By Chikwem MbakweAs in the aphorism of the crying witch (at night) and the dead baby in the morning, keen watchers of the current political terrain in Imo State had no difficulty in uncovering the source of a fictitious communiqué whose authors claimed to have made on behalf of the Okigwe Zonal Council of Traditional Rulers and which trended in various social media platforms for upwards of five days.
In the Communiqué, the authors claimed that the Okigwe Zonal Council of Traditional Rulers at a meeting on June 28, 2024 at Ehime Mbano, directed every Okigwe zone son or daughter nursing a governorship ambition for 2027 to shelve such but instead, support the quest by Owerri zone to produce the successor to the incumbent governor, Senator Hope Uzodimma.
And without much ado, they dismissed the communiqué as outright fiction and the handiwork of some elements in Owerri zone who,working in cahoots with a few in Okigwe zone, had been desperately seeking to rope in the latter into the festering shenanigan over claims in some quarters that Owerri (zone) has the exclusive right to produce the next Imo governor.
Many had no difficulty also in deciphering the particular vehicle through which the Owerri zone people got to Okigwe for that perfidy. Just a couple of days before the fictitious communiqué surfaced both the conventional and the social media were awash with a report on a leaked Moniepoint Microfinance Bank debit note transferring the sum of Three Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira (350,000) from Chief Jerry Chukwueke, a front line governorship aspirant from Owerri zone, to the Zenith Bank account of Mr. George Eguh, also a well-known politician from Okigwe zone,on June 26, 2024.
According to the report, the leakage was from the Whatsapp status of Chief Chukwueke, thus giving rise to several posers. Was it a mistake? Was it a trap for Eguh who, according to earlier reports, was “coordinating” two governorship aspirants from the same (Owerri) zone as Chukwueke? Indeed, several questions had arisen but observers were certain that the truth will unravel with time.
Initially, Eguh tried his hands on some damage control, including a “stop and desist” from his lawyers but mum was the word from the Chukwueke axis. Although Eguh had explained that the money was a condolence donation from Chukwueke over the death of his mother who died at 94 in March 2024 and was buried on May 16, 2024, many were not impressed. The question they wanted Eguh to provide answer for was why it took a “billionaire” like Chukwueke close to three months to gift a mere three hundred and fifty thousand naira to a friend for the funeral of his mother.
However, the puzzle over the transfer began to fade away once the fictitious communiqué under reference hit the social media and whose authors, as already noted, claimed to have emanated after a meeting of the Okigwe Zonal Council of Traditional rulers held on June 28, 2027, TWO DAYS after the transaction.
But just as expected, the bubble has finally burst. The authentic Okigwe Zonal Council of Traditional Rulers has described the communiqué as not only “false” but also “malicious”. According to media reports, the Council, in a statement through its lawyer and dated July 8, 2024, has threatened legal action against the publishers of an Owerri-based newspaper for publishing“ a fictitious communiqué emanating from an amorphous group with no known address wherein you presented Okigwe Zonal Council of Traditional Rulers as having endorsed Owerri zone for the 2027 Imo gubernatorial contest, knowing fully well that the purported communiqué were signed by unknown and faceless persons who do not represent the positions they pretend to occupy”. In the statement through their counsel, Emma Ibediro Esq, the Council demanded for the immediate retraction of the said publication and “an immediate unreserved apology to the Okigwe Zonal Council of Traditional Rulers”.
With this (latest) development, it is now clear that Sir George Eguh might have bungled the very first assignment he was given by Chukwueke whom, sources say, inundated several Whatsapp groups with the draft communiqué even before it was published by the newspaper in question. So, what happened? How did George Eguh, reputed for his political sagacity over the years, mismanage that brief?
Of course, not a few smelt rate when the fictitious communiqué started trending in the social media. A first inkling to something awry was the fact that the authors claimed that the meeting from which the communiqué emanated was held in Ehime Mbano, contrary to the practice by the Okigwe Zonal Council of Traditional Rulers.
Even so, one of the so-called signatories to the fictitious communiqué – Eze Hyacinth Okorienta – whom the authentic Council has now dismissed as “unknown” –signed off as “Chairman, Ehime Mbano NdiEze”; thus giving rise to the question, “where were those of Isiala, the other half of the Mbano clan? There was even a bigger question: Could the said meeting have held without representatives from the other five local government areas that make up Okigwe zone? But these are questions for which answers are not difficult to fathom.
For many analysts, Eguh might have merely looked for an easy way out for his very difficult assignment: to simply reach out to some unknown elements within to procure the ‘Oluwole’ document. Remarkably, the authors of the communiqué in question also re-echoed the position earlier canvassed by Eguh to the effect that Okigwe zone should jettison the idea of a four-year single term but instead, wait for its turn after Owerri zone so that it, Okigwe, can enjoy the benefits of a full eight-year tenure.
Some observers believe that Imolites, as the Americans would say, ain’t seen nothing yet. They point out that given the desperation in some quarters, more fictitious resolutions and endorsements will be procured and published in the days ahead. Already, of the three communiqué purported to have been issued by the councils of traditional rulers from across the three senatorial zones of the state, none has proved to be genuine. The one purported to have been issued by the Orlu zone traditional rulers is still a subject of controversy.
It has even got to a point where some prominent indigenes of the zone, including two traditional rulers, were falsely accused of threatening some of the signatories to the communiqué said to have emanated from that zone. Ditto for a similar one procured from a group of traditional rulers in Owerri zone but which some vigilant readers discovered was almost a verbatim reproduction of the earlier one from Orlu. Before going to Owerri zone, these merchants of falsehood had also procured a phantom communique from two gentle men who purportedly acted on behalf of Presidents-General of Autonomous Communities in Orlu zone. Many observers believe that this racketeering will continue but warn that it will surely spell doom for all those who are involved in it. They further pointed out that this current trend of procuring fake endorsements is the height of desperation and remind those involved that power hardly gets into the hands of desperadoes.
