Critics of “Igbo Politics” have always opined that it “lacks intellectual content”.
In making this assertion, it is not that the critics lose cognizance of the fact that Igbo
land boasts of so many educated men and women, including Professors of Political
Science.
The worry, they say, is that “Igbo politicians” do not usually like to engage in debates on issues; compared with their fellow compatriots across the
country, especially the Yoruba who, following their argumentative nature, subject all issues to rigorous analysis before arriving at a consensus.
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Pundits further point out that it is this apparent aversion to debates among Igbo politicians that is principally responsible for the notion – even if erroneous – that Ndigbo do not speak with one voice. Here, the argument is that in the absence of
debates, each individual or group clings to his or its own beliefs tenaciously, the overall result being that it becomes difficult to arrive at a consensus.
The above premise is being deployed here in order to properly situate the subject matter of this essay, namely, a further interrogation of the “TEMPLATE”
introduced by our own dear Mike Nwachukwu on the resolution of the looming imbroglio over the 2027 governorship contest in Imo state, especially as it
concerns Owerri and Okigwe zones.
Nwachukwu had sometime in March this year addressed a letter to the Imo Elders Council over the controversies that arose from the new Imo Charter of Equity – which the council midwifed in the countdown to the November 11, 2023 governorship election – as it concerns the 2027 governorship election. In the
letter entitled, “THE IMO CHARTER OF EQUITY; 2027, OWERRI AND OKIGWE ZONES: WHICH WAY TO GO?”,
Nwachukwu had posited that both Owerri and Okigwe zones should go to a round table to determine which of the two should produce the successor to the incumbent governor, Senator Hope Uzodimma.
But for the mere suggestion of such a dialogue, Nwachukwu was promptly berated by some so-called stakeholders in his native Owerri zone. How
could he say that Owerri zone, which has been anointed by Governor Uzodimma to produce his successor, go into dialogue with Okigwe zone, a political pariah whose son bungled its own chances some years ago? For nearly every member of the political elite in Owerri zone – of which Nwachukwu is one – an Imo governor of Owerri zone extraction come 2027 is not a subject of debate and, therefore, a no-go-area. Even after it became obvious that Okigwe zone leaders are
not averse to the idea of a dialogue, some Owerri zone leaders, especially those involved in the so-called Imo Harmony Project, remained unimpressed.
The grandstanding subsisted even after Okigwe zone leaders –political, traditional, the academia, captains of industry etc – rose from a critical stakeholders meeting on June 16, 2024 to insist that it – Okigwe zone – should produce the next Imo governor after Uzodimma.
It is not certain whether it was this apparent recalcitrance on the part of his kinsmen that led Nwachukwu, a well-known politician in the state and a two-time senatorial aspirant and candidate in Owerri zone, to publish an updated version of his “TEMPLATE” that is now trending. This time around, however,
Nwachukwu’s write-up is directly addressed to his kinsmen, “Nde Owerri zone” as he puts it. If in the first edition of Nwachukwu’s “template”, he was just
courageous, he was simply audacious in the second outing, having left the realm of mere advisory for a dialogue to disabuse the minds of his kinsmen that they cannot claim an exclusive right to the office of the Imo governor come 2027/28; and reminding them – his kinsmen – that “… we have just nine out of twenty seven local government areas and, therefore, cannot by ourselves make a governor”.
Nwachukwu further wrote: “Another clear reality which we must appreciate, no matter how bitter it is, is that Okigwe zone has very serious concerns and also believe they have“very unassailable” arguments why we should concede to them and allow them to complete their truncated two-term tenure in the true spirit of the Imo Charter of Equity”. But he quickly pointed out that “just like Owerri zone, Okigwe zone does not have the “number” to make a governor themselves with their six (6)LGAs…”
Nwachukwu then advised that “the promoters of Imo Harmony Project of Owerri zone and the Okigwe Global League of Okigwe zone should all drop their
braggadocios dispositions and key into the TEMPLATE I have offered for a ROBUST ENGAGEMENT between the two zones as equal partners …”
Thus, even though Nwachukwu ‘second missionary’ letter is lengthier than the first, the central message in the two is that failure by both Owerri and Okigwe zones to embrace dialogue will reposition Orlu zone to clinch the office of Imo governor again in 2027/2028.
Nwachukwu posits that regardless of the fabled promise by the incumbent governor to hand over to Owerri zone, the average Orlu zone fellow does not believe that the zone should yield to either Owerri or Okigwe zone.
He wrote: “the danger of becoming zonal champions rather than being champions of engagements of the two zones is that each zone will go into the election politics believing it will outsmart the other. Orlu zone will not help the two zones reconcile themselves.
On the contrary, they (Orlu zone) will encourage, fuel and accentuate the battle and division and then take full advantage of the ensuing face off to mount the saddle of one or two of the major political parties, emerge their candidate and win back the price”.
Nwachukwu predicates his argument on the unprecedented “elite consensus” that
currently exists in Orlu zone. He wrote: “…given that most of the political ctors/actresses are in one “basket”, and given their renewed “audacious”
disposition, they will present one key aspirant to avoid the mistake of multiple candidates in 2027, hoping that Owerri and Okigwe zones would never come together”.
Even so, he warned his “Nde Owerri” people against their making of a song and dance of the so-called promise by Governor Uzodimma to hand over to a fellow from Owerri zone.
Wrote Nwachukwu: “A lot of our people who have engaged me on this subject and on my article “incognito” have unabashedly told me and argued that the governor promised to hand over to Onye Owerri (in fact from Owerri federal constituency) at the end of his term”.
He then proceeds to raise the following posers: “… which governor in Imo state has successfully determined his successor … If, indeed, the governor, true to the claim of some of us, will hand over to onye Owerri zone, do we really think Okigwe zone will rollover because the governor has said so? If the
table were turned and it is said that the governor said he will hand over to Onye Okigwe, will Nde Owerri rollover because the governor said so? Did we roll over in 2018/2019 because H.E Owelle Rochas Okorocha said it will be his son-in-law,
Chief Uche Nwosu?…”
Even though Nwachukwu, in both his first and second epistles, succeeded in making sure that he did not reveal any bias, his treatise offers a basis for an objective assessment of the tussle over a yet-to-be-end power between Okigwe and Owerri zones. This essay began on the premise of the perennial reluctance among Igbo politicians, generally, to engage themselves in meaningful dialogue, a
phenomenon that is being mirrored currently, in Imo state going by the posturing of some Owerri zone politicians.
Little wonder Nwachukwu didn’t mince words in noting that “the need for a sincere and structural dialogue with Nde Okigwe zone cannot be treated with the level of levity I am seeing in Nde Owerri’s body language”.
The big question, therefore, is, why are Nwachukwu’s kinsmen afraid of dialogue? A morbid fear of listening to a superior one?
But as the saying goes, you do not take the fear of defeat to a battle. For the good people of Owerri zone, to refuse to go into dialogue with Okigwe zone will not only be defeatist but would be the defeat itself. If,as Nwachukwu has pointed out, both zones decide to slug it out and Orlu takes advantage of that to return to the Government House in 2028, it will take both at least another eight years to take another aim at the Imo seat of government but without any guarantee that either of them will make it.
But the good news is that both now have an opportunity to shorten the waiting period :Zero years for Okigwe and four years for Owerri, using January 20 2028 as the base month and year. Which is to say, Owerri zone cannot afford to repeat the mistake of 2011.
Before the April 26 2011 governorship election, Owerri zone had just four years to the Government House since it would have seamlessly taken over from Okigwe zone in 2015 had a few of its sons, purely for self-serving interests, not indulged in the perfidy of that season. It is now over thirteen years since then and save a seven-month stint in 2019 that was ruthlessly cut short, the road to the Government House has been elongated as far as the good people of Owerri zone are concerned; amidst fears that it may become even lengthier unless they put on their thinking caps now.