HOW LONG SHALL WE CONTINUE TO HUMILIATE OURSELVES?
Nobody negotiates with a divided people.
By Hon. Chimazuru Nnadi-Oforgu
Oblong Media Global Intelligence
The unfolding drama between Owerri Zone United, Imo Harmony Project and other political interests confirms what I have warned about repeatedly for years: Owerri Zone cannot demand political equity while remaining incapable of organising itself.
For years, we have allowed serving and retired self serving political jobbers, political contractors and stomach infrastructure merchants to infiltrate what should have been a collective aspiration. Today, we are paying the price.
The attempt by elements within the so called Owerri Zone United to effectively adopt the APC as the sole vehicle for producing the next governor is not an Owerri Zone consensus. It is an APC localised arrangement and should be called exactly that.
Governor Hope Uzodimma has every right to organise his party and support whoever he wishes. APC members have every right to follow him. But neither the governor nor APC, nor any collection of self serving, self appointed Owerri so called leaders, can determine the political destiny of an entire zone comprising people from different parties and millions with no party affiliation whatsoever.
The counter communiqués tell the story. IHP itself has rejected the purported arrangement and reiterated that the original objective was a non partisan movement encompassing Owerri people across political divides. Other political interests have equally stoutly denounced and condemned the pronouncement.
This is precisely why I refused to identify with either IHP or Owerri Zone United.
I warned
I even tried to form a quasi rainbow coalition group, I appropriately named “The Owerri zone connect worldwide”
I understood where this could end.
NOBODY NEGOTIATES WITH A DIVIDED PEOPLE
I have repeatedly told our people that Owerri Zone must first organise itself.
When Orlu and Okigwe see a united, determined and politically sophisticated Owerri Zone ready to fight collectively for its interests, they will negotiate with us.
But nobody negotiates with weakness.
Instead, our divisions have made it easy for outside political interests to identify the sycophantic, financially vulnerable and personally ambitious amongst us and use them to fracture whatever remains of our collective strength.
The result is the irritating embarrassment before us today.
Owerri Zone is increasingly perceived as the politically weakest of Imo’s three zones, not because we lack population, intellectual capacity, wealth or accomplished people, but because we lack cohesion.
That must change immediately.
BUILD AN OWERRI RAINBOW COALITION
Rather than continue fighting over the laughable pronouncements of the so called Owerri Zone United, let the APC faction pursue its APC project.
The rest of us should immediately come together and establish a genuine Owerri zone Rainbow Coalition involving credible leaders, professionals, youths, women, traditional institutions, businesspeople and diaspora organisations, together with stakeholders from every political party.
Its principle should be:
OWERRI FIRST. COMPETENCE FIRST. PARTY SECOND.
Every party should be encouraged to present its strongest Owerri candidate.
Then let the people decide.
But time is running out.
IF WE CANNOT UNITE, WE HAVE THREE CHOICES
If Owerri Zone cannot quickly overcome these divisions and build a credible rainbow coalition, then we should have the courage to reconsider the entire project rather than impose another political disaster on Imo in the name of zoning.
First, abandon zoning and put Imo first. Let us search the entire state for our own equivalent of an Alex Otti, the most competent, visionary and capable candidate available, whether that person comes from Owerri, Okigwe or Orlu. If we cannot produce unity around zoning, then competence must supersede geography. Imo’s development is ultimately more important than anybody’s senatorial zone entitlement.
Second, consider allowing Okigwe Zone to complete an eight year cycle. That could create breathing space until 2031, by which time many of the personalities presently frustrating genuine Owerri representation and unity may have retired or lost their grip on our politics. A younger generation could then build a fresh Owerri project through genuine consultation and collaboration with Okigwe and Orlu rather than through bankrupt proclamations, endorsements and backroom arrangements.
Third, and perhaps most dangerously, continue exactly as we are and risk what would amount politically to a third Uzodimma term: the emergence of an Owerri stooge candidate imposed through the APC machinery who is merely a political minion of the outgoing governor.
That would give us an Owerri stooge governor geographically while denying us an independent Owerri governorship politically.
What exactly would we have achieved?
After waiting decades for equity, surely our ambition cannot simply be to replace an Orlu governor with an Owerri born proxy.
Owerri Zone must therefore decide what it actually wants: power or merely the appearance of power.
The APC can make its arrangements. Other parties can make theirs. But nobody should appropriate the name of Owerri Zone to legitimise a partisan transaction.
The hour for political maturity has arrived.
Unite immediately and negotiate from strength. Build the Rainbow Coalition. Produce credible candidates and fight collectively.
Otherwise, let us stop pretending that zoning by itself will save us and support the best candidate Imo State can produce.
Because the greatest obstacle confronting Owerri Zone today is increasingly obvious.
It is not Orlu.
It is not Okigwe.
It is Owerri Zone itself.
Hon. Chimazuru Nnadi-Oforgu
Duruebube Uzii na Abosi
Oblong Media Global Intelligence
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