Harold Lasswell described politics as the struggle for who gets what, how and when. Because of this dog-eat-dog brouhaha, all kinds of trickery and manipulation are deployed, thereby keeping otherwise decent people that could turn around the fortunes of the state at bay. Most of the time, the people are left with misfits, who straggle onto power but end up punishing even nobler souls.
In our clime, the end justifies the means for the machiavellians, only that we are all worse off for it. It was this unconscionable brand of politics that made Grandpa Lamidi Apapa and cohorts play the spoiler’s role in the Labour Party, until nemesis disgraced them a few days ago.
The same reason makes politics in Imo State a desert experience, resulting in the importation of strange gimmicks into the campaign mix ahead of the November 11 gubernatorial election in Imo State.
The despicable acts only expose the actors to ridicule but in actual sense they do not even care about the promises they make to the people.
Nevertheless, one consideration for the electorate as they cast their votes is to interrogate the antecedents of the gladiators, their capacity, promises and sincerity.
As things stand, it is almost like a three-horse race between the incumbent governor, Senator Hope Uzodimma of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Samuel “SamDaddy” Anyanwu, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and Senator Athan Nneji Achonu of the Labour Party, popularly known as One-Arm General (Agu Otu Aka). The rest are there to complete the numbers and boost their CVs or being floated by some contestant to muddle the waters for his opponents.
Nevertheless, the Labour Party candidate is miles ahead because of his achievements that litter the entire landscape, and he does not waste time telling whoever cares to “go and verify.”
None of his opponents has any such thing. My honest submission without the hang-ups of politicians of whom I am not is that it is reasonable that only someone with stakes in the state should be entrusted with the responsibility of governance because he has much more to lose than someone who, instead of fixing the state, would just pick up his briefcase and relocate abroad to enjoy his loot at the slightest sign of challenge.
For the PDP candidate, who had been a local government chairman before going to the Senate and now wants to be governor, there does not seem to be anything going for him apart from the vaulting ambition to be the First Citizen of the highly enlightened state that is brimful with diverse professionals in the academia and other fields. The question on many discerning lips in Imo, therefore, is: ‘what is SamDaddy up to?’
Anyway, it is his right to contest and I wish him well.
Coming to the governor, who is running for re-election, many are amused because he has done virtually nothing with the first mandate.
Under Uzodimma, Imo State has never had it this bad. Apart from bubbly propaganda industry crafted by voyeuristic amateurs, there is a total absence of governance in the state. The people have been crushed under the weight of inexcusable ineptitude made worse by needless bloodbath that waters the coarse streets of the beleaguered state daily.
As much as Uzodimma may not be totally responsible for the sorry pass, his government has been accused of enabling some aspects of the carnage through its palpable failure to rein in the crisis, since he is the Chief Security Officer of the state. Moreover, some characters in his administration that were fingered at one time or another have been given official cover and none has been called to answer for the alleged crime or clear themselves of culpability.
Uzodimma as a person may be described as a mystery bogeyman who has survived all along in the political terrain, coming this far without ever winning a single election as alleged. By his own self-confession, he came through the “Ben Johnson way,” which obviously refers to the Supreme Court judgment that transported him from the fourth position in the election to the first, and planted him on the executive seat in Douglas House as Imo State governor.
I have always quarrelled with those who deride him as a ‘Supreme Court Governor’ because, no matter the ill-fitting prefix, he remains the governor of Imo State until January next year and deserves his respect. Those that are not excited by his emergence or performance have the option on November 11 to vote him out.
However, people are worried about that because, for Uzodimma, there should be no option. He wants to be the numero uno, not just in Imo but also across Igboland. That is why he is leaving nothing to chance to ensure that he wins, maybe not only by Ben Johnson this time but also with a combination of Mike Tyson pugilistic prowess and a tinge of fraud.
Therefore, the governor has introduced a hilarious absurdity to the campaign. In a recent video, he promised to secure employment for 4,000 Imo youths and airfreight them to Canada and Europe by December this year, according to his agreement with Canadian and European Union companies.
I made sure I watched the viral video many times to make sure he was not misquoted and that it was not a computer trick.
One would love to know, before he gets jobs in Europe for the youths, how many jobs he has created for the millions of youths that have been driven into forced criminalities? Many of those who had jobs before his emergence morphed into ghosts by the governor’s estimation because he did not want to pay them. Even at that, how many of those he adjudged living get paid their salaries?
I felt horrified that the same youths he conned with a youth empowerment programme sometime ago and made ‘innocent bank debtors’ were the ones hailing the heart-wrenching charade.
Come to think of it, do they have international passports? Do they know how long it takes to get passports in present-day Nigeria? Even if Uzodimma is sincere, does Nigeria have up to 4000 passport booklets for Imo youths alone? What kind of skill would they get in two months to qualify them for employment in Europe or are they to be sold into slavery? Also, the pedestrian occupants of Douglas House should tell us when the European Union became an employment agency.
However, I blame Achonu, the LP candidate, for putting Uzodimma in a state of flummox. While Achonu is solid on his policies, Uzodimma, in a desperate move to inflate his flabby credentials, would rather abdicate his responsibilities and cede them to Europe where he has no factory.
The visa processing fees and the promised airfare for Uzodimma’s phantom 4000 ‘European’ workers would be enough to set up a cottage industry and employ or even train and empower several youths locally. But in the land where yahoo yahoo is king, he prefers to bask in the euphoric applause of a befuddled generation.
While Achonu, the exponent of Aku Ruo Ulo, apart from already having hundreds of employees, including expatriates in his employment, has laid bare his economic blueprint for the state, including the establishment of industrial parks in the three senatorial zones of the state, agro-biz hubs, stable electricity, improved security, etc., Uzodimma is building castles in the air and telling us tales by moonlight.
Indeed, Ndi Imo must make sure neither supreme nor magistrate court or sneaky electoral or compromised security operatives or gunboats of sponsored hoodlums would decide their next governor. The only way to do that is simply to defy the intimidating instrumentality of fear foisted to discourage them but to troop out en masse to vote for a candidate, who has their interest at heart.
I have no doubt that President Bola Tinubu would play a fatherly role by instructing heads of security agencies, and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, accordingly.
More importantly, at the end of the electoral exercise, there must be people for whoever wins to govern. This means that the political actors and their supporters must shun unwholesome tactics. The office of the governor is not worth more than any human life, and no politician is worth dying for either.
NB: They say Nigeria has 63 years of age; really? What a tottering monolith, growing in reverse!