By Freedom Nwali
The Governor of Ebonyi State, Engr. Dave Umahi was recently quoted to have “wished” President Muhammadu Buhari to contest the 2019 presidential election. Umahi, a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governor, has frantically set the ball rolling for President Buhari’s eventual second term re-election, to the consternation of his political party. Incidentally, Umahi is the chairman of South-East Governors Forum.
To some, it is a surprise endorsement from an opposition governor. But to others, who understand Umahi, it is an opportunist statement and a desperate political journey to the All Progressives Congress (APC). The writing is there, the body language gives credence to what many now see as an eventual reality, if left unchecked by those who laboured to build the APC, most importantly, the Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu. People who are conversant with Umahi’s political life and nature would fully comprehend the length to which he can go to achieve any desire, and that pervades his political world.
Elected in 2015 in what was challenged as a controversial election, many saw his eventual emergence as the height of political manipulation.
Umahi’s political romance with every politician across the divide, like former President Olusegun Obasanjo, sacked former SGF, Babachir Lawal, some ministers in the Buhari administration and a host of APC members only serves as a means to actualise his avowed political goal. It is worrisome and hypocritical that the same man who, as the deputy governor of Ebonyi State, constituted barriers that opposed and denied Buhari access to campaign in Ebonyi during the last election is now singing his praise. It is apparent that Umahi’s soul is inthe APC while his body is presently in the PDP. He is now a politician with dual parties.
To fully understand Umahi, one needs to take a look at the domestic politics pushing him. While as governor of Abia State, Ogbonnaya Onu, who is Umahi’s kinsman, nurtured Umahi to what he is today. Umahi rewarded Onu by working against him in the election he contested against Chief Martin Elechi in 2007. He made the destruction of the goodwill Onu has as a foundation for his own rise. So when, through Onu and other founding members, APC won the presidential election, envy surfaced and the backbiting continued.
Umahi was Deputy Governor to Elechi. The former governor made Umahi the state PDP chairman and later his deputy. It was a position and a veritable opportunity that Umahi used to accumulate wealth and influence that positioned him to challenge the former governor’s pronouncement of former Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, as the preferred candidate. Umahi paid Elechi well by not only challenging him but also constituting a phantom probe of an administration he was part and parcel of.
Umahi courted former President Goodluck Jonathan and his wife, Patience, won the election and disappeared. He is today courting members of Buhari’s inner circle to launch himself into APC. This is widely viewed in Ebonyi as another move to sabotage the massive gains already made by Ebonyi APC, following the massive defection of former Labour Party and PDP members to the APC. As I write, a supposedly breakaway faction of the APC in Ebonyi, which had allegedly been secretly funded, has returned to the party and is now working with the actual leadership of the party, led by Dr. Onu.
Ebonyi State APC has the highest newly registered members across the federation. With the entrance of former governor, Elechi and his team, the APC, under the leadership of Onu, is poised to wrest power from Umahi. The ground is fertile for that because Umahi’s policies are a disservice to the development of the state. Having Umahi in APC can never add any value to the fortunes of the party. Rather, it would diminish and introduce impunity to the burgeoning progress already being recorded. Ordinarily, the street argument would have been that political parties are as open as places of worship, which one cannot be barred from being part of. But Ebonyi people appear resolute that having Umahi on a progressive platform like the APC would be a great disservice!
APC at the national level should understand that there must be reward for fidelity and faithfulness in a system. The labour of committed APC members in Ebonyi State, in building the party to what it is today, should not be sacrificed for the entrance of a governor. What happened to some founding members of the APC that lost their state’s political structures to new entrants, which resulted in the decamping of such persons should be guarded from repeating itself, especially as we approach an election year.
Should Umahi decide to join the APC, he should be treated like a latecomer. There should be no preferential treatment.
• Nwali, a political affairs analyst, wrote from Abakaliki, Ebonyi State