By Collins Opurozor, Owerri.
"By his oath of office, a leader is supposed to have made a pact with the people to promote a moral and virtuous life" - St. Thomas Aquinas.
Something happened in January 2021. That was a year after some anti-Imo, anti-Igbo and anti-democratic elements struck. They had contrived a legal heist and brought Chief Hope Uzodinma to Imo State. A major decision was to be taken in January 2021. Ohanaeze Ndigbo needed a new President-General. The position rotates among Igbo-speaking states in alphabetical order. It was Imo's turn.
Prominent Imo sons with enviable credentials and peerless understanding of the workings of Ohanaeze and its role renegotiating a fairer deal for Ndigbo in an ostensibly unfair Nigeria joined the presidential race. The Obowo-born Professor Chidi Osuagwu, a man of knowledge, passion and integrity, whose actions are reminiscent of the iconic Sam Mbakwe, came out from Okigwe Zone. In Owerri Zone, the duo of Dr. Joe Nworgu and Chief Chris Asoluka were also formidable and prepared frontrunners whose messages resonated among Ndigbo everywhere.
However, Chief Uzodinma was bent on imposing his uncle, Amb. George Obiozor, on Ohanaeze. Unknown to the people, an apartheid regime, a system which intended to divide and stratify the people and favour a part against the rest, was already sprouting in Imo.
So many things could be said about Obiozor's successful career as a teacher and diplomat. But for Igbo affairs, he was the least prepared person, most aged person and, in terms of equity, the least favoured person to represent Imo State at that level. Yet Uzodinma deployed state resources, including state coercion, to stampede other contenders and to push Obiozor through. Where is Ohanaeze Ndigbo today?
The rampaging Uzodinma had earlier invaded the Imo State Council of Traditional Rulers, toppled its leadership and imposed an Orlu man, his own in-law, as its Head.
Upon the expiration of the tenure of Professor Adaobi Obasi from Orlu as Vice Chancellor of Imo State University, it was expected that the self-styled Ben Johnson would appoint a replacement from either Okigwe or Owerri. To the shock of Imo people, Uzodinma did not just choose one of his kinsmen from Orlu as acting Vice Chancellor but also he further installed another kinsman as substantive Vice Chancellor six months later. Recall that the only Nigeria's ambassadorial slot that came to Imo State went to Orlu. Like a regime of the Mafia, fairness and morality are alien to Uzodinma's chaotic misadventure.
To accentuate his policy of marginalization and apartheid, Uzodinma went to Umuagwo and destroyed the Imo State Polytechnic there and relocated it to his immediate community, Omuma and made his kinsman the Rector. He had promised to give Umuagwo people a university. Umuagwo is in Ohaji/Egbema. He doesn't see them as sufficiently related to him. The people of Umuagwo today have neither university nor polytechnic.
An anomie has just occurred. Recently, Hon. Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, from Okigwe Zone, resigned his position as Minister of State for Education in order to pursue his presidential ambition, even though he ended up avoiding the venue for his party's presidential primaries. The normal to do would have been for Uzodinma to get a nominee from Okigwe or Owerri as replacement. Instead, he chose one of his cronies from Orlu, Nana Opia. This is a sacrilege in a state where in the last twenty-three years, Orlu alone has coveted the gubernatorial seat for nearly nineteen years!
The deep and overflowing disdain which Uzodinma has for other parts of Imo is unimaginable. Since he accidentally became Imo's helmsman, this so-called governor has not dropped one trip of construction sand anywhere in Mbaise. No grader has moved below the Mgbee Hills to Ideato, no earth has been excavated anywhere in the entire Okigwe Zone.
Even within Orlu Zone, his plot is to elevate a particular coterie of shadowy characters who subscribe to his amoral worldview and who were his lieutenants or allies in his infamous pre-political profession. So, while on one hand he keeps other parts of the state in abject misery, on the other hand he creates a fiefdom in Orlu which is inhabited by him and those who have long parted ways with integrity, decency and all things moral. That's is kakistocracy!
Imo people must now unite and unclench the fists of these creatures so as to take back their state from those who have torn them apart. This is a patriotic duty for everyone! And this must be done through the instrumentality of the ballot.
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