By Oguwike Nwachuku
It took the photographs of President Muhammadu Buhari and Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha posted on the Facebook page of the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, for many to know that Okorocha had sneaked into Buhari’s sleeping town of Daura, Katsina State, to complain about the outcome of the recently held ward congresses in Imo.
In fairness to Adesina, there was no inkling of a formal meeting with Okorocha who happens to be the chairman of All Progressive Congress (APC) Governors Forum, hence no agenda was disclosed for the sudden meeting.
But a troubled Okorocha had the agenda in his mind – a Save my soul kind of visit – that would always attract some sort of sympathy. And sympathy Okorocha got, but not in the fashion he would have desired it.
“President Buhari receives in audience Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State in Daura, Katsina State on 6th May, 2018,”Adesina simply wrote on his Facebook Page on May 6.
After the meeting with the President, Okorocha told reporters he met Buhari on the outcome of the May 5 ward congresses in Imo which he claimed was marred by crisis and confusion.
Okorocha said: “We expect internal democracy and internal democracy is the way to go. Those kinds of funny politics that were played must stop. A situation where people went to carry ballot boxes, steal results looks so primitive. I intimated Mr. President and we will make sure that such things stop.”
On Buhari’s response Okorocha said: “He spoke like the President and he will take the necessary steps to correct this in our party, the APC, not just in Imo State but across the whole nation, to make sure that there is respect for internal democracy in Imo State.”
Curiously enough, the Chairman of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum, Abdulaziz Yari, who is also the governor of Zamfara State was in Buhari’s house same day like Okorocha.
While Senator Kabir Marafa was busy shouting there was no ward congress in Zamfara State, his governor who was with Buhari dismissed Marafa’s report as fake.
Yari said: “You know in a democracy, you cannot expect everything to work 100 per cent. But in our zone from the information available to us, everything went well in Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, Zamfara and Kano, where people expected that there may be a problem, the exercise was successful.
“But anybody that has complaint, there is a committee set up by the national executive of the party. They should take their complaints there so that they will be attended to.” Did Okorocha hear that?
Incidentally, too, in Katsina, Buhari’s state where Yari said election was successful, there are also wailers who lost in the political chess board like Okorocha.
And like Yari suggested, Buhari was said to have advised Okorocha to go back to Imo and resolve the issues arising from the congresses through the Congress Appeal Panel set up by the APC. The President’s suggestion was contrary to Okorocha’s expectation that Buhari would do his biddings by invoking the powers the President does not have to cancel the results of the ward congresses.
As far as Buhari is concerned, the thing that is crying in the home of the rat is also crying in that of the lizard.
What I found nauseatingly amusing was the celebration over the Daura trip, orchestrated by some of Okorocha’s cronies. Most of those who went to Daura with Okorocha were part of the problem with the ward congresses and ab initio, and probably did not have the faintest idea the trip was going to be more of a looking glass darkly.
In fact, my sympathy was more for one of Okorocha’s ardent cronies. He was an outstanding wailer on that trip, a professor of law, and the architect of ORO and promoter of HERO. At the right time we shall talk about how cronies hijacked Okorocha in Imo and blurred his sense of reasoning.
Those who watched the video clips of the ward congresses in Imo will be amused that Okorocha went to Daura to complain about the exercise. They will be shocked that the governor who claims to be politically infallible could be panting like a teenage girl experiencing menstruation for the first time. Suddenly, Okorocha forgets he was the architect of the rain that beat him and his hair-brained crackpot lackeys silly on the day of the ward congresses. I will explain shortly.
In the build up to ward congresses, Okorocha systematically weeded out all those he considered a threat to his 2019 dream. And the dream is a deluge.
Okorocha wants to impose on Ndi Imo, through installation, his son in-law Chief of Staff, Uche Nwosu as his successor. Before he embarked on that journey, Okorocha tried to rubbish the zonal arrangement in the state as regards governorship candidacy by saying that there is no such thing in Imo. By that pronouncement, the governor began the process to actualize all his dreams.
Okorocha unilaterally shared elective political offices, something that is supposed to be the prerogative of the party, among himself and his stooges. He proceeded to derogate any APC chieftain he thinks has the capacity to challenge his dream and his huge appetite for selfishness. Unknown to him, many of his party members saw that as foolishness.
The likes of his deputy, Eze Madumere, the National Social Organising Secretary of APC, Osita Izunaso, the Senator representing Okigwe zone, Ben Uwajimogu, Senator representing Orlu zone, Hope Uzodinma, Senator Ifeanyi Araraume, Air Commodore Peter Gbujie (rtd), Chief Tony Chukwu , Chief Longers Anyanwu, Chief Emeka Nwajiuba, Chief Felix Idiga, Ichie Best Mbanaso and a member of the APC Board of Trustees, Mr. Jasper Azuatalam, the Deputy National Woman Leader, Mrs. Tina Adike, Dr. Goddy Esom Obodo among other chieftains of the party were treated with ignominy by Okorocha. Okorocha did not also see anything good in the Imo APC executives either. He constantly sowed seeds of division among them in an attempt to actualize his so-called dream.
In Imo, Okorocha assumed the status of the lord of the manor where every other person is nothing but a fief working in his fiefdom.
In the circumstance, the governor raised an army of praise-singing cabinet he calls commissioners, special advisers and assistants. Praise singing was later extended to permanent secretaries and directors.
Worse still, most of his cabinet members became the link between Okorocha and the so-called honourable members of the Imo State House of Assembly who, from every indication based on its leadership, chose to be immune from making laws that are in the interest of Ndi Imo. It sounds like a joke, but the Acho Ihim-led Imo State House of Assembly represents nothing but rudderless. They deploy the gavel only when Okorocha wants it used.
In Imo, Okorocha made himself the institution because he knows that institutions properly so-called make the system to work, and define the essence of democracy. Whether for the executive, legislature or judiciary, the governor is the issue. Like the French King Louis XVI famously known for his L’elat c’est moi (I am the state), Okorocha’s mind set told him he is Imo.
As the state’s “institution”, everybody chases Okorocha about so that he can dispense favour, gratis or even pain and sanction, depending on his target. That is why the security agencies pay little attention to what he does in Imo that are anti-people.
In February this year, for instance, yours sincerely wrote on this column about the now redeployed Imo State Commissioner of Police, Chris Ezike who was busy giving award to Okorocha instead of concentrating on his police duties.
In the piece, I had advised the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris to remove Ezike from Imo as he appears politically compromised and will not be a good example of what the system wants to see as the 2019 election draws closer.
Before Ezike was sent packing from Imo on Tuesday, May 8 because Okorocha suspected he “worked” for his opponents within APC, the CP was part of the army of the governor’s lackeys that cut across the three tiers of Imo government.
But how wrong could Okorocha be, thinking that the recently held ward congresses in Imo could have produced something better that what it produced or even go his way.
It is instructive to note that the leadership and stakeholders of the APC in Imo have described the ward congresses as successful.
The State Chairman, Hilary Ekeh and the State Publicity Secretary, Nwabueze Oguchienti, have at different fora described the exercise as hugely successful.
Oguchienti said: “The last Saturday’s ward congresses of our party was very successful, despite the spirited attempts by some anti-democratic elements among us, to disrupt the exercise.
“Did he (Okorocha) expect to win in that contest? He called for the change of party officers at all levels and that is what we have started doing. A coalition of allied forces in the state humbled the governor. We are only looking forward to the next congresses.
“The party is also grateful to the maturity and candour of the ward congress committee, who remained unwearied and focused in spite of the desperate efforts of the state governor to hijack the committee through blackmail, intimidation and groundswell financial inducement.
“We now assure Nigerians that Imo APC is more than ever before, poised to demonstrate that APC in Imo State and indeed, in the South East, is a popular party which in the past, had been misconstrued due to the antecedents of one man.”
The thinking of the Imo APC leadership is not different from that of the party chieftains and key stakeholders who, after the ward congresses, said it was a success.
For instance, Madumere and Uwajumogu affirmed that the ward congresses held successfully and saluted party faithful for successful congress.
Addressing newsmen on behalf of the party stakeholders, Uwajumogu wondered why it was only Okorocha who was uncomfortable with the outcome of the primaries.
Uwajumogu said: “Ward congresses of our great party held successfully. We congratulate our people for participating in the congresses. This can be confirmed by our stakeholders and members who are here present. We have the Deputy Governor, Prince Madumere, Senator Ifeanyi Ararume, Hon. Emeka Nwajiuba, former SGI, Sir Jude Ejiogu, BoT member of APC, Mr. Jasper Azuatalam, Rt. Hon. Ifeanyi Nwagwu, Chief Onyemaechi Alan B, Chief Theodore Ekechi among others.
“A political party is constituted by people and not one man. If all the stakeholders and party chieftains affirmed that our congresses were successful, then there is no way one line voice can be right.
“The stakeholders of the party also condemned in its entirety the use of thugs against the members of the party, citing a monstrous attack against the stakeholders at the APC secretariat where thugs were led by Chike Okafor, Kingsley Uju, Kenneth Emelu among others.
“The group also frowned at the abduction and detention of the Congress committee members for Imo State under the directive of Governor Owelle Rochas Okorocha, which delayed the exercise, describing it as uncalled for and an act of desperation.”
Uwajumogu spoke against the backdrop of a statement by Okorocha through his Chief Press Secretary, Sam Onwuemeodo, that no congress took place in the state.
Apart from saying that the result sheets were missing with the man who was to conduct the exercise, Ini Okorie, Okorocha fingered Izunaso as part of those who contributed to the crisis.
There is no gain-saying the fact that Okorocha and his gang of equally desperate followers have been thought a lesson going by the conduct and outcome of the recent ward congresses in Imo.
To perceptive minds the game is over for Okorocha, his son in-law and all those seeking elective positions whose hands were raised by the governor at unusual quarters without taking into consideration the APC structure and constitution in Imo State.
A man who sets out to sow winds, does he expect to reap anything short of whirlwind? I see the remaining congresses – local government and state – assuming more sophistication in strategic manoeuvring involving the APC stakeholders than the ward congresses.
If only Okorocha and his supporters had remembered that every politics is local, they would not have set out to denigrate members of the party no matter how lowly in social standing not to talk of the big guns Okorocha challenged their political sagacity simply because of his selfish dream and arrogant disposition.
If Okorocha does not know, the APC at the centre will hold him responsible if the state loses to their opponent in 2019. They have been monitoring the desperation that has become Okorocha, his penchant for undermining the unity of the state Chapter for personal gain and the fact that the key stakeholders he wants to side line are the bastion of the APC in their localities in particular and Imo in general.
Imo people are noted for their political sophistication. If history is anything to go by, Okorocha ought to have learnt from the circumstances surrounding the end of tenure of former governors Achike Udenwa and Ikedi Ohakim. Talk to an average Imo indigene residing in the state today the feedback you get is that Okorocha and his supporters will not rule them again, whatever that means.
It is even worse when they are being told that Okorocha wants his son in-law to succeed him or that he wants his successor to come from the same Orlu zone that has ruled Imo for nearly 16 years since the return to civil rule in 1999.
What played out, therefore, during the ward congresses last week in Imo was a subtle demonstration by Ndi Imo that nobody has a monopoly of anything, not even criminality or mischief, and that the will of the majority people will always prevail against that of a select few.
Imagine how peaceful the Imo ward congresses would have been if Okorocha had, ab initio, told Ndi Imo that power will as of right shift to Owerri zone that is yet to take a shot at the office since 1999 or even if he wants to sustain his mischievous tendencies, Okigwe zone that has just had four years.
And to say that Okorocha will sit down in his house and have the effrontery to call out names of those he wants to represent Owerri, Okigwe and Orlu zones at the National and State Assemblies as well as the brat he wants to impose on the people as his successor is to say the least, the highest insult on Ndi Imo and their sensibilities and they will not take it.