In Imo politics, every election cycle feels like a badly scripted Nollywood sequel—different actors, same tragic plot.
As 2027/8 approaches, the political marketplace is already noisy with that age-old question: “Where will the Messiah come from—Owerri or Okigwe?” It is almost comical, as if salvation is tied to latitude and longitude, not competence and vision.
This is the tragedy of Imo: a state crawling with brilliant sons and daughters who could lead with dignity, but caged by the unholy gospel of zoning and the so-called Charter of Equity.
This document, hailed by some as the Bible of fairness, has become the cemetery where competence is laid to rest. Here, political merit is not measured by vision or record but by ancestral postcode.
One cannot help but laugh at the irony. The same State that boasts of intellectual giants, technocrats, and reformists insists that geography, not genius, is the ticket to Douglas House. What a parody.
The best and brightest are sidelined, while the most connected ride the zoning horse into power.And when they arrive, governance becomes a four-year carnival of mediocrity.
Ask anyone who remembers Sam Mbakwe and watch their eyes light up with nostalgia. They speak of vision, of infrastructure, of leadership that actually meant something. Nobody remembers Mbakwe for being an Obowo man; they remember him for delivering.
Yet today, in 2025, Imo’s political elite are still quarreling over “whose turn” it is. Competence has been gagged, bound, and thrown into Otamiri River!
The loudest noise in Imo politics now is: “Owerri has not tasted power in years!” “Okigwe was shortchanged!” As if development were a bottle of palm wine to be shared equally among brothers.
When will the people realize that zoning is just a convenient crutch for politicians with nothing to offer? It is the hiding place of the visionless, the campaign slogan of the incompetent.
What Imo desperately needs is not another zoning Messiah but a competent leader—someone who can drag the State out of the mud of insecurity, broken infrastructure, and unemployment.
Someone with the education, the experience, and the vision to govern—not just cut ribbons and pose for billboards. But competence is not popular in this part of the country. Zoning is.
Picture the absurdity of 2027’s campaigns: candidates climbing the podium, not to unveil economic blueprints, but to boast of their lineage—“I am from Owerri Zone!” or “Okigwe has suffered enough!” It is a circus, and the electorate, weary and battered, clap like spectators at a tragic comedy show. The question of competence never even makes it to the script.
The ghosts of mediocrity past still haunt the state.Since Mbakwe, Imo has been governed more by ambition than by vision. Leaders have come and gone, leaving little more than dust and debt behind. Yet the people continue to hope that zoning will one day produce a miracle worker. Hope, in Imo, has become the cruelest joke of all.
The Charter of Equity, once designed as a pact of fairness, has mutated into a license for mediocrity. Instead of throwing up leaders of character, it has become a smokescreen for political traders. And the people, conditioned by years of disappointment, clap for the same charade, hoping that this time, maybe, the zoning Messiah will be different. Spoiler alert: he won’t.
Imo deserves better. The next governor should not be chosen by the coordinates of his village but by the sharpness of his mind and the strength of his vision. But unless the people rise and demand competence, the political elite will continue to feed them zoning as though it were governance itself.
In the end, the search for Imo’s Messiah is not a question of Owerri, Okigwe or Orlu. It is a question of competence versus mediocrity. If the people insist on zoning over vision, 2027/8 will produce another emperor of empty promises, and the lament after four years will be the same tired chorus: Since Mbakwe, Imo has not been lucky with leaders.
Until competence becomes the password to power, Imo’s search for the Wise One will remain nothing more than a tragic comedy—loud, dramatic, and painfully predictable.
Nwokeji Writes From Owerri
The ghosts of mediocrity past still haunt the state.Since Mbakwe, Imo has been governed more by ambition than by vision. Leaders have come and gone, leaving little more than dust and debt behind. Yet the people continue to hope that zoning will one day produce a miracle worker.
