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Senator Chukwuka Utazi’s recent surrender of further senatorial aspiration in the forthcoming 2023 General election brought to life the intricate plots and intrigues for the Enugu State governorship poll.
Those in the know say Utazi, who represents Enugu North Senatorial District in the Red Chamber, was rewarded with a second term at the Senate in 2019 at the expense of Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo, ostensibly to make way for Ugwuanyi in 2023.
So, what happened last Saturday, when the Senator announced his decision to defer to Governor Ugwuanyi by banishing aspiration for another term in the Senate was a project that was designed four years ago. But, the intriguing part of the deal is that unknown to many, Utazi is said to be high on the immediate Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu’s shortlist for potential running mates, even as he pushes his wife to deputise whoever the governor would support from Enugu East Senatorial District as his (Ugwuanyi’s) preferred successor.
Although Utazi’s surrender of the 2023 Senatorial ticket to Ugwuanyi could be said to have solved one part of the governor’s challenges in the buildup to the 2023 poll within the governing Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), there are a lot more rivers to for the Enugu State chief executive to cross.
Within the senatorial district, it is possible that the zoning arrangement would be varied in appreciation of Governor Ugwuanyi’s massive infrastructural uplift and socio-economic empowerment of the zone, but former Speaker of Enugu State House of Assembly, Eugene Odoh, who contested against Utazi in 2019 on the platform of All Progressives Congress (APC) is said to be oiling his machinery for an epic Senatorial contest.
However, as an incumbent, Gburugburu, as the governor is called, could have things easy with his senatorial ambition, but the search for his successor is where his real headaches lie.
Going by the zoning arrangement in the state since 1999, the general expectation in the state is that Enugu East Senatorial District would produce Ugwuanyi’s successor. And within the same Enugu East, some stakeholders led by former Minister for Power, Prof. Barth Nnaji, campaigned for orderly rotation within the zone, stressing that Nkanu East Local Government Area is supported to throw up the next governor.
Like Enugu North Senatorial district, where Ugwuanyi hails, Enugu East has six local government councils. But, Nnaji and his group argued that since two of the six local governments, namely Nkanu West and Enugu South, have previously produced governors in the persons of Senator Chimaroke Nnamani and Chief Jim Nwobodo respectively, it was only fair and proper that Nkanu West be allowed the slot in 2023.
While Nkanu West stakeholders were making their moral claims, their counterparts from Isi-Uzor Local Government Area, are also laying claims to 2023 citing the need to be given a sense of belonging in the Senatorial District.
In the old Enugu State, Isi-Uzo was part of the current Udenu in Enugu North Senatorial Zone. People of the area now claim that ever since Enugu State was created in 1991, they have not enjoyed the representation of Enugu East Senatorial District either in the Senate or governor.
At a point, some stakeholders from Isi-Uzo, after a meeting in Abuja, approached Governor Ugwuanyi with a position paper, intimating him of the rationale to have his possible successor come from their Local Government Area.
To back their words with action, The Guardian learnt that the stakeholders prevailed on a former member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Chijioke Edeoga, who was Commissioner of Environment in Ugwuanyi’s cabinet resigned and join the governorship race.
Confirming the development in a telephone conversation, Edeoga told The Guardian that “it is true, I have resigned and I am running for the governorship, not as a pretender, but a serious contender.”
Intriguingly, in the list of 17 aspirants that purchased PDP governorship nomination forms, there are two Edeogas: the former federal lawmaker and a former Vice-Chancellor of Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Prof. Hillary Edeoga.
That may be a signal to others that Isi-Uzo is serious about their desire to produce Ugwuanyi’s successor despite claims in some quarters that they (Isi-Uzo) lack persons with the capacity and clout to win a gubernatorial contest in the state.
Gordian knot
WHILE the contestation for which Local Government Area in Enugu East Senatorial District should throw up the PDP governorship standard-bearer, the Gordian knot that only Gburugburu could untie lies in the Nkanu mainland.
Pushing back on the agitation by Nkanu East to be supported to produce the party’s candidate, the people of Nike claim that the core Nkanus had produced two governors before as such 2023 should be their turn.
The Nikes has three governorship aspirants among the PDP 17, including Pastor Beloved Dan Anike, Engr. Erasmus Anike and Senator Gil Nnaji. It would be recalled that perhaps on the realisation that former Deputy Senate President, Ekweremadu, was prepping Senator Nnaji for the 2023 governorship, Governor Ugwuanyi stopped Nnaji’s third term aspiration to the Senate in favour of former Governor Chimaroke Nnamani.
Senator has never hidden his appreciation to Governor Ugwuanyi for “rescuing me from political hiatus and wilderness.” The former governor, who is currently enjoying his second term in the Senate described Ugwuanyi as the leader of the Ebeano political movement, stressing that he (Ugwuanyi) “is a peace-builder and humble servant of all.”
However, politicians in Enugu East Senatorial District, who feel threatened by Ugwuanyi’s closeness to Senator Nnamani recently propped up a former Chief of Staff to Governor Sullivan Chime, Mrs. Ifeoma Nwobodo, to renew her Senatorial ambition that was aborted in 2015 by Chime’s support for Gilbert Nnaji.
Those clamouring for Mrs. Nwobodo’s ambition to represent Enugu East claim that she played crucial roles in the emergence of Ugwuanyi as PDP’s governorship candidate in 2015 when Chime and Ekweremadu were enmeshed in a supremacy battle for the control of Enugu PDP structure.
However, checks by The Guardian revealed that the plot to throw up Mrs. Nwobodo in the senatorial race was ostensibly to botch Senator Nnamani’s third term ambition, particularly his alleged support for the governorship ambition of Chief Executive Officer of Pinnacle Oil, Dr. Peter Ndubuisi Mbah.
Already the sing-song among Ebeano faithful in PDP is that it is on “this Rock” that the inclusive governance style enunciated by the group would be sustained.
Also, rebuffing attempts to pitch him against Senator Nnamani, Governor Ugwuanyi reminded PDP stakeholders that it was courtesy of the Ebeano political grouping that he served the people of Igboeze North/Udenu federal constituency meritoriously in the House of Representatives for 12 years.
On his part, Senator Nnamani said there is no founder or joiner for Ebeano noting that the political orientation of the group is to balance interests and be one another’s keeper.
Dismissing the plot to block his Senate return, the former governor told The Guardian that his seat was under threat, stressing that he has given a good account of himself by the array of social intervention, amenities and championing the cause of women and children in the course of his representation.
But, given the surprising incursion of Prof. Nnaji into the governorship race, tongues have continued to wag whether Governor Ugwuanyi would throw the PDP primary open or anoint a preferred candidate among the pack of aspirants from Enugu East Senatorial District.
Apart from Nnaji, the former Minister of Power and the Pinnacle Oil CEO (Mbah), former Director of Ministry of Trade and Industries, Sir Chinyeaka Oha and Evaristus Ngene, one needs to scratch one’s head to recognize other aspirants from the mainland Nkanu axis.
Consequently, amid the motley crowd of governorship aspirants from the Senatorial zone, former Deputy Senate President, Ekweremadu, who is the only aspirant from Enugu West, believes in a recalibration of the power rotation arrangement.
Ekweremadu and his allies believe that the governorship should be distributed along the lines of cultural blocs in the state, namely, old Nsukka, Old Udi, Old Nkanu and Old Awgu.
Justifying their principal’s decision to defy the zoning arrangement by Senatorial Districts, Ekweremadu’s footsoldiers argue that the other cultural blocs had produced two governors apiece leaving old Awgu without representation.
By their calculation Ekweremadu’s camp says that old Udi produced Governors Chukwuma Onoh and Sullivan Chime; Jim Nwobodo and Chimaroke Nnamani (old Nkanu), while old Nsukka has Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo and the incumbent, Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi.
Despite the attempt to revise the zoning format, stakeholders from the old Awgu counter Ekweremadu, stressing that he breached Sullivan Chime’s idea that federal lawmakers should not exceed two terms so as to make way for others and groom a pool political leaders in the state.
For instance, frontline architect and Estate mogul, Alex Obiechina, who defeated Chime at the 2011 PDP governorship primary, said it sounds odd that eminent Igbo politicians should be joining the call for the Presidency to be zoned to Southeast while transgressing the same principle of fairness and equity in their home state.
Obiechina, who is also from the old Awgu, said it was based on his belief that zoning is a necessary unwritten principle that he shunned pressure to join the race for the 2023 poll. He stated: “I am a man of honour and part of the responsibilities of any man of honour is to keep to gentleman agreements. Countless individuals and groups have approached me, urging me to contest the Enugu State governorship, because of the injustice meted out to me.
“As a Christian, my reply to them was that you do not repay evil with evil. Even though my mandate was truncated by PDP during the primaries in 2011, I believe 2023 is the turn of the Enugu East Senatorial zone. Nobody from my zone, Enugu West, should even express an intention, not to talk of buying nomination forms.”
Yet, a public affairs analyst from Aninri, Charles Obasi, lamented that amid the zoning argument, “no one has ever recognized Old Awgu as part of the zoning nomenclature until Ike Ekweremadu came in as one of the governorship aspirants.”
Obasi maintained that no matter the support old Awgu gives to a particular candidate, in the long run, they are often neglected even in government appointments.
His words: “What we are pointing at here is that Enugu West is too large and that the mention of Old Awgu is often diminished in Senatorial discuss. Awgu, Ani-Nri, Oji River, Udi and Ezeagu being the Enugu West in question are never accorded the recognition in the distribution of dividends of democracy in Enugu State.
“If they have, how come that since the white man left Nigeria in 1960, the only road that traversed Old Awgu is the one constructed by the white man before some of us were born? What is often recognized in the distribution of development projects are Enugu Urban, Enugu East, Enugu North and lastly Enugu West.
“It is this non-recognition of Old Awgu that created uneven or lopsided development in Enugu State. And Enugu East has always benefited from every government because they are part of Enugu urban the seat of government.”
By the time PDP holds its primary, it would be seen whose arguments trump others’. In a governorship primary that would be decided by delegates, including local government chairmen, most of who are axemen, it is understandable why all eyes are on Governor Ugwuanyi. The governor’s every step is being monitored. And he knows.
Ugwuanyi recently declared that he would make pronouncements on his preferred candidate with inspiration from God. Enugu people agree that the governor needs divine guidance, given that he holds the ace as far as all elective positions in PDP are concerned. How he chooses would define the future of the PDP and determine the party’s fortune in next year’s general elections.
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