By Dennis Agbo

Governor Martin Elechi of Ebonyi  State is  not sleeping well. His sleep is murdered by his ambition to stay in office beyond 2011  when he hopes to be re-elected for a second term in office. Ordinarily, the governor  should be having a  good sleep, given the fact that, as one of the founding fathers of the state, he is reverred by all.

He is equally supposed to be banking on  his landmark projects that are  anchored on uniting the  people of the state that share similar affinity but were for long separated by state creation. Elechi, therefore, has this philosophy that this is the time to unite  the people through road networking, building bridges that hitherto created a  gulf  amongst the brothers and sisters in the three senatorial zones and putting in place the infrastructure the people were for long time denied.

The governor has been doing all that since he came in, in  May 2007,  even though some people believe the jobs are all going rather too slowly and  that public opinion precipitated Elechi to threaten the contractors that were not performing.

Today, the state administration can boast of several asphalted kilometers of rural roads, over 26 gigantic bridges, good public school  system,  rural electrification, attempts at water reticulation and, above all, re-branding the people of the state with positive attitudes in what he calls attitudinal change that includes punctuality to functions (aka Ochudo Time).

The governor is British by training and does not tolerate indolence. That may be part of his problem in a  society where values have been thrown to the wind. At the inception  of his administration, he was accused of tightening the belt. He was cursed and abused. But  it was soon  realized that the man  would release  money but with cogent reason and due process.

That was how  opposition started emerging. There was also pressure from different quarters for the governor to reshuffle  his  cabinet but he turned deaf ears to all. When finally he  decided to  shake-up the  cabinet, everybody was taken unawares, including those presumed to have facilitated his  emergence  as governor.

The reshuffle came  with no more than Celestine Nwali and Fred Udeogu (Elechi’s confidants in the cabinet) having prior information about it. Six commissioners were dropped. The governor at the function to swear the new commissioners in  refuted the claim that some people who were approached to become commissioners turned the offer down. That was when  conclusions were drawn that the governor was facing  political crisis.

Shortly after the reshuffle, rumour mongers went to town. It  was said that the Minister of Education and former governor of the state, Dr. Sam Egwu, was not consulted before the cabinet shake up and felt short changed. Egwu, it was alleged, therefore directed his loyalists to be at alert.

The Egwu camp is said not to be happy on the way the Elechi administration is solely run by two commissioners – Udeogu and  Nwali. They are equally said not be comfortable with Elechi’s fraternity with former Senate President Anyim Pius Anyim who was a sworn political enemy of  Egwu. Anyim  had, last October, chaired the 13th celebration of Ebonyi  creation, an occasion that Egwu shunned despite a cosmetic fence-mending with Anyim.

It was also alleged that Egwu had convened a meeting of  Abuja–based politicians from the state in an Enugu hotel where they allegedly strategized on how to deal with Elechi in 2011 but the owner of the hotel denied that such a meeting  took place.

Meanwhile, loyalists of  Egwu, including the former chairmen of Abakaliki Local Government  Emma Uguru, Idu Igariwey; Ohaozara Chaka Nweze, are said to be at cross roads on their future political relevance. Whereas they are not in Elechi’s good books, they are neither in the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) that is seen as the umbrella for an emerging opposition in the state. Though Igariwey is feared to be drifting to an opposition party to actualize his House of Representatives  ambition, other  Egwu loyalists are still out there in the cold waiting for directive on where to go.

PPA constitutes the only veritable opposition in the state at least for now that no other party is checkmating the excesses of the PDP-led government. The party became popular  because of the names being associated with it preparatory to the 2011 elections in the state. Prominent among them are Senator Julius Ucha, former PDP chairman in the state, Obinna Ogba, House Representatives member, and  Paulinus Igwenwagu, among others.

Ucha was  the first speaker of Ebonyi House of Assembly who, in 2003, went to the Senate, contested for governorship in 2007 but succumbed to Egwu’s forces  by stepping down for Elechi to emerge the candidate of PDP. Ucha was therefore given back the Senate ticket, a position he re-accepted rather reluctantly. It is still believed that Ucha  would have emerged the PDP candidate in 2007  had Egwu  not foisted Elechi on the party.

There are many things going for the senator. One is that he comes from  Ezza, the largest tribe in Ebonyi  with a  population that is almost half of the state. Ucha, an avowed political enemy to Egwu, has glaringly distanced himself from the Elechi government since 2007. People  perceive him  as an enigma who is very rich to foot  his political  bills. Ucha is said to have approached former governor of Abia State, Orji Uzor Kalu, to hand him the Ebonyi PPA governorship ticket ahead of the 2011 polls.

Ogba is another strong politician in Ebonyi politics. He led the PDP in the state through turbulence. He contested for governorship in 2007 and was among the 13 aspirants that stepped down for Elechi to emerge the  candidate of the PDP. When he was approached  on the rumour that he is among those aspiring to use PPA to contest for governorship in 2011, he said that time was not ripe for him to talk  about it.

He is presently not very friendly with the Elechi government but when he appeared in a PDP meeting last  year where Elechi was endorsed for second term, he joined to crowd to support the endorsement.