My initial subject of discourse this week revolved around the recent happenings in Obigbo area of Rivers State. Agreed that on paper, the name of the area is Oyigbo, but as someone born in Port Harcourt – and had both primary and secondary education in the state – I can relate with the name, Obigbo. But Oyigbo, pray what dialect is that, and what does it mean?
In the dying days of the volatile #EndSARS mayhem, youths of Obigbo area had run amok, killing, allegedly, about three policemen and five soldiers. Reportedly instigated by Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra(IPOB), the gruesome killing of the security operatives drew the ire, and condemnation, of every decent person. Here, were, fathers, husbands and uncles who only ‘crime’ was to enlist in the uniformed services in the service of the fatherland.
From across the country, the orgy of violence was widespread. Several of them too gory to even regurgitate in words. Somewhere in Ibadan, the Oyo state capital, demented youths not only hacked some policemen to death; they burnt them in the full glare of the public, and wait for this, proceeded to cannibalise their remains. And as they fed themselves with slices of their flesh, they still retained the presence of mind to video-record the savagery, which they eventually sent out on social media.
While many were still bemoaning such level of bestiality, never before seen on Nigerian streets, Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State squarely blamed IPOB for the Obigbo crisis, and proceeded to put a price of N20 million on the head of an alleged leader of the group in the area. Had he stopped there, or even gone ahead to direct security agencies to fish out perpetrators of the mayhem, Governor Wike would have earned a few more epaulettes to his burgeoning image as an action governor.
But no, not Wike. Seemingly always in politicking mode, the Rivers State Governor accused his predecessor and arch-foe, Transportation Minister, Rotimi Amaechi, of seeking Igbo votes by tacitly supporting the crisis in Obigbo.
Before that charge, Wike had declared a 24-hour curfew in the whole of the area, giving the military the leeway to carry out alleged revenge killings in the community. Notedly, many of those who lost their lives, had their business premises vandalised, or had their means of livelihood truncated could not by any stretch of imagination be said to be IPOB members.
Even when leaders of the South east, led by their governors, chieftains of the apex Igbo socio-cultural organization, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, traditional rulers and other politicians of note visited Governor Wike, in a bid to calm frayed nerves, he had gloated over the visit. In an hour-long sponsored telecast of the visit on a national television, the subtitle ran thus: ” South East Leaders Meet Wike, Preach Peace.”
Desirous to frontally take on the governor over his penchant for distancing his race from the larger Igbo nation, my anger soon swivelled towards another direction. And into focus loomed the unpredictability of the man who led the trip to Brick House, Port Harcourt: Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State.
In deed, given the nature of his politics, how is an Umahi expected to represent the best interests of the Igbo. Not in Port Harcourt. Certainly, not in Abuja.
About three weeks ago, when Francis Nwifuru, speaker of the Ebonyi state House of Assembly, leading 22 out of the 24 members of the House gave Governor Umahi’s People’s Democratic Party(PDP), a seven- day ultimatum to zone the party’s presidential ticket to the South east, many knew that the devil was in the details.
It was clearly the Speaker’s speech, but evidently what the public heard was Umahi’s voice.
For those who still had any spectre of doubt about the governor’s moves, that Nwifuru spoke with the kind of arrogance which a tenant who had secretly erected a building exhibits before his landlord erased any such thought.
While ambition in itself is not a wrong craving, persons in positions of authority ought to always adhere to Shakespeare’s admonition that theirs ought to be made of sterner stuff.
Not Umahi. His latest move is, perhaps, the climax of a ceaseless craving to always rise above self.
As current chairman of the South east Governors Forum, Umahi is a custodian of the hopes, aspirations and desires of the Igbo people. To seek to trade this position, for what is obviously a personal misadventure, is without doubt a grave miscalculation.
Pray, what makes him think that he can achieve his craving, simply by standing on the shoulders of Ndigbo?
Is he not the same man who barely two years ago whined for weeks on end, because a kinsman, former Governor Peter Obi was chosen ahead of him as Vice Presidential candidate of the PDP.
By ditching the PDP on the excuse that the party isn’t forthcoming in zoning the presidency to his zone, many observers are left wondering if the APC had fulfilled such condition; and when?
A working governor, who is acknowledged as having changed, for good, the infrastructure landscape of Abakaliki, the Ebonyi state capital, Umahi is however a certified failure in public conduct and leadership beyond the borders of his state.
Who, for instance, will easily forget how he nipped in the bud the people’s quest for a regional security apparatus. While easily kowtowing to Abuja’s community policing option, his counterparts in the South west remained resolute in the formation and activation of their Amotekun home-grown force.
Only last week, also, a tepid self-serving communique was to emerge after the South east’ meeting with a Presidential delegation in the aftermath of the #EndSARS protest. When the train got to the South west the next day, their leaders spoke stridently about their resolve for fiscal federalism.
Publisher/Editor-in-Chief of The Source magazine, Comfort Obi writing in her popular Meridian column of April 27, 2020 had this to say: “If there is any Igbo man whose temperament and recklessness do not recommend for the dignified office of President, it is Umahi.”
From throwing tantrums like wild oats, to sacking state officials arbitrarily, and declaring journalists working in Ebonyi as persona non grata, Umahi’s power drunk disposition appears tailor made for his state.
And no further. For to do otherwise, would be a grave misadventure.