“I do not have doubts in my mind that this pre-meditated, unwarranted
attacks on our candidate’s campaign facilities was orchestrated by Mr.
Ben Nwoye and his paymasters including the impostor, Ayogu Eze and
ex-governor Sullivan Chime, who are all desperate to wrestle from me the
machinery of the party in Enugu State and its gubernatorial nomination
which … Barrister Tagbo Ogara had won fair and square. I also
legitimately posit that this was why Mr. Chime had personally
threatened, not long ago, in a widely reported interview, that the 2019
General Election in Enugu would be war.” … This mindless resort to high
level dissident, violent action as unleashed last night on our Candidate
is abhorrent, primitive and a dangerous dimension to intra-party
disagreement in the body politics of our country, bearing in mind that
we are not yet thinking of our common enemy at the polls. How can a
house divided against itself stand? – Deacon Okey Ogbodo.
These
are the words of Deacon Okey Ogbodo, one of the chairmen of our great
party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), in a recent press release,
accusing some highly-placed members of the party of complicity in the
burning of some branded campaign vehicles at the office of one of the
gubernatorial candidates of the party in Enugu state. Note my deliberate
use of the clause “one of“ in my descriptions which, in my opinion,
sums up the fortunes and state of the party in the state for quite some
time now. Instead of one chairman as envisaged by our constitution, we
have two persons contending for the position. And instead of one
gubernatorial candidate, we have two claimants to the position. With
barely two months to the much anticipated gubernatorial election in the
state, I am tempted to echo the question posed by Deacon Ogbodo: can a
house divided against itself stand? The answer is obvious. Yet that is
not my concern now. My concern is that we all seem to have forgotten so
easily and Enugu state would be the worse fort it!
Not
too long ago, Enugu, the Coal City State, dominated the national news
headlines for the wrong reason: it was enmeshed in a gruesome godfather
war between Ex-governor Chimaroke Nnamani and his estranged godfather,
Chief Jim Nwobodo. It was a miasma of misplaced confidence and arrogance
of power! Enugu was literally a war zone, and the traditional peace
that defined the city was overthrown, while the roughnecks of politics,
otherwise known as political thugs made it a haven of sorts! Life in the
city became brutish, miserable and short. Enugu was literally reduced
to an epicenter of darkness! Anybody who had the wherewithal took flight
from the city while the roughnecks contended for superiority amongst
their ranks and there was a harvest of needless deaths. Economic
activities in the city nosedived, night life was eclipsed and the city
was stripped bare! Sullivan Chime, the immediate past governor of the
state was a product of this anciente regime! But credit must also be
given to him as the man who recovered the city from that darkness. It
was an interesting but curious metamorphosis!
For the
eight long years of his tenure as governor of Enugu state, he returned
the city to her glorious salubrious past, a heavenly ambience for all
easterners. He remodeled the city infrastructure and improved on the
security architecture; economic activities blossomed, and Enugu moved
from the backwaters of an ultra-impecunious state to the point where it
can largely sustain even without much assistance from the centre. This
was the resume that Sullivan came with into the fold of the APC which
made all of us who are the “legacy” members of the party so proud of his
company. I have been a member of this party since 2006, having been a
member of the now defunct Action Congress (AC), that later transformed
to Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), one of the legacy parties that gave
birth to the present APC. But I am presently worried by the fortune of
the party in the state especially in the past two years and I feel it is
better for us to re-examine ourselves before we advertently return the
state to that proverbial land of Egypt from whence we had survived. A
life not worth re-examining is indeed a life not worth living!
The truth is that for quite a while now, we have not known peace within
us as a party. It suffices to say therefore that a house riddled with
crisis as we have been enmeshed in cannot creditably lay claim to
serious contention against the opponents. I feel particularly ashamed
that all that are heard about this great party in Enugu is warmongering
news after the other. First it was among the party executives whereof
there were suspensions and counter-suspensions. Adolphus Udeh, the
former deputy chairman in the state and his group, first, forcefully
removed the chairman, Dr. Ben Nwoye and his own clique, who in turn
removed Mr. Udeh and his own group. That crisis festered until the last
congress of the party and consumed some high profile members. The
chairman in turn suspended the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey
Onyeama, notwithstanding the fact that he is the highest officeholder of
the party in the state and by implication, ought to be the leader of
the party in the state. The police have on several occasions had cause
to seal off the state party secretariat as a consequence of brigandage
and unremitting disorder. The party congresses that were held were
bazaars of shameful episodes. They were so rancorous such that some of
our elder statesmen including the former Senate President Ken Nnamani
and Jim Nwobodo had to be scurrilously chaperoned away by the security
men! Issues arising from the party primaries have remained intractable
up till now, less than two months away from the elections! All efforts
so far at resolving them, including the visit of the governor of Kano
State Alhaji Abdulahi Umar Ganduje have been without results.
Ex-governor
Chime unguardedly described the forthcoming elections in the state as
going to be “war” while one of the gubernatorial candidates of the party
Sen. Ayogu proclaimed that he is going to run a ‘”scorched earth”
campaign! And now, there is arson, mindlessly burning down to ashes the
very few branded campaign vehicles that have something to say about APC
presence in Enugu State! It is instructive to note that we are not
blaming the PDP which ought to be our common opponents. We are rather
curiously pouring accusations and counter-accusations against ourselves.
Every man is seemingly on his own; naively hoping that God is for us
all. Yet I know that in politics, God most often works with those who
are prepared to work for themselves. As Deacon Ogbodo rightly queried,’
without reconciliation how can we confront our common enemy, the PDP in
the forthcoming elections in the state?’
In trying to
lay a handle on what has been the problem of the party in the state, I
do not look far to locate it on the influx of politicians-of-fortune,
especially of the PDP stock. Leopards do not easily change their spots,
and they have infested this great party with all their well-known
viruses of violence and corruption. I sincerely blame the national
leadership of the party for throwing the gates wide open and thereby
making the APC a refugee camp for corrupt, dubious and greedy
politicians of all hews who do not see politics beyond the lure of
office and material things. The Bible says it is an abomination to be
unequally yoked with unbelievers. For those of us who have remained in
this party long before the light that came at the end of the tunnel,
vis-à-vis the victory of President Muhammadu Buhari at the 2015 polls,
we hold the principle of progressive politics as a religion. As in other
developed polities, belonging to a political party must not necessarily
just end up in immediate power grab. One belongs to a party based on
the principles of its pursuit. For instance Julius Malema, the leader of
the Economic Freedom Fighters, a far-left political party of South
Africa knows that it might not be an immediate happenstance for him to
become the president of his country. But he is steadfast, and each day
that passes underscores the possibility of attaining that lofty height.
Ditto President Muhammadu Buhari who remained steadfast in his
discipline and puritanical principles until Nigerians reckoned with the
fact that it was time to redeem the country from the hands of the
invading PDP. It pains me each time I observe the main culprits that
pillaged our common wealth during the PDP years of the locust,
shamefacedly mouthing derogatory remarks about the party they fed fat on
simply because they have crossed over to our zone. Does someone’s sin
against the polity simply get remitted by the mere fact of changing a
party? The PDP blood still runs in their vein, and their genealogy shows
that their ancestors are arrant criminals who are incapable of
redemption. This indeed, is the root of the problem of our party
especially in Enugu!
The mainstream membership of our party are
not happy, and this is simply stating the obvious. We have been used,
abused and totally reduced to the ordinary. Those we fought against
invaded the house and were aided to overrun us. They have brought with
them their trademark violence and brigandage. Almost all the candidates
of our party in the forthcoming elections are drawn from the PDP
refugees; none was reserved for the legacy members. It was a cash and
carry business, and given that we have not had the (mis)fortune of
ravaging the state’s economy as they have had over the years, most of us
could not afford the cost of the party forms; and the party did not
have any provision for affirmative action that could have taken into
consideration our investments in time and emotions. A cursory analysis
would explain further. Of the three senatorial candidates, only Mrs.
Ibekaku Nwagu was a member of our party. Of the eight House of
Representatives seats for contest in the state, all are former members
of the PDP. Ditto the House of Assembly candidates. The two contenders
to the governorship ticket Barrister Tagbo Ogara and Senator Ayogu Eze
are estranged members of the PDP, with the later having joined the party
just one month before the primaries! As our brother Osita Okechukwu
rightly observed, “Ayogu and Ugwuanyi are in true sense of the word, all
of the PDP family. So it is left for Enugu people to choose which of
the PDP candidates they feel is better.”
It is strange
therefore to expect a miracle. All that spews from their mouths is how
elections could be manipulated employing the almighty federal might!
There is hardly any effort at mobilizing the people ostensibly oblivious
of the fact that this is a government headed by President Buhari who
has his eyes more on history than power grab. But even if we are to rely
on the fabled “federal might” it would still need the people to help it
work. Who are our people for this work; who have we organized to carry
out such herculean task? With barely two months away from the elections,
can a house divided amongst itself stand?
A Chinese
proverb has it that no matter how far you might have gone in the wrong
direction, the only remedy is to go back to the point you missed your
way. That point is the legacy members of the party in the state who have
been forgotten so soon.
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