By Anthony Iwuoma
There are just three days to go before the curtain falls on the limp administration of Governor Hope Uzodinma in Imo State.
Of course, the man does not want to go and so, is deploying the crudest arsenal to cling to power.
His is not the first of such inordinate ambition. However, thank this is not Liberia where the once gaunt Master Sergeant Doe shot his way to power and having bloated and gotten inebriated by power refused to leave until beastly Yommie Johnson savaged him. No, such cannot happen in Imo but definitely, Uzodinma must go; the chant is everywhere.
The people’s Yommie Johnson is their Permanent Voters Cards, PVCs. Uzodinma knows that there is no better weapon than that, not even a million Yommie Johnsons could rival it. That is why he has deviously applied all the tricks he knows to allegedly compromise the all-important cards by dishing out pittance to the hungry folk to harvest its details.
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I am not technology savvy and so may not know how he could do that. Some even allege that he had procured fake BVAs. However, that is the headache of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. The electoral umpire is being given an opportunity to redeem its self-soiled image and if I were the INEC chairman, Yakubu Mahmood, I would transfer the Resident Electoral Commissioner in the state alongside her key officers to avoid a repeat of the madness of March this year when the worst electoral heist was perpetrated against the people in full public view, handing Uzodinma all the legislative seats.
Also, the opposition parties must ensure that they have learned their lessons from that March tragedy. It is unfortunate that they could not organise themselves well in this contest through mergers and alliances like the opposition did against the PDP in 2015 to be able to dislodge that behemoth from power. I believe something could still be done in the next couple of days because I feel 17 candidates against Uzodinma means depletion of the opposition’s strength. Nevertheless, together, they can obstruct any underhand dealing of the state government and its collaborators in the electoral and security apparatchik.
One of the reasons Uzodinma must go is because the spirit of equity dictates that it is not the turn of Orlu Zone where he hails from to produce the next governor. This is because since 1999 when the country returned to civilian democracy, Orlu Zone has ruled Imo State for 20 years by the time Uzodinma’s tenure ends in January. Okigwe Zone had ruled for four years whereas Owerri had tasted power for barely eight months.
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Strangely, some anywhere-belle-face politicians in the state have been coerced or induced to canvass for Uzodinma to continue for another four years in the ‘spirit of equity’. This shameful misrepresentation of equity by the AGIP (Any Government in Power) ‘elders’ is the reason evil thrives in Imo.
The worst of it all is the ravaging insecurity in the state. Several communities in the state, including Uzodinma’s Orlu, are now ghost towns because inhabitants, especially the youths, have fled into exile because of the fear of being killed or framed. Many non-state actors have reduced Imo to a killing field.
Even if one magnanimously exempts the governor from the allegations of complicity, what is not in doubt is that he has failed to tame the tide and Ndi Imo must not allow the blood of the innocent to keep flowing.
Governor Uzodinma has been accused of being despotic and too intolerant of differing views to be allowed to continue in office. So many such cases abound, the most recent being the brutalisation of the Labour Leader, Comrade Joe Ajaero, for daring to come to lead the workers to protest several months of unpaid salaries. His anti-labour tactics are common knowledge to the extent that only in Imo do ghosts work in its civil service. The governor chose to designate the workers as ghosts because, in real terms, ghosts don’t need money to survive, so why would he pay them. It was in the light of this that the workers must reject Uzodinma, even though some were suborned to denounce Ajaero. The state has been thrown into darkness by protesting electricity workers. That even led to the governor’s humiliation yesterday by students of the Imo State University when he went there to canvass for their votes.
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Unfortunately, the Nigerian workers under the aegis of the Nigeria Congress and Trade Union Congress have declared industrial action beginning from Wednesday, November 14 if the Federal Government fails to meet certain demands.
Uzodinma failed woefully as a governor. There are no pointers to his achievements in office save propaganda that he has impacted roads, which nobody knows their locations. Granted he worked on some federal roads, which have already collapsed anyway, why would he leave state and rural roads to do federal roads? Sadly, the refund he hoped for may not come because the Minister of Works, Sen. Dave Umahi, has said it is not on the Federal Government’s agenda for now due to paucity of funds.
Beyond party lines, Ndi Imo have a life-saving or damning choice to make on 11/11; light over darkness or darkness over light. However, that choice must be freely made without intimidation or manipulation.
Imolites should not hesitate to troop out en masse on Saturday to give Senator Athan Nneji Achonu of the Labour Party the mandate to pilot their affairs for the next four years. Whatever Achonu said he would do, is what he has already done in a private capacity; this is verifiable. It is wiser to cast your lot with someone with verifiable evidence of performance than those who gamble with the destinies of men.
The Aku Ruo Ulo advocate holds the key to unlocking the state and returning it to the Mbakwe era, which previous adventurists in power truncated.
A new Imo is possible. Achonu and the Labour Party have the roadmap.
Imo State has had enough of briefcase politicians feeding fat on the suffering of the people. We need credible people with provable antecedents at the helm of affairs in Imo. Someone who has a stake that would make him work hard to salvage the state. Uzodinma has none of these.
That is why his quest for reelection is receiving serious resistance. Many are wondering whether he is not yet done but wants to pepertuate the state of anomie in Imo.
Desperate to cling to power,
Uzodinma has been tumbling from one mistake to another. He suddenly announced he wanted to conduct local government administration simply because Achonu made it a campaign issue by promising he would conduct the freest local government election as well as grant local government autonomy. Even then, Uzodinma as usual still failed to organise the council poll like he did in his near four years in office.
Take a trip around the state capital, you cannot but feel appalled by Uzodinma’s brash display of greed and selfishness. Only his billboards and posters litter the entire space, having successfully muscled out other contestants. In fact, if those posters snd billboardsters could vote, they would vote against Uzodinma for making them lonely in a contest that should have been boisterous.
lmo people must not be deceived again and take with a pinch of salt the promises of those who thrive on deceit, their trade from the beginning.
Moreover, Achonu has the capacity and has promised to stop the carnage going on in the state under the APC government. He has vowed to restore peace to Ihube, Okigwe, Orlu, and all the places deserted because of the ceaseless bloodbath in Imo.
The industrial parks and agricultural hubs he promised to create all over the state as well as the all-round provision of electricity is a clincher, as this would bring an economic boom to the state. With this, the youths would become engaged and shun temptations to indulge in criminality or deviant behaviours.
Perhaps, troubled by Achonu’s promise to create jobs through a well laid out industrial blueprint, Uzodinma again said he had concluded plans with the United Nations and Canadian government to send 4000 Imo youths to work in factories overseas by November. Quite a pit!
Realising that people poopoohed the idea, he changed gear and now talked about bringing investors from Qatar who would set up 150 industries in Imo State by this November. The mocking giggles were too loud for him to ignore. He even toyed with the idea of arresting Achonu over a Federal Government contract to build public health centres, which Achonu has verifiably done to almost completion. The Governor chickened out and not carry out the empty threat.
Then Comrade Joe Ajaero, President of the Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC, fell into the path of an angry, frustrated Uzodinma, who bared his fangs and would not spare him.
Then Ajaero had come to Imo State to lead a workers’ protest against several months of unpaid salaries. Miscreants backed by the police and suspected to be sponsored by the government swooped on him and beat him to stupor. Ajaero escaped death by the whiskers and was whisked him away by the police. The dust the matter raised is yet to settle when he yet stirred the hornet’s nest.
As if the elements have deserted Uzodinma and causing him to stumble, some security operatives attacked Achonu on Sunday, November 5 on his way to honour an invitation to the Synod of St. Peter’s Anglican Church, Obibieze in Owerri West Council Area.
One Commander Ola of the Tiger Base Police Station, who has been accused of being the governor’s man Friday reportedly led the team. They forced Achonu to abandon his engagement and could be seen in a sickening viral video gloating.
The outcry that trailed that brash action cost Uzodinma his major loss in the exercise, thus marking the beginning of his fall.
To save its face, the police authorities quickly redeployed the state police commissioner, Mohammed Barde, who has until yesterday alleged to be an ally of the governor instead of being non partisan.
Indeed, it is time to send Uzodinma back to Omuma, his hometown; that is if his people would receive him. Because Orlu too is a major victim of his scorching despotic reign.
However, this election is beyond political party and ethnic lines. The entire Ndi Imo have felt his piercing wounds and are grateful for this life-saving or damning choice to make on 11/11; to choose light over darkness or darkness over light; to add. Whatever, that choice must be freely made without intimidation or manipulation.
It is evident that the Uzodinma-led administration is in morbid fear of impending defeat and being driven into extreme, desperate steps. The Imo election has been the most talked about and contentious because of the bellicose, tyrannical personality in power, who refuses to acknowledge that acceptance is not commanded; you earn it.
What was meted to the NLC President, Joe Ajaero, has sent wrong signals to the people and one hopes that the federal authorities under the Jagaban, President Bola Tinubu, would rise to the occasion and ensure that INEC and the security agencies do not surrender to the caprices of the state government but to organise a free, fair and credible election.
This is an opportunity the Yakubu needs to purge himself of the putrid odour, trailing his stewardship. The president needs to reassure Nigerians that he deserves his electoral victory, which the Supreme Court recently affirmed. ALL EYES ON TINUBU!
… Iwuoma is an Abuja-based public affairs analyst.
