The Yuletide and New Year seasonal festivities had come and gone around the globe with much fun and fanfare. In the South-East region of the country there had been a lot of atrocious tales trailing the annual events. Ordinarily, it ought to be a great season of sharing and sacrifice. The spirit of brotherhood or sisterhood ought to prevail over egoism and egotism. And given that majority of Igbos are Christians it was expected that many folks had returned to the hinterlands to commemorate the yearly feast with friends and families. Even with fears of insecurity and terrorism of the state and non-state actors Biafrans still trooped back home to mark another Christmas and new year.
Xmas and new year come and go, year in year out, but we are living in perilous times, so this year’s occasion was fraught with bloodletting, persecution and harassment by security forces. Nigeria has had an infamous reputation globally as a country run aground by executive criminal gangs from Abuja down to the states’ capitals.
Penultimate Sunday some armed ‘terrorists’ had invaded the St. Peter’s Anglican Church, Eziama Obaire in Nkwerre Local Government Area of Imo State where Ugwumba Uche Nwosu, the son-in-law to the former Governor of the state, Rochas Okorocha, and other guests were attending a thanksgiving service in honour of his late mother (Jemamah Nwosu) buried days prior. The overzealous security operatives reportedly wearing face masks had fired sporadically into the air before storming inside the church where the service was on-going!
Nwosu was abducted like a common criminal! Senator Okorocha, his wife and daughter were among those attending the outing service. The former Governor alleged that his wife was shoved aside and daughter pushed down during the operation. He accused his ‘nemesis’, the state Governor, Hope Uzodinma, of being behind the provocative assault and arrest.
The desecration of the Anglican Church had been condemned by the CAN, the Anglican community and well-meaning Nigerians. The gestapo approach is reprehensible and abominable no matter any justification for such action. The house of God should not be a place where armed goons go into to chase after criminals, make arrests or intimidate worshippers.
But no one was surprised by the satanic move by the agents of darkness for the affront to the living God. Under Buharism nothing is sacrosanct anymore. All societal or traditional values hitherto held dear are under assault! Judges’ homes had been invaded sometimes at wee hours of the night in the name of fighting ‘corruption’. Patriotic citizens (like Comrade Sowore) had been arrested violently inside courtrooms. Freedom fighters like Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and Sunday Igboho are behind bars!
Ugwumba Nwosu was alleged to have refused to answer to convocations but he had rejected the claim as laughable. He was slapped, kicked, disrobed and handcuffed causing pandemonium around the church premises. The lawless way and manner the hooded goons went about the operation left very much to be desired in a lawful democratic society like ours. Manhandling a law-abiding citizen inside a church left sour tastes in the mouth.
The 2019 governorship candidate of Action Alliance (AA) had said he was arrested by the hooded operatives over an allegation that he was an arms supplier to militants and sponsor of the insecurity in Imo State. He was taken from Imo to Enugu state and from there flown to Abuja. He was later released without any formal charges pressed against him.
Between the incumbent Governor of Imo State, Hope Uzodinma, and the former Governor of the state and now a Senator, Rochas Okorocha, there is no love lost. It would appear there is a deliberate state ‘policy’ of the Uzodinma administration to use every opportunity that presents itself to humiliate Senator Okorocha, his family and cronies.
To understand how these men got to this dead end we must cast our minds back to how Uzodinma emerged as Governor and how Okorocha lost out of a scheme to ‘select’ a son-in-law as his successor.
Perhaps if not for the intervention of the then National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, Okorocha would have had his way. And today all his ‘sins’ would have been forgiven and forgotten. Alas the diminutive former Edo State Governor insisted on the right thing being done in Imo State. In the pulsating battle for the succession of Okorocha as Governor Oshiomhole and the opposition prevailed.
If not for the no-nonsense intervention of the Comrade from Edo who resisted ex-Governor Okorocha’s guber manipulations his anointed candidate, Nwosu, would have been made Governor. And as Governor all the graft and sleaze involving Okorocha and his cronies would not have been discovered and made public.
Imolites must express quality gratitude to the former Edo state Governor for stopping Okorocha from executing his gubernatorial masterplan. He saved Imo from the Okorocha guber scam!
The animosity existing between the two Imo executive big men runs very deep indeed. Senator Okorocha’s failure, despite spirited desperate efforts, to impose his anointed successor, Uche Nwosu, on the Imo electorates must have meant that hard times laid ahead. Governor Uzodinma’s judicial abracadabra that led to his triumph as ‘elected’ Governor must qualify as the judicial heist of the century.
Recently the leader of the Evangelical Spiritual Church, (INRI), Primate Elijah Ayodele, had warned Governor Uzodinma against seeking re-election for a second term in office. In new series of 2022 prophecies the Primate declared that the prophecy that ushered in Uzodinma was a mundane game plan arguing that God had no hands in his emergence as Governor! He described the circumstances as “just a political game”.
Likening the Governor to the biblical Saul, Primate Ayodele opined that that was why Hope was not enjoying the seat. But the Governor appears to be ‘enjoying’ the seat no matter the level of carnage in the state or the state of insecurity that makes him a marked man for the ubiquitous unknown gunmen.
What we know for sure is that Uche Nwosu is seen generally in Imo state as Okorocha’s political puppet. If he had won the Imo gubernatorial poll then Senator Rochas would have been sleeping happily with two eyes closed. But now that they have reaped failure as comeuppance the tribulation would definitely continue unabated.
Ugwumba Nwosu could be said to be a ‘scapegoat’ in the pulsating power game between the incumbent Governor and the Senator. In the ensuing political fire Nwosu was caught in the middle and he must thank his stars that he survived the tempest. Otherwise, he could have been a classical case of ‘collateral damage’ or better still, victim of stray bullet in the executive ‘war’ of attrition.
Let the ‘war’ continue until whatever Senator Okorocha stole from the Imo State treasury is recovered. And the final electoral solution is found to the imposition of Hope Uzodinma as the Governor of the state by the Supreme Cult, nay Court.
SOC Okenwa
soco_abj_2006_rci@hotmail.fr
