By Okwuchi Eke
There has been this persistent, unending complaint against Rt Hon Emeka Ihedioha by Ngor Okpala people. Majority of them hold the view that he sees and treats them as second class citizens whose political existence and survival rests solely on his shoulders.
They say he looks at their land as a vassal territory which must catch cold anytime he sneezes. For them, he has a standing policy that makes him the undisputed political godfather of Ngor Okpala and as the man in charge of their political fate and fortune, anything and everything he says or does must be obeyed and taken without questions. If he decrees that you will rise politically, it come to pass. If he says you are going down, or that you will never ascend the ladder of political success, then your fate is sealed forever.
The people will always invite anyone wishing to fact check these allegations against him to take unbiased look at his actions towards them since 2003, when he ascended political leadership of Ngor Okpala/ Aboh Mbaise Federal Constituency. They assert he has always acted as a lord over Ngor Okpala.
It was that mindset that birthed and sustained a discriminatory policy of treating two supposedly equal local governments as unequals in the allocation of dividends of democracy.
As a House of Representatives member for twelve years, eight of which were spent in principal positions, they insist not one single legacy project was done in their land. Ditto any useful and meaningful appointment. All he gave them were second fiddle and paper weight appointments which effects never transcend the immediate families of those appointed.
However, for Aboh Mbaise it was a different kettle of fish. He did many legacy projects in the LGA, especially roads projects,attracted many valuable and rewarding tenured and permanent jobs and appointments.
Through him Aboh Mbaise sons were appointed Controller General of Nigeria Correctional Services and Chief Executive Officer of NECO. He gave employment to hundreds of graduates from the area into grade A federal agencies like Customs, NPA, NIMASA NESRA and others. In the next few years they point out, Aboh Mbaise will start dominating federal service, but nothing for Ngor Okpala
The enslavement plot didn’t stop at projects and appointments. The same man purposely used his influence as Reps member to engineer the political decimation and suppression of their council by getting INEC to jerk up Aboh Mbaise electoral wards to twelve, as against Ngor Okpala’s eleven. Your guess as good as mine why he did that.
Indeed, the accusations, allegations, recriminations and remonstrations against the green cap man by the people from that flank of his federal constituency are legion. They can’t be listed in one breathe.
However, as an outsider, who is neither from Ngor Okpala nor Aboh Mbaise, with no vested interest in the affairs of that federal constituency, each time these claims are made to my hearing, my reaction has always been to resist the urge to jump into conclusion from one viewpoint. What i always do is go out in search of alternative opinions to be equipped sufficiently to be able to make informed comments on the vexed issue.
On the strength of such investigation,I have always told whoever asked my opinion that. while it is true the man does not treat the local government as he does his own Aboh Mbaise, the situation nevertheless was not as grim as usually painted. Yes, he may not have done things 50/50 but, definitely he couldn’t have presided, or still presiding the constituency in the Buharist fashion of 95 percent for one area, and 5% for the other.
That was how I analyzed issues in the past. However, unfolding events, especially the bitter political war he is waging against the director of his party’s Presidential Campaign Council, Hon Greg Egu, over made up allegations of mismanaging Alhaji Atiku campaign rally funds, have provided enough impetus for the drastic altering of my earlier held opinion on his relationship with Ngor Okpala.
After thoroughly investigating that feud, it became too glaring that Rt Hon Ihedioha is fighting Hon. Egu because of his own selfish political interests. According to majority of PDP leaders and members I spoke to, as an internal issue a party member who has no ulterior motive should have leveraged on internal mechanisms to address whatever grievances he had.
Given this widely shared opinion, you are left with the feeling his attempt to rubbish the man from the same constituency as him, stems from the anger that a man from his hitherto politically enslaved enclave is about to outshine him, his fears that his shackles and manacles on Imo PDP is about to be broken and, disconcerting reality that there would be no free funds again to contest governorship.
It is really true that since 2003 when the same man he is fighting exhibited integrity and character and stepped aside for him to take the turn of Aboh Mbaise in the Ngor Okpala/ Aboh Mbaise Reps seat in Abuja, Rt Hon Ihedioha has never hidden his intention to kneel on the political neck of the council and slowly and steadily choke it out of relevance and into oblivion.
Check out some corroborative facts. When Prof Jude Njoku who towers above him in all ramifications, nursed governorship ambition in 2014, he used the state PDP executive which he handpicked to rubbish his ambition. As deputy speaker and Chief Whip it was only Chief Emma Nwaogu he gave federal appointment and that was a near worthless National Population Commission Commissioner.
And only recently, aware that the LGA may experience a new dawn of political resurgence and infrastructural upliftment, if Hon Bede Eke wins third term, which he himself enjoyed, he used his henchmen in the PDP exco, namely Nze Ray Emeana and Law Biaduo to rig him out of the primary election.
With a well documented history and record of anti Ngor Okpala actions and policies as shown above, it is only the undiscerning that could be deceived into buying whatever crappy reason he may give for wanting to rubbish Hon Egu.
It is also factually provable that he sees and regards Imo PDP as his personal estate. For two terms now he has almost single handedly appointed and anointed the state working committee of the party and, used his trusted cronies to install LG and ward excos. With that grip he has easily and comfortably been remote controlling the party, until recently when other stakeholders, particularly the National Secretary, Senator Samuel Anyanwu stood up to him.
That was the point his grip on PDP started to loosen as buttressed by the sacking of his stooges handpicked to head Imo PCC, and replacement with the Egu led team.
One major advantage Rt Hon Ihedioha had always had from putting his stooges in Atiku campaign team in Imo is that it helps him to have unfettered access to Atiku campaign funds. And being a foxy and cunning man who had always used other peoples funds to prosecute his governorship ambition, he had always helped himself to Atiku’s free money.
He did that in 2019 and did he account for how he spent the funds then? He cornered and used proceeds of the party’s 2019 and 2022 primary elections as he wished and liked. Has he ever accounted for them? Has he accounted for the billions he managed as governor for seven months, including the three billion allegedly taken away by his cousin immediately the court sacked him.
So, where lies the morality for asking Hon Egu to give him account of money not belonging to him?
Apparently, he had planned to prosecute his 2023 ambition with Atiku’s cash and, given that it didn’t pan out as he envisaged this time, he is angry and has resorted to campaign of calumny with fabricated lies and propaganda against the PCC boss, ostensibly to get him booted out.
That, however, is an impossible task because having worked closely with Hon Egu for over two decades Alhaji Atiku certainly knows him more than Rt Hon Ihedioha. Besides, Rt Hon Ihedioha’s case is worsened by Mr. Peter Obi’s ambition and his highly provocative diatribe in which he branded Ndi Igbo” sabotuers” for rooting for their own son.
With the door of diaspora support securely locked against him by his misdemeanors, Atiku’s cash is the only remaining hope in sight, thus the do or die attempt to have access to the two billion or so, said to have been budgeted for 2023 presidential election.
But, it does not need a soothsayer to know he won’t succeed. By now I am sure Alhaji Atiku and the national leadership of PDP must have seen through his poorly written and staged script. They must have seen he doesn’t mean well for the party, because if he did, he would have known that whatever he is fighting against, assuming but not conceding there is something he is fighting against, is internal party issue, which ought to have been handled using internally laid down mechanisms.
Bringing internal party issues to the public domain has not and will never bring solution, peace and progress. Rather, as we are seeing with the G5 anti party missteps, it brews divisions, distrust, and distraction. These are all ingredients of failure and not success.
It is therefore, right to say Rt Hon Ihedioha is working against 2023 victory of Imo PDP and its presidential candidate. He deserves serious sanctions.
We know his toothless Ugwu led exco can’t lift a finger at him. But, if the national leadership of the party didn’t treat this issue as it treated his unconstitutional suspension of duly elected chairmen, they should know they are given free reign to impunity in the party.