priorities of the state and came up with a programme of recovery and restoration. This seemed to have successfully addressed one of the immediate concerns of Imo people. Sadly, before he could settle down to work, he was confronted by an unusual and unforeseen form of challenge. One of the challenges manifested in the form of an unprecedented degree of violence which was perpetrated by the so-called “unknown gunmen”. The title of unknown gunmen was a sheer confirmation of their confusing identity and motive. Following a spate of violence which seemed to be initially targeted at the Police and law enforcement, the new governor sought the intervention of the FG and the military was invited to protect the state. Sadly and typically, the actions of these soldiers have been judged to be rather high-handed, particularly because of the degree of collateral damage often left on the trail of their missions.
In terms of governance, Uzodimma inherited a hostile environment – a people who had become suspicious of government on the basis of their experience in the hands of his predecessor. Today, the narrative seems to have changed for good. How Uzodimma turned the hostile atmosphere around has become a topic for discussion at various fora. He is credited with rebuilding vital and strategic road infrastructure in the state and restoring the civil service and its processes to a serious business. Ironically, he did this rather quietly.
This article is not about Uzodimma’s achievements, but about his rising profile on the national political stage. Soon after he joined the APC in 2018, he was appointed into the membership of Board of Trustees. He also served in several other high level committees of the party, including those charged with planning the annual conventions of the party. Remarkably, he was able to bring President Buhari to Imo State on at least three occasions to inaugurate various projects over a short period of two years. Uzodimma’s latest emergence as the Chairman of the Progressive Governors’ Forum may seem like the icing on the cake, but the last has not been heard of this unapologetic and unrepentant advocate of the political integration of the South-East. The chairmanship of the Progressive Governors Forum is obviously a very strong position of visibility and influence, considering that his party, APC, is in power at the centre. As a nationalist, Hope Uzodimma has always fought for increased integration of his people of south – eastern Nigeria, the Igbos, irrespective of the obvious cases of marginalization. He has always argued that the dream of an Igbo president or more succinctly, a president of Igbo extraction, can only be realized through negotiation and cooperation with politicians from other parts of the country. He has also been an advocate of a fairer and equitable distribution of development and opportunities across the tribes and regions. As a senator, he used the national assembly as a veritable stage for the battle for equity and fairer treatment of his people. As the chairman of the South-East Senators Forum in the National Assembly, he was involved in many of such silent battles along this line. As the Governor of Imo state, he has openly condemned the activities of the separatist groups, especially that of the Independent People of Biafra (IPOB). His advice is that Igbos would fare better in various fields, including trade and commerce, in a united Nigeria, where no one is marginalized. His ambitious pursuit of the dredging of Orashi river to the Atlantic ocean is driven by this same desire to boost the economic potential of the South east. And, like everyone seems to be saying, if Uzodimma succeeds in this plan to have a seaport in the Southeast, he would have written his name in gold and in the sands of time. He would have done what Napoleon could not do. As the Chairman of the Progressive Governors Forum, Uzodimma has been gifted the biggest stage ever to continue his pursuit of a fairer deal for his people.
Hope Uzodimma will face a re-election contest in November. If this was to be based on his performance so far, his chances of victory at the contest are quite bright. He has taken the act of governance to a very serious level – beyond what transpired in the days of his immediate predecessor and beyond the imagination of both his detractors and best admirers. He has clearly demonstrated an immense capacity to take the big decisions. He has addressed the seemingly intractable problem of poor state of the so-called federal roads linking the state capital to neighboring cities. He has leveraged his relationship with the centre to also address some other needs of the state. This has yielded a new teaching hospital, a new federal university of education and potentially, an inland port in the South-East. In his new position as the Chairman of the Progressive Governors Forum, Governor Uzodimma is in a stronger position to negotiate and attract many more of these goodies not just to Imo State, but to the entire South-East. Judging from his political antecedents, the sky seems to be the limit for Senator Hope Odidika Uzodimma.
• Professor Bennett Nwanguma writes from Nsukka .
