We view with great concern recent attempts by a handful of chieftains of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) of Mbaise extraction to hoodwink the entire Mbaise nation into an ill-conceived and spurious adoption of Chief Emeka Ihedioha as the preferred candidate of the Mbaise people in the forthcoming governorship election in Imo State.
This ill-fated endorsement agenda emanated from and is premised on the charade of December 11, 2018 where Chief Ihedioha convened a meeting of his coordinators and supporters and named them “Owerri Reawakening”, a gathering that eventually issued a communique purporting that “Owerri Zone” had endorsed Chief Ihedioha. This is a travesty. It was admittedly shocking when this same endorsement miasma was on December 28, 2018 introduced for consideration by PDP chieftains in Ezuruezu Mbaise.
It is pressing to highlight that no leader of note in Owerri Zone had an inkling of the badly orchestrated plot. The various groups that traditionally articulate the political interests of Owerri Zone never at any time participated in the scheme, neither were they at any rate informed about any consensus building and the modalities for its realization. It was entirely a desperate political machination devised to force an unsavory bile down the throats of Owerri people. For Chief Ihedioha and his goons to rely on such palpably absurd outing to now extrapolate that Ezuruezu Mbaise should get him endorsed for the 2019 Imo governorship is the height of self-deception.
To be clear, there has never been a time the Ezuruezu Mbaise or the other reputable groups within Owerri Zone gathered for the purpose of drawing up a template for choosing the preferred candidate to endorse. Worse still, there is no template anywhere on the basis of which anyone can lay claims of being endorsed by Owerri Zone or Ezuruezu Mbaise. Indeed the Mbaise Nation is culturally homogeneous but it is also politically plural. Ezuruezu, being the apex socio-cultural umbrella in Mbaise, is also an embodiment of this pluralism and reflects the aggregation of the various shades of opinions, so that the plot by a political party and its governorship candidate to impose themselves on Ezuruezu is not only crudely alien but also infantile and farcical.
We believe that credibility, competence, knowledgeability and acceptability should form the criteria for anointing, adopting or endorsing any candidate. The governorship of Imo State requires wide consultations across various Zones of the State, various strata of the citizenry, various social categories in the State and various political interests in the State, and, therefore, as Owerri Zone there must be a conscious effort to communicate with ourselves and negotiate with the other Zones in the State on the basis of that criteria in order not to eclipse the chances of the Zone. Those who stage-manage leprous endorsements are unhelpful to both themselves and the Zone at large.
Signed:
Sir Okey Ezeh (SDP)
Sir Stanley Amuchie (APGA)
Hon. Tony Nwulu (UPP)
