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I challenge Udenwa to a street
walk in Owerri
By ARTHUR NZERIBE
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
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Achike
Udenwa
•Photo: Sun News Publishing |
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During an interview with a local (Owerri-based) newspaper a few
weeks ago, I had cause to pick holes in a statement credited to
my brother, Chief Dr. Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, Aha Eji Aga Mba Ndi Igbo,
over the October 13, 2009 visit to the Presidency by a group of
Imo political leaders, including my humble self. Let me recap what
is probably too well know, nonetheless.
We visited President Umar Musa Yar’adua first to thank him
for the unprecedented love he has shown to our state and its people
and to ask him to do even more. We had a catalogue of demands which
we took and read before the President. Apart from tangible issues
like roads, water, electricity, security etc, we also seized that
opportunity to bring before the President intangible issues we believed
are inimical to the peace, stability and progress of our state.
Prominent among them is the attitude of some of our so-called political
leaders. We didn’t stop at that. We went ahead to point specifically
to the attitude of one of the President’s Ministers from Imo
state. Although the speech, read by the indefatigable Aha Eji Aga
Mba Ndi Igbo, did not mention the name of the Minister in black
and white, the fellow in question was not in doubt. That Minister
is Chief Achike Udenwa, currently Minister of Commerce and Industry
and former governor of Imo State.
We told the President that the attitude of this Minister of his
was fanning the embers of discord in the state and, indeed, within
the Peoples Democratic Party to which the President and this Minister
belong and to which over ninety per cent of the membership of the
delegation belong. And we cited instances. One was that Udenwa had
the effrontery to use fronts to challenge his boss, the President,
over the dissolution of the former state executive committee of
the PDP and the installation of a caretaker committee.
The event was presided over by the President himself, at the very
occasion where His Excellency, Chief Dr Ikedi Ohakim, the Governor
of Imo State, returned to the PDP amidst pomp and pageantry. The
next day, however, what did we see? A few elements from among the
dissolved executive went to a High Court to challenge the dissolution
and, in effect, the action of the president.
It was not difficult for our people to know where they were coming
from: The litigants were from the so-called Redemption 98 camp,
the rag tag political machinery of Achike Udenwa, with which he
ran the state aground in his eight years of misrule. Up till this
moment, the party is yet to grapple with the problem created by
the action of those Udenwa cronies, with all its attendant destabilizing
effects.
Except that our people abhor political bickering generally, that
singular act is quite capable of precipitating very unpleasant consequences.
And we told the president this much. We didn’t stop there,
we told the president to admonish his Ministers to desist from using
the privilege of their high office to perpetrate acts of perfidy
among their people back home. In fact, we told the president that
our state boasts of several other indigenes who can be appointed
into the federal cabinet and who would, nonetheless, comport themselves
properly and work with others back home for the progress of the
state.
Well, I wouldn’t blame those who read the things we said to
the President as meaning a call for Minister Udenwa’s sack.
And the latter’s reaction was natural and expected. He took
up various newspaper spaces to publish advertorials to abuse members
of delegation using proxies though. It was under these circumstances
that my brother, Aha Eji Aga Mba, addressed the press where he said
that the delegation did not necessarily call for the sack of Minister
Udenwa.
I didn’t quite like that because right from the word go, I
had said that we should have been more vehement in telling President
Yar’adua that the likes of Udenwa have no business in his
administration. But when I noticed that Udenwa was trying to capitalize
on that by sponsoring articles to insinuate that members of the
delegation were quarrelling over the proprietary of the visit, I
decided to let sleeping dogs lie. But Minister Udenwa, as obtuse
as ever, would not allow a matter that effectively brought him to
public ridicule die down.
Before I continue, let me play the devil’s advocate. If I
were Udenwa, I would not be making a song and dance of that matter.
Whether the delegation was right or wrong, the fact that such a
complaint about him was made in the first place should have kept
him thinking. Lord, what’s the matter.
The incident came just at the heals of a similar outing by the leadership
of the Orlu Political Consultative Assembly (OPOCA) which in unmistaken
terms declared him, Udenwa, unfit for the position he is currently
holding and the one he even held before. Now, it is a well known
fact that OPOCA was Udenwa’s brain child and that the chaps
who lampooned him were the very chaps he used in his unsuccessful
attempt to destroy some political icons from Orlu zone, nay the
entire state.
Yes, accusing fingers were pointed towards Governor Ohakim as being
the sponsor of the Udenwa bashing. Right or wrong, Udenwa’s
response portrayed him as infantile as ever. Rather than sitting
back to reflect, he started sponsoring newspaper advertorials to
denigrate anybody he could remember his or her name. It doesn’t
take a political scientist to realize that Udenwa’s reaction
to those developments marked him out as naïve and exposed him
to further ridicule.
Now, let me tell the former Governor of Imo state the real import
of these recent developments, especially the visit of the crème
de la crème of the Imo political establishment to the President.
On one side, it means that Udenwa is not in touch with the political
leadership of the state. Let’s have a brief rundown of the
membership of the delegation: The Governor of the State; the Speaker
of the State House of Assembly; the State Chairman of his party,
the ruling part, the PDP; two Senators including the one representing
his zone; two members of the House of Representatives; several other
icons including, Hope Uzodimma, Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, Greg Mbadiwe,
Ozichukwu Chukwu, Ebere Udeagu, (Udenwa’s Deputy when he was
in office) Cosmos Iwu, Tony Chukwu, etc.
Then there were two traditional rulers, including the chairman of
the South East Council of Traditional Rulers. Well, the membership
of the delegation is too well known for me to go into every detail
here but let me state without any fear of contradictions that it
is strange that an immediate past governor of a state is not working
with this caliber of people, barely thirty months after he had left
office. It means that give Achike Udenwa another twelve months,
he would not even make the list of a delegation of leaders from
his local government area.
Here is a man who could not on his own work out an orderly succession
after his eight-year reign. Providence came in and through the efforts
of others, Imo was saved the headache of his abysmal failure; with
the people still willing to allow him go away with the credit that
he installed the incumbent governor. Here is a man who, rather than
show gratitude once again to Mother Luck for making him take a bulk
of the benefits of Ohakim’s ascendance (over 70 per cent of
Ohakim’s cabinet were nominated by Udenwa) even when he did
not want Ohakim in the first place.
Here is a man who, rather than work towards restoring peace and
harmony in a state he had the privilege of governing for eight years,
decided to resort to fanning the ambers of discord in the state.
Up till this moment, Imo indigenes are unable to fathom why Udenwa
is after Ohakim’s head. What clearly marks out Udenwa as lacking
in political sagacity is the fact that even after he had seen that
the entire state legislature had decided to pull its weight behind
Ohakim (at least for the collective interest of the state), Achike
Udenwa chose to align with election litigants against a fellow whom
his party had installed in office. Where is the sagacity in all
these?
In Nigeria, one of the reasons why the different sections struggle
to have their own people elected or appointed into offices, especially
at the federal level, is the hope that such people will return home
with some maturity that can help build their society. I make bold
to state that each time I contemplate on Udenwa and his post-governorship
era; I am only made to conclude that Imo people have been robbed
of a great opportunity. Achike Udenwa is the first Imo indigene
to occupy the office of governor for eight unbroken years. That
should have transported him into the category of statesmen. But
for where? Instead, what Imo ended up with is a fellow who was fighting
for a ministerial job with boys who were just updating their curriculum
vitae.
I am aware that Udenwa is not the only victim of this “Post-Office”
syndrome but the situation we found ourselves in Imo state after
the April 2007 elections should have made Udenwa act more tenaciously
and even be more tolerant.
Now to the other side which I would put in the form of a question:
Where was Achike Udenwa on the day of the visit to the President?
It is a well known fact that the usual practice is that when a delegation
from a particular constituency is visiting a Chief Executive like
President or Governor, members of the cabinet from that constituency
are usually part of the chief executive’s (President or Governor)
team to receive the delegation. We saw it in Kemafor Chikwe when
she was Minister. Kema was always around each time any group went
to see the President. Ditto for Ministers from other states. Which
means they were part of the administration. But that sunny afternoon
on October 13, 2009, Achike Udenwa was no where to be found in the
Villa. Meaning: He was not informed by the Presidency of the coming
of his own people, a state he governed for eight years. Meaning:
Those at the helm of affairs, at least those involved in organizing
the reception, couldn’t care less whether or not Udenwa was
there. Does that show he is part of what is happening in Abuja?
When these two scenarios are put together, we end up with a fellow
who is neither with his people nor the administration he is supposed
to be serving. Clearly, that is not what the good people of Imo
state deserve. These are the things Udenwa, if I were him, should
have taken into consideration before venturing into his ill fated
interview in THISDAY newspaper (November 21, 2009). In answer to
a question on how he felt about the ‘call’ for his sack
by our delegation, Udenwa said and I quote: “… I can
assure you that those who went for that visit are today very ashamed
to walk the streets of Imo”. And he concluded by asking the
interviewer to come to Imo to investigate. So, over to the editors
of THISDAY newspaper. I was part of the delegation and an unrepentant
one for that matter. Let Udenwa lead all the editors to Imo and
witness two of us, myself and him, do a street walk in any part
of the state. Yes, I challenge Achike Udenwa to come to Orlu, his
home town, and have a road walk with me and let’s see. I am
not speaking for others but I can state that Udenwa’s statement
was not surprising. That is Achike Udenwa for you. Never able to
go beyond the ordinary.
I am not Governor Ohakim’s bullet-proof vest. The Governor
has shown that he can take care of himself. But I would not sit
by and watch a fellow like Achike denigrate my person even if I
do not talk about others. His ministerial job may have gotten into
his head but I believe he ought to know his bounds.
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