By Obi Nwakanma

On Monday, February 28, the Daily Vanguard published an article, “When will they give Ohakim his due?” by ace columnist Pini Jason. The essay was a piece of apologia for the Imo State governor who has faced a consistent barrage of criticism from a wide swath of people in Imo State from his perceived failures in running a transparent and productive administration in Owerri.

Pini Jason, my kinsman, friend, and a highly-esteemed colleague, of course, needs no introduction: once, his fiery pen spoke bitter truth to power. Pini is a man of conscience and conviction, certainly, and follows the old Rosicrucian credo: “nosce te ipsum”- “Know thyself” – an old Platonic injunction from a dictum carved into the Pronoas of the Temple of Apollo in Delphi.

William Shakespeare in his Hamlet borrows this and makes it quite simple: “To thine own self, be true.”  But Pini is also a policy adviser to the Governor of Imo State, a vizier in government, and he, it seems, found it necessary to employ a bit of hyperbole in discharging his wares on behalf of the government in which he serves. Again, I’m reminded of another dictum of classical provenance, this time by Pittacus of Mytilene: “Power shows the man.” I’m afraid that in reading Pini Jason closely in that piece, and as an avid follower of style, I thought it was uncharacteristically vacillatory – some might say, “double-tongued.”

The reality in Imo State did not receive honest coverage and the arrow point was directed at “the opposition” – those whom Pini Jason described as “deaf…ego-driven politicians with exaggerated self-importance.”

There are certainly “deaf” politicians in Imo State, there are many whose sense of “importance” is indeed, exaggerated, and most people in politics are “ego-driven.” The ego is a curious thing: it drives you either to greatness, to seek transcendence or to the mud. Some seek greatness in pure, selfless service and some in acquisition and in accumulation – the baser form of the ego. In politics, there will be opposition – it is the necessity of all democratic practices to create, sustain, as well as listen to the alternative voice.

The opposition is both a potential government in waiting as well as a potential conscience of the people. The Ikedi Ohakim’s administration certainly  has a plethora of people and interests opposed to it. This is both natural and necessary. It is also very imperative to examine the situation of politics in Imo State in this very moment; in the heat of the campaigns to vote this government out of office and establish a more competent authority on the affairs of the  state.

The jury is still out about the return of Ohakim to office through a fair and transparent election. Two weeks ago, the Catholic Archdiocese of Owerri in conjunction with other organisations, including the Nigerian Union of Journalists, organised a debate among the candidates of the political parties. The report is that Gov. Ohakim got, in the barometer of that room, a sense of his unpopularity in Imo State. He was booed. Why? The people of the state find that his new face of Imo is a twisted mask.

With over N400 billion received from federal grants alone in the course of his administration, the government led by Ohakim has nothing of significance to show Imo people in terms of concrete achievement. Indeed, very recently, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), is said to be investigating his government’s misuse of allocations made to the local governments from the federation account. To put this very simply, Imo State has fared very badly under Ohakim’s administration and the Imo electorate are, from all indications, ready for meaningful change. The governor, however, is campaigning on two grounds. One, on his “New Face of Imo,” and two, on the need to “do more.” Do more of what, you might want to ask? More of the same old policies that have given Imo State toxic shares in the stock market? More of the new, twisted face of Imo? The people of Imo State are primed against this. But the array of entrants into the race for the Governor’s Office in Owerri against Ohakim are also worthy of equal scrutiny.

Rochas Okorocha, the APGA candidate, is a very interesting character and deserves closer watch. His political history, his intellectual capacities, and his background indicate that he is also likely to bring into the  state, a terrible regime of maladministration. All we need to arrive at this conclusion is simply to examine his conducts as Chairman of the National Airspace Management Agency. A little peep into his website indicates a serious lack of insight. His great credential is of a “philanthropist” – Eze Umu-ogbeye, as the Igbo would put it. Charity is a good thing, but there is certainly a higher form of charity wherever there is equality; and I’m afraid that a cursory look at Okorocha does not satisfy the imperative for a 21st century administrator in Imo State.

True,  APGA has had some popular following in Imo State. But the party has also shown a remarkable capacity for disorganisation, so much that it was incapable of defending the people’s mandate. The party won the election in Imo in 2007 and was denied the chance to govern. APGA might rely on the same swell of support, although much also has changed since 2007. Ifeanyi Araraume of the Action Congress of NIgeria (ACN), is also another candidate with an intriguing past.

He was denied the PDP ticket in the last election and his party chose Mr. Ugwu over him. He fought this, and found himself on the ballot, but was denied electoral victory at the polls. Araraume’s desire to be governor must be measured against his effectiveness as a senator, where he failed profoundly to speak for the Imo people and for the Igbo in general, preferring unctuous deals with Olusegun Obasanjo, the man who became his nemesis.

The image of Araraume in the governor’s office in Owerri is incommensurate with the demands of that office and there is apparently no incentive for the Imo people to vote for him. These politicians – Araraume, Okorocha, and Ohakim, belong with the old PDP “mafia” that have held Imo State hostage,  though they have dispersed into other parties for convenience.

In the same sense, Emeka Nwajiuba also belongs to this cadre – the old PDP. But he had a public fall-out with the party based on principle and conviction very early on. If I had the liberty to endorse a candidate publicly, I would Emeka Nwajiuba of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) for the governorship of Imo State, on the grounds that he is a young, professional, well-educated, and astute politician.

A look at his campaign website indicates a level of preparedness, and programmatic clarity absent in the other campaigns. But more so, Nwajiuba has chosen as his deputy a very tested and much older man, Dr. Sebastian Mezu, whose backgrounds ought to impress and reassure the Imo electorate: here was a man who was very central in drawing the government policies of the Sam Mbakwe administration. He, it seems, is also helping, much as a rescue mission, to shape the Nwajiuba campaign. But, it is all now in the hands of the Imo people. They must insist on the audacity of change and let the ballots speak truth to power.