The administration of Enugu State governor, His Excellency, Rt. Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (Gburugburu) has been fairly accorded benefits of doubt by optimistic people of the state, believing that he will improve with time. From 2015, everyone had trusted that perhaps, he would make good use of his executive office for the service of his people, having previously wasted twelve years in the House of Representatives without a single bill or constituency project to his name. After his first tenure, which was barren of development projects, save for relative peace which some believed was his making, not a few hoped for a better outing in his second tenure. But the overrated peace had a cocktail of violence and avoidable tragedies across the state, like the Nibo massacre of April 2016.
One can imagine how peace can be enjoyed amidst gross unemployment, and utter dearth of social amenities. As you read this, primary school teachers in Enugu are on indefinite strike for months now, over nonpayment of minimum wage
However, with nine months left in his much hoped tenure, Enugu citizens, especially Ndi Nsukka have given up totally, and have started penciling him in the same sociopolitical ledger of failed leaders. He arguably met Enugu in bricks of gold in the hands of Barr. Sullivan Chime, and gleefully returned it to mud. It is almost certain that nothing will change in the remaining 274 days left in the dispensation. But optimists like myself had refused to give up, believing that he would spring a surprise at the eleventh hour.
But at each passing hour, he makes moves confirming the verdicts of his naysayers, and disappointing those believing in possibility of a miraculous recovery. After a strongly alleged money-strewn dirty plot that metamorphosed into his choice of Peter Mba as his successor, much to the spiteful dismay of our brothers from Isi Uzo LGA, Rt. Hon. Ugwuanyi has been on a clandestine mission doing all he can to deliver Mba to satiate the wish of his ‘henchman’ — Sen. Chimaroke Nnamani. He was also blurring his public perception the more in his desperate aspiration to represent Enugu North in the senate, which was a broad daylight violation of the zoning principle in the zone, that validly rotated the slot to Nsukka/Igbo Eze South constituency.
To get this done, irrespective of whose ox is gored, the apparently clueless and deluded governor launched a white elephant scheme of indiscriminate creation of autonomous communities and imposition of traditional rulers to head them. This was a strategy to destabilize Nsukka political zone which are united against his inordinate move to go to senate come 2023. He is now a father Christmas, dashing autonomous communities to every nook and cranny that wishes for one, with reckless abandon. He doesn’t care about the long term effects of such augury venture.
His is obstinately giving out autonomous communities as a way of assuaging people without knowing he is bastardizing our culture by balkanizing communities in the name of autonomy. If he truly wanted a developed community he would have paid attention to urbanization of rural areas. Seeds of intergenerational feud are sown as a result of this.
He is certainly on a “divide-and-rule” mission for his own selfish interests. After the fractionation of our communities, he will then use the feudalist traditional rulers he installed as agents of endorsement to his legitimately ‘illegitimate’ senatorial aspiration. According to Suzy Kassem: “when two brothers are busy fighting, an evil man can easily attack and rob their poor mother. Mankind should always stay united, standing shoulder to shoulder so evil can never cheat and divide them.” This best defines Gburugburu’s latest antics in Nsukka zone, after setting communities over one another, in the name of autonomous community struggles. And our people have to wise up.
Just two days ago, 27th August, he strolled shoulder-high to Nru Nsukka to fractionate it further and enthrone Paul Atanike as their traditional ruler of Umuoyo kindred. He just severed Umuoyo off Nru! And he further caused some sort of autoimmune disorder among the indigenes. To us who retained faint hope on the possibility of Gburugburu’s use of the remaining days of his term to salvage what many had described as “years of locusts” he keeps ‘falling hands’ (as is said in local parlance).
In law, there is what we call “dying man’s declaration” which I had hoped Gburugburu would use to save his face. Dying man’s declaration in layman’s terms is a statement by a person who is conscious and knows that death is imminent concerning what he or she believes to be the cause or circumstances of death that can be introduced into evidence during a trial in certain cases.
There comes a time in man’s life when he has to admit his shortfalls and make last minute frantic effort to show he knows and wants a better society despite his ugly past that negated such lofty ideas. Many believed that is what former President Olusegun Obasanjo is currently doing with his uncharacteristic support for Peter Obi and the southeast zone.
But Gov. Ugwuanyi don’t seem to think in that direction. He keeps foisting on our people his oligarchical futuristic philosophy of divide-and-rule. An imperial venture in postcolonial Nsukka zone. And the question remains, “who will save Nsukka from Nsukka?”
George Onuma writes from Mkpunano Nsukka.
