AT times of intense politics and politicking like these, what would you, if you were President Jonathan’s adviser, have the President do? Canvass popular support from all and sundry for his reelection bid, or develop a long memory and seek to avenge his alleged failure to install the leadership of the House of Representatives?

Or better still, should it matter more to the President that even after the House Members had elected their own leadership, majority of the Members still remained staunch allies and supporters of the President and have been instrumental to his having his way most of the time in the House?

Or that whosever participated in that election is dealt with for such silly derring-do? These are questions that have arisen in the light of a recent publication in one of the national dailies where ‘sources’ claimed that those PDP Members who voted for Tambuwal to emerge as Speaker might be disqualified from vying for any elective position by the party.

Copious references were made in that report to Deputy Speaker, Hon. Emeka Ihedioha, who is seeking PDP ticket for Imo governorship election, and Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, the presumptive PDP candidate for the 2015 governorship election in Enugu State, having beaten 13 other aspirants in a party caucus election to emerge as the consensus candidate for the race.

Consensus candidate

Since that report came out, there has been a deluge of reactions to it, mostly from the two Honourable Members’ constituents who believe that the ‘malicious’ report was targeted specifically at the two of them, apparently with intent to cause disaffection for them in the Presidency and among the party hierarchy. If that’s the intent of the sources that gave out (not to say planted) that story (and it may well be their intent), then that’s bad enough, to say the very least.

For me, it simply says a lot about the quality of contemporary politicians that in their bid to outflank their opponents and protect their selfish interests, they wittingly or unwittingly say or do things that not only question the democratic credentials of their party or the nation’s leadership, for that matter but also ridicule them.

Should any politician worth that name, just to get at an opponent, put out a piece of information (which is even false) to the fact that his party or the President of the country is angry with some party faithful for not aligning with the president in a purportedly failed bid to install a rubber-stamp leadership in the national assembly?

Is nothing held sacrosanct at all in a political ‘war’, not even the name and image of the President? But no matter.

Now, back to the questions I raised at the outset. So, what would you have the president do? Would you advise him to just go ahead and canvass popular support from all and sundry for his reelection bid, or develop a long memory and seek to deal with those who allegedly caused his alleged failure to install the leadership of the House of Representatives?

Or better still, do you think it should matter more to the President that even after the House Members had elected their own leadership, majority of the Members still remained staunch allies and supporters of the President who have been very instrumental to his having his way in the House most of the time? Or that whosever participated in that election is dealt with for such silly derring-do?

Personally, I would simply have advised the President to remember the story of Lot’s wife in the Bible: never look back. When God gives you victory, you do not go looking for those who fought with you to punish, you look for ways to add their strengths to yours so you become stronger and better and forge ahead. Which is exactly what the President did: the House may not be led by a PDP-anointed but the president has as many strong supporters in the lower chamber as he has in the senate.

And incidentally, among those most invaluable foot soldiers and strategists of the Big man in the House are the same people some aggrieved politicians want the public to believe their party and the president are after because of their role in Tambuwal’s emergence as House Speaker. Pray, is that what the President of the Federal Republic would be occupied with at this point in time? I fail to understand why some who claim to love the president and the party more than the rest of us do would want to invest him with a long memory he is not known to possess (figuratively speaking, that is).

Anyone who has followed Deputy Speaker, Emeka Ihedioha’s career in the House since 2011 would wager that he has gone about his duties with so much maturity and loyalty to party and country. Under Ihedioha’s watch as a Jonathan supporter, the House cannot be said to have done anything detrimental to the President’s interests.

On several occasions, we have seen how attempts to censure the president or his subordinates on one or two issue have been deftly smothered by the President’s men, marshaled, I dare say, by DS Ihedioha. Ditto for DS’s colleague Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi. A quiet, smooth and efficient organizer, Ugwuanyi as Chairman of the House Committee on Maritime, has worked closely with the President’s men and the party hierarchy to stabilize the nation’s maritime sector, which is one of the most profitable sectors of the Nigerian economy today.

For every pragmatic political analyst, the question, therefore, is not whether the president ‘installed’ his own men in the House but whether he has men in the House who can be relied upon to ensure that he has it easy in the House. And the answer is yes. Emeka Ihedioha and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi are veritable members of that great President’s team.

As Mike Ajogwu SAN (SAN), told reporters in Enugu, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, in particular, was part of the House caucus that worked to achieve the desires of the party; that contrary to speculations, Hon Ugwuanyi, in fact, voted for the party’s preferred candidate and so, “there is no reason for his detractors to assassinate his political career on the pages of newspapers.”

Said the legal luminary: “Mr. President was and is still a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators Nigeria and I was and am, national vice president of the same Institute. I joined forces with Hon. Ugwuanyi to canvass for Mr. President on January 11 and 12, 2011. I had been a member of the PDP with Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi. He had been a loyal member of the party. In 2011, we all voted for President Goodluck Jonathan. When it was time for election, we were all together with the governor of the state plotting how to win the presidential election. Enugu State delivered a block vote for the president in that election.

“As a member of the Federal House of Representatives, he was keeping faith with the position of the party. He was never touted in any quarters as someone who worked against the interest of the party. So, coming now to associate him with those who work against the interest of the party is not only wicked but a satanic device to rob the people of Enugu State of their desire.

“Hon. Ugwuanyi as we all know is a very quiet type but has strong initiative that can increase the fortunes of PDP in Enugu State in particular and the South East Zone in general. In all the visits of Mr. President to Enugu and the South East, Hon. Ugwuanyi had shown his unwavering support for President Goodluck Jonathan.”

In a contest of choices, what would be the party and the president’s? Would they go for popular candidates and party loyalists supported by peaceful, well-organised local chapters of the party or would they settle for loners, rejected by the party at home but who wouldn’t mind crashing the roof and killing everyone so long as it not they who are in charge. For the PDP, especially in Enugu, following the unanimous choice of Hon. Ugwuanyi as the local chapter’s consensus candidate for the Enugu 2015 gubernatorial race, the choice is quite clear. It must not allow bad losers and dogs-in-manager to scuttle the will of the people.

John Paul Ezeaku writes from Enugu