04.02.2016
Whatever else is true of Ebonyi State except that the state is not what it was meant to be. Good or bad, recent political twists in the state have shaped the polity of the state for future. Whether we will move to the top where we ought to be will be determined by how we guard ourselves without allowing hatred and narrow interest to contrast our size of hope, how we reconcile ourselves with the inevitable reality.
For the second time in a row, Ebonyi gubernatorial election victory has been challenged to the Supreme Court level, a significant departure from the political homogeneity of the previous gubernatorial contests. This is just one out of many signs that democratic culture is getting entrenched in the state.
Convinced that he had won the gubernatorial election which gave victory to Chief Martin Nwancho Elechi in 2011, Sen. Julius Ali Ucha had approached gubernatorial election tribunal praying it to sack the winner and declare him the truly elected governor in the April 2011 gubernatorial polls. Dissatisfied with the outcome of the tribunal ruling, he appealed the judgment. And when the appellant court upheld the tribunal ruling, Sen. Ucha headed straight to the Supreme Court which contrary to speculation in many high quarters went ahead to uphold Elechi’s victory. Whether Ucha avowed it or not, for the years running to the end of Chief Elechi’s tenure, it was unfortunate that the heart of Ucha’s henchmen never reconciled selves with Elechi’s government, the acrimony which every political analyst in the state knows how deep it strangled development and peaceful correlation.
In the penultimate week, the electoral contest between Arc. Dr. Edward Okereke Nkwegu and Engr. Dave Nweze Umahi came to an end following the Supreme Court ruling which upheld Engr. Umahi’s election. After Justice Theresa Ogeche-led electoral tribunal upheld Umahi’s election, Nkwegu had petitioned the appellant court in Enugu. The appellant cour followed tribunal’s footstep in their ruling on the Friday that had earlier turned ‘black’ following ghastly road mishap that took 11 vibrant lives at Ezzangbo on their way to witness the ruling at Enugu. Still uncomfortable with the ruling, Edon had approached highest court in the land asking it to study the judgments. Then on January 27, 2016, the apex court gave its verdict upholding the election. The rest is now history.
The ruling brought to an end tension that had been building up in the state before, during and after April 2015 elections. Both sides of the divide were at once both optimistic and pessimistic of the outcome. To gain public sympathy, political languages were diluted in anticipation of possible re-run. The greatest beneficiaries of the prolong electoral litigation were Ebonyians who were sometimes surprisingly addressed in soft, emotional appealing words, making them feel as if they have all become important stakeholders in the state. Many elders in the villages had the opportunity to host and interact for the first time politicians who had for years lived in the catacombs of power. Every burial was an opportunity to fly party flags and sometimes some coffins were painted with party colours. Brothers even disagreed on condolence messages to include in their late father’s burial brochure. These and many more we are likely to see less now than the past is gone. Ingredients of impunity are likely to lance government directives from now.
Contrary to the ranting of party ignoramuses, Ebonyi is good for all that has happened beginning from that time Sen. Ucha insisted on challenging Chief Elechi’s re-election till the date Arc. Nkwegu and supporters were left with no options than to reconcile selves with the inevitable that Umahi has come to be their governor for the next four years. However, what cannot be accepted in political economy is the opinion that Edon should have agreed to compromise with Umahi after the election.
This is where armchair analysts and political parasites get things twisted. Whether one loses or wins, no amount of money spent in legal fight for one’s right is a waste. The idea of challenging elections has its burdens but in the end, it helps to entrench democratic culture. If not for anything, it builds confidence in opposition followership and puts the ruling party on constant scrutiny. If Buhari were a type who could stoop to dine with winner after elections to the detriment of former supporters, no one would have allowed him fly his party’s flag in the last election that eventually paid off for him.
In the years running to 2011, Ebonyi had a reputation of being a banana republic dominated by political swarm too hungry to resist bribe, too timid to fight, too ignorant to upset the apple cart of any government in power. Those outside the state ridiculed Ebonyi politics and gave it different derogatory names all pointing to their tendency to bow to any government in power. The state was cajoled that her politicians were hunger-driven and incapable and incompetent to play real politics which in Nigeria language is a buccaneer type where black is white and white, black. And now Ebonyians decided to give it a trial, the same people were out wagging mouth that Ebonyians don’t have any other industry except politics and that is why everybody is fighting.
With the contest over, what Ebonyians need now is to come out of the political divisiveness as one indivisible people. We have fought their differences for the state we all love. There is no association that should mean so much to us than being Ebonyians.
Unfortunately, we have got terrible pugnacious spirit that may delay our response to the pathological poverty in the land. Each electoral contest has always left people more wounded, factionalized, impoverished than before. Those who feel the least impact of government harvest worst hatred and wars. Already, in the villages, people are spoiling for war. It is either the Divine Mandate group insisting that those of Heritage group who are holding positions should give way for them to preside over the destiny of poverty-infested and widows-dominated village or the latter insisting that the former can conquer them at the state level and the village as well.
In the social media people engage in verbal war. While they fight, reconciliation goes behind doors among the power club and before the next elections, they regroup and we queue behind again. Every four years it is clear that electoral militants gain nothing commensurate to troubles they court, lives they maim, blood they soak, and invectives they hurl supporting candidates. It looks like the greatest democratic dividends they receive after every election is psychological satisfaction that their candidates won.
While they fight, they forget the real, the very grievances that lead people reject a particular candidate in favour of another. It is always as hard as the Jamb test of early 90s to distinguish the supporters of different parties in terms of better living standard weeks after the battle is won and lost. The hunger still persists, bills still remain unsettled, jobs still nowhere to be found, and few who will manage to get access to political offices and reap their benefits will return to look down on those who are unlucky. The cumulative effect is that they become worse off.
After the last reggae, the EBSU fees deadline still caught students crying for help and extension, a similar anguish of yesteryears. And with hope of fee reduction dashed out, the sorrow was excruciating. The university authority did and does not know the party affiliation of students, what it wanted was money to run the institution. This is one of the realities that remain after elections.
While I reserve my pieces of advice to those who lifted different party flags in the last gubernatorial elections in the State in the next week edition, the future of Ebonyi will merely not be shaped by those in the high offices but the blind support and unwise reactions of the masses. Ebonyians ought to know that hunger has no party. We vote differently because we hold different opinions on how best to tackle that poverty. We must therefore move away from blame-game that has so much crippled Buhari Nigeria and move to action.
Government needs our support but constructive contrary opinion must not be stifled. Our support must not be all of the time, we have got to spare thought to evaluate every government policy and hold our leaders to that specified in the charter that formed our social contract. The reggae is over, the blues is on.
