I believe that the path of honour worth examining in established disdain and fear of Mbaise people by our neighbours is to exhaust all avenues for reconciliation. Our political future depends on this. We have oversold ourselves in the past generation with publications and unsavoury conduct and downright haughtiness. We have obtruded our Mbaiseness and our populous people to our neighbours to the extent of disgust. We have also shown our neighbours unfairness, especially in the Federal Constituency which we share with Ngor Okpala. We have loud mouthed people who boast before they achieve. We have a history of population that is revolting to our neighbours that one Mbaise family in a city frightens the daylight out of neighbours on account of our fecundity and prolificacy in child bearing.
The three clans of Mbaise cannot make it to political leadership of Imo without alliance with other local government areas. Ezuruezu Mbaise should eat the humble pie and parley with our neighbours honestly, and choose technocrats that promise a good future for Imo with common love and social responsibility for one and all in the state. The age of winning elections on the basis of how long one has been an apprentice in the field of politics is long gone. The age of browbeating voters with filthy lucre and actually getting votes will be gone with electronic voting. The age of scientific, sustained, persuasion which is good public relations has come. We should sell ourselves well, even when we have the right materials, by understanding our weakness.
We should put our best men forward and accept competition. We must apologise for past presumptions that turned our neighbours off, irrevocably. We must stick with our promises and see them fulfilled as basis for further trust. We must sign agreements and keep to the letters of such agreements even when they hurt.
Our negotiators must be known to have requisite integrity. For alliances work when integrity governs them fully. Lust for power derails integrity and we must be wary of its repercussions for posterity. People who want to lead must be in ideas combat before elections. Stages must be set for ideas combat at various levels from councillor through LGA Chairmanship to House of Assembly, House of Representatives to governorship positions. Those who seek power must write their policy positions and defend their positions in the media. They must be established to have a trajectory that is wholesome to the majority before they get there. The season of run of the mill politicians is over and done with. Governor Rochas Okorocha and his sweet-talking horde shall be the last on the leadership trail with abracadabra tactics.
We should support people who show better course to our shared futures no matter where they come from. Being a governor by itself is not a sacred goal. The sacred goal is welfare of all. It must be pursued no matter who is in the saddle. It is always better to have in the saddle someone who knows what leadership is. It is no longer going to be one who will distribute state largesse to cronies to the exclusion of the electorate for whom power is vicariously held.
If Ezuruezu fully understands these parameters, she should shortlist people with requisite qualification and set up contests in the media for aspirants from Mbaise from which we should choose one for dialogue with our neighbours. Even with our neighbours, contests should be staged with love and social responsibility to choose the best for the state of Imo. There should be no quick fixes on the trail. Our problems are created by leadership choices.
Ezuruezu should desire to contest on these terms for leadership of Imo and would gladly respect our neighbours if they have better materials for the job. But certainly the age of manipulation of electoral results and foisting demagoguery on our people is gone for good. The age of ballot snatching and electoral officer bribing is permanently gone. The age of ballot paper falsification of results is gone. Only those who the people desire by their votes will hold public office in all of our futures. I am grateful to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for the future that is now unfolding.
