Okenze George Nkwoji is the traditional Prime Minister (TPM) of Egbelu Obube in the Owerri North Local Government Area of Imo State. He is a publisher, water engineer and one time Imo State in publicity secretary of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). In this chat he exhaustively discusses the much talked about charter of equity suggesting what Gov. Hope Uzodinmma must do to lend credibility to the concept. Enjoy the chat.
Is there really a charter of equity in Imo documented and signed off by stakeholders agreeing to rotate powers among concerned people?
I guess you are referring to guber elections in Imo. I think we are privileged to read a document revealed by Barr.Willie Amadi on that which was presented to him by an elder statesman, Chief Levi Oguike.
As at what period Sir?
As at 1999, that was Udenwa’s period. That document was presented to Willie Amadi as a souvenir by Chief Oguike. Based on that, one has a strong reason to believe that there is something like that in Imo State.
Is the COE binding among which groups in the state or does it exist in parties only?
It is anchored around the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), other parties tried to follow same way but I think it will not work until Imolites sit together and design the COE so that every party will know where to pick its candidate in every election. Until that is done we will just be dancing around the COE as proposed by the PDP then.
Recently before the 2023 election that gave Uzodimma his second tenure, late chief Iwuanyanwu declared that Imolites aggregated and agreed on a COE which will now rotate power among the three zones. Is that one relating to the APC alone or binding on all other Imolites. There was so much hype over this and Orlu was stated to have taken the first shot. It was after then that Uzodimma declared that he will be handing over power to Owerri zone.
As I earlier said all those arranged were based on PDP. APC is currently in power when Iwuanyanwu made that pronouncement and we have council of Imo State Elders. The governor has come to say that he supports this COE, we are therefore looking forward to the governor himself indicating where he will cede power to.
But the governor has made pronouncement over and over insisting that he will hand over power to Owerri zone but the question that arises is if he has the right/authority to do so and on what premise is he standing to make such declarations when there are other stakeholders contending for such positions.
Well you know that democracy in itself creates a lot of chaos, democracy breeds crises here and there because every person has that sense of entitlement to every position. But it is the same democracy that really solves democratic problems. Imo State for example, we are talking about COE and have also heard our governor talk about Owerri Zone. Personally , I am not inclined to believe that statement because the real problem is not about which zone that will succeed him, but an orderly and seamless succession plan for the three zones.
If our governor is to be taken for his words, then he has to assemble Imo stakeholders, that is religious leaders, political leaders, youth leaders, labour leaders, traditional rulers, industry leaders, etc. As the incumbent governor who enjoys influence and respect, he is in a very good position for his appeal to be heard.
All that is required of him is to say please my brothers, let us now begin from my regime to build on this COE and I will prefer this zone to succeed me after which it will be that zone and Orlu in that order. I strongly believe that Imo leaders will accept such a proposal from him. Once it is accepted, it will no longer be a political party affair strictly. It will automatically become an Imo political system.
If governor Uzodinma cannot wrap it up this way, honestly there is nothing holding other political zones from fielding candidates.
Nevertheless, governor Uzodinma is in power and enjoys the goodwill of Imolites. He is well placed to write his name on marble by resolving the issue of Charter of Equity. This is his chance. Imolites will also remember him for that.By 2027 Orlu zone alone would have held powers for 24 years, now looking at power balancing going by the COE if it must be respected, it means that Orlu zone has to mark down till power rotates equally between the other two zones. Do you think that this is possible?
I don’t even know why you have to think along that direction. The situation we have is like a race in which both the lame, the blind and able bodied persons are participants, so what will happen? Will the disabled tell the able bodied to hold on and move the same pace with them? It is a competitive game, so the issue of standing down will not arise but it will rather be that Orlu may now be magnanimous and say let the others take more turns.
So are you saying that Orlu is still free to run having monopolized powers this number of years?
If I got you correctly I thought you meant one zone after Orlu running as long as Orlu has ruled Imo State. If however, you are talking of Orlu keeping off in 2027 is what we expect.
What I am talking about is achieving equity, power balancing.
No it won’t work that way.
So you mean that the period that they have ruled should be set aside and COE starts afresh?
Oh yes, it has just started, that is if Gov. Hope Uzodimma wants Imo State to enjoy peace politically he has to do it now. If he leaves it for political parties to resolve there will be problems here and there. After all there is no equity in the creation of the political zones. Owerri zone has 9 local governments; Okigwe has 6 and Orlu 12.
If there is a COE as you indicated earlier, why was it not respected? Why is Orlu constantly outwitting other zones?
Well, I will answer it this way. First and foremost Orlu zone has political unity. They respect themselves. In Orlu zone the money bags there respect religious and political leaders and vice versa. But that cannot be said to be the same in Owerri zone. From my own personal observation Owerri Zone does not enjoy any political unity.
When it comes to Owerri Zone to produce governor, every Tom, Dick and Harry will come and vie not minding whether or not he or she is qualified. With that kind of attitude there is no way that the zone can enjoy political unity. Even as we speak, I have not seen an arrow head if per chance Imolites agree that Owerri should succeed Orlu in 2027. Who will the zone support ? Is it a person that has been working for sometimes to be governor, somebody that can be relied upon or somebody that will become an errand boy? So far I have not seen an arrow head.
If you are saying this it means that Owerri Zone is not prepared yet?
Why I say that I have not seen any arrow head is because the zone is not anchoring its ambition on any one or two persons except maybe it will look in the direction of the Senator and incumbent deputy governor. These are people are already occupying high positions.
Opportunities have come very close to Owerri zone but they
bungle it each time. The late Chief Iwuanyawu initiated or created the present COE and allowed Uzodimma to continue even when it is known that Orlu Zone has dominated power. People had thought that he will now say let it go to Owerri. Some prominent Owerri sons have been fingered in the past of truncating a chance especially during the Okorocha regime. Don’t you think that such can repeat?
That was what I told you earlier that Owerri zone is ill prepared because it has no arrow head. For Iwuanyanwu to have supported Uzodimma is a clear testimony that he must have looked round and noticed that anything else would have been legal battles here and there. Owerri Zone has a lot of elites, educated people and money bags but those abundant resources do not translate to political advantage at the state level.
If you are saying this what about the former governor that spent 7 months in office, Emeka Ihedioha. You don’t consider him as prepared?
With apologies to Rt Hon Emeka Ihedioha, he has proven by works that his eyes are on Douglas House but Owerri Zone people do not seem to be agreed on him. Otherwise when he won an election in PDP but the court upturned his victory, we noticed key members of his party left him. Doesn’t that show you that something is wrong somewhere especially the key members from Owerri Zone. Why did they leave? They should have stayed there to rebuild the party. The point is since those who should rightly be described as his kinsmen abandoned the party after he lost out, it simply means that Owerri zone is not keen to fight its political battles. They only pay lip service to their turn for gubernatorial agenda.
On the IDP camp at Nsu, Mbano people have come to accuse Gov. Uzodimma of strategically seeking to Islamize Igbo land. They query that of all places in Nigerian including the north where issues of displaced persons are more pronounced Imo is the place to house them. What is your take on this?
To be very very honest with you I wasn’t even aware of any IDP camp in Imo State, never heard it before until the crises erupted. If there is going to be something like that at least Imolites should have been made aware.
If you say this it means that the government had planned to sneak it in then take people by surprise.
Well, every government at every point in time knows what it wants. The person who wears the shoe knows where it pinches. If I were the governor, I may have done same thing or otherwise. But one thing generally about subtle islamization, I noticed that some state governments in the South East obtained loans from Islamic banks. And there is no way that you can obtain Islamic loans without giving them some leeway to show some visibility. It goes with some concessions. I am not going to say that the state governments don’t know what they are doing but they are also-ran using the soft loans to Islamize their people and there is no
Do you think the camp is a development oriented project or what benefits do you think accrues from it?
It is a place that victims of Boko Haram and related incidents that are displaced from their communities are camped. They are not refugees from outside. But if there is an IDP camp in Imo that is not meant for people displaced from Imo State, then it is only the government that knows why it is bringing people from other states.
On the September 21 Council election so many issues have cropped up to attack the conduct which include lack of internal democracy, declaring results without figures for winners and losers, no election tribunal, no election conducted in many places. What are your thoughts about the election?
I wonder why any politician should complain. They play the games. It is only when they are not in power and are at the short end of the stick that they complain.
Are you saying that they are not supposed to complain about electoral irregularities?
They are not supposed to complain because among all the political parties, which one conducted primaries? All they did was selection. You see until we stop this issue of beating about the bush, causing crises here and there but turning around blaming others.
When you ran your moment newspaper you were writing regularly keeping your column. When you stopped publishing you also stopped writing. So what is the issue?
I stopped keeping my column only. But you can notice that the subjects of my writings over the years are now playing out. I wrote about almost every event that unfolds in Nigeria today but people didn’t believe nor paid attention. It is not easy to write on development issues. It is not easy to write objectively too. And I never wrote about individuals but on issues generally.
Thank you Sir.
