By Sunny Igboanugo
Anybody that was at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs a fortnight ago would have noticed my frantic efforts to speak at that event during the question-and-answer session. It got to the point of desperation. In fact, the only thing I didn’t do was to snatch the microphone from Okey Bakassi, the compere at that event.
What was my reason? Outside other issues occupying my mind, I wanted to pass a direct message to Alex Otti, who was the keynote lecturer at Niche Lecture that brought all of us to that forum. Regardless that the event was packaged by Ikechukwu Amaechi – my boss and bosom friend – If I had the opportunity to speak, I would have practically scattered the table probably – that was depending how the audience and the governor himself received the message.
I wanted desperately to tell the governor that he was on a wrong road – politically. Yes! There is no doubt that Otti is the most popular governor in Nigeria today. Mind my words – not the South East but Nigeria as a whole – a status that he earned by his demonstrable evidence of performance.
Now, when people refer to Chukwuma Charles Soludo, my own governor in Anambra as olu-atuegwu – roughly translated – Mr. Big Projects – I shudder, chuckle and laugh it away as mere platitudinal praise-singing found in and around government corridors. We all know who owns that sobriquet. We know that Agu Awka doesn’t even come close. But that is by the way.
Otti, far outstrips his counterparts in every way – so much so that there is hardly anywhere anyone could fault him. I’m just as enthused as anyone else about the glorious record. But for one thing – his politics! Call it naivety – call it gullibility – call it fear. But he is totally on a wrong, crooked and slippery road that foretells and screams one thing – DANGER!
Just like his counterparts in other states, Otti believes that President Bola Tinubu holds the key to his second term. He believes that without the President, the APC machinery – which is as merciless as those kidnappers we see assault our sensibilities and very essence of our humanity these days – would eat him raw!
So, what does he do? He runs to the Villa, crawls on his bare bellies, dobale’s before the Jagaban and holds the helms of his sokoto in reverence – call it petrification – you might not be wrong. But Otti knows that this is completely antithetical to the feelings of Ndi-Abia. He is aware! He will be Bata – the retard in my village not to know. That surely, he is not!
In fact, the governor knows that in the whole of Abia State, Tinubu would not secure 10.000 organic votes – 10,000 because of my generosity – I should have said 1,000 daily – because it is difficult to find anyone form Ariaria Market – Ngwa or Abiriba that would dress up in the morning, go to the polls and thumbprint for Tinubu. What would be that person’s reason. And this goes for every other state in the South East. Ndigbo don’t eat what they don’t eat.
Anybody that was at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs a fortnight ago would have noticed my frantic efforts to speak at that event during the question-and-answer session. It got to the point of desperation. In fact, the only thing I didn’t do was to snatch the microphone from Okey Bakassi, the compere at that event.
What was my reason? Outside other issues occupying my mind, I wanted to pass a direct message to Alex Otti, who was the keynote lecturer at Niche Lecture that brought all of us to that forum. Regardless that the event was packaged by Ikechukwu Amaechi – my boss and bosom friend – If I had the opportunity to speak, I would have practically scattered the table probably – that was depending how the audience and the governor himself received the message.
I wanted desperately to tell the governor that he was on a wrong road – politically. Yes! There is no doubt that Otti is the most popular governor in Nigeria today. Mind my words – not the South East but Nigeria as a whole – a status that he earned by his demonstrable evidence of performance.
Now, when people refer to Chukwuma Charles Soludo, my own governor in Anambra as olu-atuegwu – roughly translated – Mr. Big Projects – I shudder, chuckle and laugh it away as mere platitudinal praise-singing found in and around government corridors. We all know who owns that sobriquet. We know that Agu Awka doesn’t even come close. But that is by the way.
Otti, far outstrips his counterparts in every way – so much so that there is hardly anywhere anyone could fault him. I’m just as enthused as anyone else about the glorious record. But for one thing – his politics! Call it naivety – call it gullibility – call it fear. But he is totally on a wrong, crooked and slippery road that foretells and screams one thing – DANGER!
Just like his counterparts in other states, Otti believes that President Bola Tinubu holds the key to his second term. He believes that without the President, the APC machinery – which is as merciless as those kidnappers we see assault our sensibilities and very essence of our humanity these days – would eat him raw!
So, what does he do? He runs to the Villa, crawls on his bare bellies, dobale’s before the Jagaban and holds the helms of his sokoto in reverence – call it petrification – you might not be wrong. But Otti knows that this is completely antithetical to the feelings of Ndi-Abia. He is aware! He will be Bata – the retard in my village not to know. That surely, he is not!
In fact, the governor knows that in the whole of Abia State, Tinubu would not secure 10.000 organic votes – 10,000 because of my generosity – I should have said 1,000 daily – because it is difficult to find anyone form Ariaria Market – Ngwa or Abiriba that would dress up in the morning, go to the polls and thumbprint for Tinubu. What would be that person’s reason. And this goes for every other state in the South East. Ndigbo don’t eat what they don’t eat.
Even the President knows this much. So, what would happen on election day? Otti – to impress – and for purely self-preservation will contrive votes for Tinubu – procure or outrightly steal votes of Abi people. Two ways to do this – either leave blood on the floor or unleash huge resources of the people to do so. In either of the cases, he wouldn’t be smelling roses – ceteris paribus! Nobody supporting Tinubu or APC smells roses in the South East.
Certainly, that might create a backlash that could leave him vulnerable in his own election that would come two weeks after. Now, would Abia people forgive him so soon after as to contain the onslaught the APC people would launch thereafter? Would Tinubu, a tricky political character – with his grab – snatch – run with it model, come to his rescue? Tricky!
Now, at that NIIA event, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the Emir of Kano, had been very clear that Otti rode on the vehicle of the Labour Party momentum to get to power and in 2027 would now rely on his own records. I observed how the governor quickly brushed the suggestion aside claiming that he won on his own account of popularity.
To me, this was a completely false assertion. Had Otti run on a different platform, his case would have been far worse than all the previous results where the machinery of government was used at various times to defeat him. His victory was tied to the tsunami that Peter Obi, the LP presidential candidate created across the country, particularly in the South East – which other governors escaped by the skin of their teeth.
There is no doubt that this momentum would even increase in 2027, especially if Obi manages to find his name on the ballot. Otti, working against Obi, would certainly be fatal to his own ambition, regardless his own record. All the positive record he now parades could evaporate by that singular act – with the greater danger being that he might find less sympathy if the hounds in APC hits him hard – using the Tinubu model.
So, what to do? The best bet is for Otti to dare the devil! Stand with Abia people! Soludo was able to escape his own web of anger of the people because the forces of APC disappeared with the death of the late Ifeanyi Uba. Were Uba alive last year, the situation in Anambra might have been different today.
Now, do I have reasons to solidify my position that the total approval of Ndi-Abi is far more potent than the power of Tinubu in 2027? Definitely! Here are two instances. Fortunately, one of them is in Otti’s face. Orji Uzor Kanu once occupied Otti’s position. During the pendency of his governorship, there was no Igbo politician that lacerated former President Olusegun Obasanjo than OUK.
He was practically the ant that entered the former President’s sokoto. Recall that things even go to a head that after Obj, instituted a commission of inquiry, which indicted the then governor, OUK instantly riposted with his own commission to indict the President. Such was the audaciousness. Recall the event when men of the EFCC tried to arrest the governor’s mother and how force jammed force at the Abia Government House forcing the latter to retreat and cause mission to be abandoned.
Yet, Kalu not only served for eight years, but became the only governor in the South East, if not the entire country that formed his own party the – Progressives Peoples Alliance – PPA – with which he won two states. Recall that even one of the governors won his election from the prisons. That was the extent of the battle.
But there is even a more instructive example – Tinubu! For eight years, he fought the same Obj and for the eight years, he survived. In the two cases, what was the magic? Simple – the people! Was it not funny enough that in Tinubu’s case, the entire South West governors, who were naïve enough to team up with Obasanjo, in the PDP, lost deposit, while only Tinubu, who decided to put up a spirited battle survived the onslaught.
Now, is this scenario not enough to forewarn Otti that not all that glitters is gold? Certainly, I won’t shed a tear if Otti reducing himself to a lily-livered, pusillanimous, spineless, pale, trembling coward, begins to weep after February 6, after selling Abia people on January 16.
Naturally, I’ll grieve for Ndi-Abia, just like I’m grieving today that the Mahmoud Yakubu’s technical glitches denied Nigeria of a Peter Obi Presidency that would have put Nigeria on a world map of prosperous country rather than Tinubu’s present poverty capital of the world.
But that wouldn’t stop me from scoffing and sniggering at his naivety. Let him continue toying with his fate – believing he’s smart! O gafu eme ya voom n’anya!
My name is Sunny Igboanugo, I’m The Tiny Voice!
