Imo 2023: A Comparative Analysis Of The Respective Capacities Of All Candidates And Their Political Parties (Part 1) 

Baring the internal political gymnastics/ wranglings and some follow-up litigation verdicts, especially with regards to some of the Opposition Political Parties, *Sen Athan Achonu ( Agụ Otu Aka), Chibutu Isiguzo, Ikechukwu Ukaegbu and Basil Maduba* are said to form “the quartet” in the Labour Party’s “circus” for the governorship election in Imo State. The top-to-bottom leadership crises rocking the Labour Party, ranging from the  court-adjudicated case of forgery, perjury and criminal falsification/fakery of court documents as well as the alleged arbitrary trade-in replacements of some of the Party’s candidates in the just concluded general elections by the embattled “former” National Executive Council of the Party led by Mr Julius Abure, to the parallel Primaries and alleged bazaar sales and purchases of the 3-man Delegates in the Imo Labour Party Primaries etc make the Party’s Candidates look like they are in a mutually destructive interference course that potentially and certainly shall cancel their collective and individual capacities as the November 11th, 2023 governorship election approaches. As at the moment, a care-taker National Chairman, Mr  Lamidi Apapa, himself accused of being a mole, lays claim to the National Chairmanship office.  Mr Julius Abure is also being backed, despite the huge legal odds  against him, to continue to “parade himself” against court order as the substantive National Chairman of LP.

On the State level also, there is no more centre any more. Everything has fallen apart in Imo Labour Party. Disenchantment, allegations and counter allegations, more than one State Chairman of the same Imo Labour Party – one openly called a “mole”, another claiming to be more Obidient than the other, “losers” that refuse to align with some purported “winners”, the transactional bigtenters, et cetera are not yeilding any grounds. It is a free-for-all dirty fights in Imo LP while the November 11th, 2023 date for the Governorship election in Imo remains sacrosanct.

Howbeit, the competence and capacity quotients of these famed “Peter Obi” counterfeits shall be exhaustively addressed in this series subsequently.

 Is it *Sen Athan Achonu* that is a Peter Obi replica? Could it be either of the little known *Chibutu Isiguzo, Ikechukwu Ukaegbu or Basil Maduba* that can lead others who have divergent interests to the electoral rumble? “I no go gree, I no go gree” remain the dissenting voices. A house multiply divided against itself!

Next in the lineup of Opposition Parties is the People’s Democratic Party. Last week, the remnants of the decapitated Imo PDP ratified the sole candidature of *Sen Samuel Anyanwu (Sam Daddy)* in a far-too boycotted Party Primaries in Owerri Capital City.

*Sen Samuel Anyanwu* is now the Candidate  of Imo PDP in the November 11th, 2023 guber election.

As a one-term former Senator and now a National Secretary of the PDP, *Sen Samuel Anyanwu*  now holds the ace and is responsible for the upkeep of the Imo PDP after what pundits described as a very conscious, deliberate and calculated withdrawal of *Rt Hon Emeka Ihedioha* from the Imo PDP guber primaries. The withdrawal, also said to be a deft preemptive political masterstroke, was unexpectedly executed. It came after the political tsunami that swept the *former National Chairman of PDP – Sen Iyorchia Ayu*, away. That major shakeup left *Rt Hon Emeka Ihedioha’s* chances of emergence to an infinitesimal nothingness. Pundits had posited that *Sen Samuel Anyanwu* is now groping, like someone utterly in shock, in search of the wherewithall to sustain the torn Umbrella Party, heal its deep wounds/ irreconcilable differences and present a challenge worth the while against the incumbent Government whose Party – the APC –  is solidly in unity.

The next Political Party would have been the *All Progressive Grand Alliance* but there appears to be no clear cutting edge anymore left for the party as to accord them the scarce space in this discourse. *APGA ended up “throwing up bottles and breaking some heads”* in their own botched Primaries. The Anambra Peoples Gaming Association, APGA, may end up not just having as many victims as they had in 2019 but essentially not having a candidate in November if the brigandage that manifested in the Primaries is anything to go by. However, one *Mr Tony Ejiogu* was said to have emerged from the earlier fisticuffs as the candidate of APGA for the coming Imo Governorship election. The other makeshift Parties and their candidates must not now be considered as contenders when obviously they are pretenders.

Now, coming to the Imo All Progressive Congress, APC, the story is diametrically different. There are a number of factors going for the APC beyond the fact that the Party has the incumbent Governor, *His Excellency Dist Sen Hope Uzodimma* as its candidate.

The hysterically tumultuous chants of approval heard at the Rear Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu’s Square (R.A.N.K.S) last Friday as the Chairman of the Imo State Governorship Primaries Election Committee, Rear Admiral Williams Ayota (Rtd) pronounced and declared the Governor,  His Excellency Dist Sen Hope Uzodimma as the legally elected Candidate of the APC for the Imo Governorship Election remain very significant. The simplest interpretation of the unanimous approvals is that the Governor is already hands-on in discharging good governance and therefore should consolidate on his achievements as Governor in his second term. The teeming members of the Party in Imo State as well as other non partisans of APC across party lines are unequivocal in their unflinching support of the Governor for many reasons.  It is worth mentioning that the last Primary election of the APC was very rancorous when the cliché “Ị hụrụ Gulak?” became popular (May he rest in peace). This time around, owing to a genuine leadership without any iota of selfishness and bigotry, the Party has, in this term, succeeded in becoming people-centered and people-oriented, hence the peaceful and rancor-free APC primary this time around. There is now absolute order unlike in the last instance.

For a sitting governor who has demonstrated enormous goodwill, competence and truly discharged himself so well in the last challenging couple of years, so much so that it looked like nothing really happened even when hell was manipulatively relocated to Imo State,  nobody in Imo State dispassionately doubts his competence and capacity any more.

Governor Hope Uzodimma has shown so much capacity in his brand of politics locally and nationally. Through his enormous capacity, he has literarily changed the narrative that Igbos are marginalized. Suffice it to state that our (Igbo’s) many years of marginalization have been reasonably bridged within just three years the Governor has been in office. The quickened pace of delivery of the *2ND NIGER BRIDGE* was a result of Gov Hope Uzodimma’s involvement and mastery of high-level powergame. He involved the leadership of the Ohaneze Ndigbo in that deft move that paid off. The many occasions the Governor brought the President and Commander In Chief, Mohammadu Buhari (GCFR) face to face with Igbo Political leaders also got Mr President to tangibly feel the real pulse of our people.

Today, here in Imo State and just because Gov Hope Uzodimma is now a major player in our national political elite league, the Federal Government has had several institutional presences in our State. The infrastructural interventions and the upgrade of Alvan Ikoku College of Education to a Federal Government-owned University of Education bear credence to the fact Imo State has now been reconnected to the National political grid. Ditto, the conversion of the FMC Owerri to a Teaching Hospital for the Medical College of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri. Plans are now in the pipeline to establish a  brand new Federal Medical Center in Imo State to replace the former one. These things impact positively on Imo State and citizens/residents of the State.

 By his rare personage, his clinically smooth approaches and his adroit capacity,  he wrestled successfully with the known and unknown gunmen who were contrived to make Imo State ungovernable. Today, as normalcy has returned, Imo State is better for it in security and life-changing projects.

Governor Hope Uzodimma is not a loquacious person. He is focused, matured and with the greatest sense of restraint in the face of deliberate provocation. His large-heartedness is another testament of the man.

Perhaps, the only claim that the oppositions have is the sense of entitlement being expressed based on zonism. Thankfully and given to the Governor’s good disposition for equity, the Imo State Elders Council is having the best time now and has even adopted the Governor to complete his second tenure so that a ratified Charter of Equity can now be domesticated once and for all.

The capacity of the Governor, HE Dist Sen Hope Uzodimma is perhaps one of his many certifications why he is going to midwife a successful Charter of Equity that shall engender equity and justice in Imo politics. His second term election shall further prove that no Coach changes a winning team. Imo State under Governor Hope Uzodimma is winning laurels for all Imo people. These unassailable achievements dwarf the LP quartet and make Sen Samuel Anyanwu a non starter  come November 11th, 2023.

The best bet for the oppositions is to all step down and allow the Governor – the emergent Imo pathfinder to institutionalize good governance so that successive governors may have a template to follow.

(To be continued).

SSA (Gov) Public Enlightenment.