Buhari’s Vote your conscience task: Araraume is the conscience of Imo -Analysts

President Muhammadu Buhari once again demonstrated his knowledge of the political standing and need of Imo, the Eastern Heartland, when during his official campaign at the Dan Anyiam Stadium; he endorsed the candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, Sen. Ifeanyi Araraume as the next governor of Imo come May, 29, 2019.
The endorsement of Sen. Araraume, who is currently enjoying tremendous support across party formations, is the latest as the battle for Douglas House on March 2, this year rages.
At the gathering which witnessed gathering of Imolites from all walks of life, President Buhari rather than endorse only the candidate of his party, advised Imo electorates to vote according to their conscience, insisting that the time had come for them to speak with their Permanent Voters Card on who they want as their governor.
The stand of the President was further accentuated by the Special Adviser to the President Garba Shehu on why his principal could not only uphold the candidate of his party, who is currently running a battle of wits with those of other parties and the sitting governor.
Mallam Shehu maintained that with the presence of the supporters of other political parties that thronged out enmasse to felicitate with him, Mr. President would not be doing the state and the people any good by endorsing an individuals.
To be asking questions on why Mr. President would be endorsing Sen. Ifeanyi Araraume as the next governor of Imo State is to beg the questions because Mr. President not only have all the dossiers of those running as governorship candidates, but also have worked closely with some of them in the past, be it at party or national levels. The President was also aware of the present condition of things in the state and the yearning desire of the electorates to be allowed to make
their choice on who governs them out of the pack.
For starters, Mr. President could not have endorsed the preferred candidate of the incumbent governor, who is running from another platform, having known the antecedents of the incumbent and his running battle with the electorates in the state. The President was fully aware of what transpired before, during and after the primary of his party, to know that the candidate of the incumbent governor could not have been the best that the people yearned for.
Mr. President, who once chided the incumbent governor over his palatial mansion in Owerri, the Imo State capital and wondered how an individual could amass such land and structures all to himself, while the roads, schools and workers, including pensioners were freezing in the cold, was in the best position to know that the interest of the incumbent on his son inlaw was not based on his love for the state, but pecuniary. Furthermore, Mr. President had become more aware over
the months the coalition forces battled the governor that, firstly handing the party ticket to his preferred candidate would spell doom, not only for the party, but the state and secondly, the state had suffered untold hardship and depravations in the hands of the incumbent and to give him an advantage would be akin to a total knock down of the state.
This informed the statesman position of Mr. President in totally rejecting the endorsement of the governor’s preferred candidate, especially, when he was aware that there was a decent, orthright,
incorruptible, incorrigible, principled and inspiring candidate among the pack, Sen. Ifeanyi Araraume, whose principled stand while he sojourned with the ruling party, was worthy of emulation and applauding.
No doubt, the entrance of Sen. Araraume into the ruling party revived it from the mortuary, as the ruling party was all dead and gone, following the high-handedness and avarice of the administration in the state. He re-engineered the party, infused the much needed support to all the structures from the ward to the state levels, enabled the party hierarchy in the state to once again hold their heads high but boasting of a Distinguished Senator, an advantage that was never
there, even though the governor claimed to be so popular. Imo State was the only state where a sitting governor could not boast of a Distinguished Senator until Sen. Araraume came on board. This could not have been lost to the President.
Sen. Araraume further galvanized the men and women of timber and caliber to return to the party and made it what a political party should be, rather than a family affair, and ensured that due process was followed in marshalling out opportunities which saw many sons and daughters of Imo State having board appointments, instead of those affiliated only to the governor. The popularity rating of the state soared to the heavens and people began to have a rethink of the sins
of the party, before he left, having made sure that unlike others, he left the party and the people far better than he met them. This too could not have been lost on the President.
Mr. President categorically urging the Imo electorates to vote their conscience is a far cry from the past where a President had come to the state to proclaim ‘your people say you dey do like this’ but what he came to say was that ‘though my party has a candidate, yet, I know a better candidate in another party, who stands out to take Imo to the next level.’ His refusal to also endorse the preferred candidate of the governor is also an indication that the incumbent has lost favour and the electorates must look inwards.
The President has spoken; it is now left for the electorates to choose Sen. Ifeanyi Godwin Araraume for their good and the good of the state and the unborn generation. There is no better testament to the people than that which Mr. President had done by refusing to endorse the
candidate of his party, the preferred candidate of the governor, but urged them to look elsewhere, which is the All Progressives Grand Alliance and its governorship candidate, Sen. Ifeanyi Araraume, after all it is individual and not party that matters.