By Ogu Bundu Nwadike
The sweet victory of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the Aba North Federal Constituency bye-election has further proved that the All Progressives Congress (APC) has no foothold in the Southeast geo-political zone.
That quintessential bye-election win with very wide margin on Saturday March 26, 2021 in Abia State, obviously silenced and shut up all those that feel that the vituperations of few executive sycophants in the State was enough to steal Abia State or indeed any State in the Southeast from PDP.
The executive sycophants that are trapped in corrupt practices that exposed the blackmailing APC regime feel that their loot of their state treasury will be obliterated or expunged in the parabolic “declare for support for APC and your sin of looting your States’ treasury will be forgiven and forgotten”!
Then, unfortunately, once the exposed executive looters settled in APC, they over-assume their value, importance, and relevance with unnecessary bravado and braggadocio, equating themselves with the biblical Assyrian demi-gods, and Lording it over the people, despite their temporarily suspended criminal statuses.
In Abia State as at Friday, March 25, 2021, Senator Orji Uzor Kalu (OUK), had the carriage of the undisputable Lord of Abia. He saw himself, carried himself, and spoke of himself, like the next president of Nigeria.
He recently thanked God for his six months tenure in jail at Kuje Prison, obviously deluding himself with the dream that he’s heading to Aso Rock from prison, just like the biblical Joseph Jacob, South Africa’s Dr. Nelson Mandela and Nigeria’s Dr. Olusegun Obasanjo, all went from prison to the presidency!
He forgot that his rapacious eight-year tenure as governor of Abia State, according to the EFCC, gave that foremost industrial State a combination of both crooked k-leg knock-knees and porous bow-legs simultaneously, making forward movement of the State extremely difficult till date, because of the poor foundation laid by OUK as the first governor of the State in the 4th Republic.
Incidentally, since the APC focused their blackmailing searchlight on him, OUK has done doable and undoable to drive his executive sycophancy and his inordinate ambition, deploying the State’s money that he misappropriated, according to EFCC, struggling to still retain control of the politics of Abia State.
He severely required to win the bye-election in Aba North Federal Constituency to brag and prove to the Abuja APC cabal that he was in control of politics of the State and as such prove to them that he was so strong and very popular enough to be adopted by APC as their candidate of Southeast extraction in the 2023 presidential election.
To ensure the fulfillment of that ulterior ambition, OUK went the extra-miles to hijack the APC ticket for the March 25 bye-election and handed it over to his biological brother, Mascot.
But as the sages have established, man proposes but God disposes. OUK planned to shine with a victory that would have been dishonestly ascribed to him. But Providence had a different agenda. And Senator Orji Uzor Kalu failed himself and his APC (IDP) camp. The rest is history!
A similar scenario is typing out in Ebonyi State, where the restless governor, David Umahi, was compelled by APC to decamp or be exposed for looting of Ebonyi treasury. He noisily joined APC since he couldn’t beat them. Yet, from evidence before the world, Ebonyi State remains a strong PDP State.
Probably, it’s in Imo State that APC gets some relatively hazy visibility, after the State was dragged into APC by Owelle Rochas Okorocha in 2013.
After eight-years (less the seven and half months that PDP through His Excellency, Rt. Hon. Emeka Ihedioha, (CON) was the governor of Imo State), the APC has utterly ruined Imo State, with both Senator Rochas Okorocha and Senator Hope Uzodimma having irons in the fire of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Yet, in spite of the robust godfather roles played by Rochas and Uzodimma, PDP still technically won the December 5, 2020 bye-election that was conducted to fill the vacant seat of Imo North (Okigwe Zone) Senatorial District with over 31,000 votes against APC’s little over 35,000 votes with their two aspirants that were disqualified before the election, viz Senator Ifeanyi Araraume and Mr. Frank Ibezim for various legally cogent reasons.
Since that shameful and disgraceful technical defeat of APC in Imo bye-election, the party has been struggling to manufacture a candidate, despite multiple disqualifications of their two aspirants by the Courts at High Court, Court of Appeal and even at Supreme Court levels.
Obviously, the APC in Imo State is negotiating to get a Supreme Court Senator as they negotiated to get a Supreme Court governor.
Recall that APC through the combined gang-up forces of Owelle Rochas Okorocha, Chief Uche Nwosu, Senator Hope Uzodimma, Senator Ifeanyi Araraume, robbed Imo PDP and His Excellency, Rt. Hon. Emeka Ihedioha, (CON) of due victory in the 2019 election.
Fortunately, the victories being posted by PDP in the Southeast vindicates PDP of the fact that any APC State in the Southeast is an imposition upon the State by the despotic and dictatorial APC regime at all levels, particularly at the center in Aso Rock, Abuja.
The point in issue now is that with the recent PDP victories in the Imo and Abia bye-elections, coupled with Enugu and Ebonyi States in full grips of PDP, and with the emerging reality in Anambra State, of PDP taking over the State in the November 2021 guber election, the Southeast geo-political zone is a PDP zone.
It’s believed that come 2023 general elections, the zone will close ranks, regroup effectively and reclaim the entire five States of the zone through the massive votes of the people for PDP. Power to the People!!
Nwadike is state publicity secretary, Imo PDP. He writes from Owerri
