Why Indigbo cannot endorse Jonathan for second term – Ibeh

Chief Chidi Ibeh is the Imo State Commissioner for Information and Strategy. Amidst intensive campaigns by the various political parties for the forthcoming general elections, he insists that the All Progressives Congress (APC) remains the only option for the masses to liberate themselves from the claws of the PDP misrule. This is his message in this interview with CORRESPONDENT, ANOLU VINCENT. Excerpts… 

Ibeh

In less than two months from now, eligible Nigerians will once more elect a new crop of leaders. How prepared is the APC in the state for the election, given the fact that the main opposition, the PDP, has repeatedly boasted that it would take over power in the state?

In any general election, registered political polities usually embark on campaigns to sensitize the people to attract their votes. So what is happening now is normal and the APC is more than ever ready to face the election. Our monumental, unbeatable and unprecedented achievements in the annals of our state will undoubtedly earn us a resounding victory. We are not losing sleep at all about the noise being made by the opposition, because our people are not gullible and cannot be deceived by false prophets in sheep’s clothing. People who dubiously claim who and what they are not. Our achievements are glaringly visible and conspicuous in all the 27 LGAs, 637 autonomous communities and 305 electoral wards in the state and so we will surely win convincingly and overwhelmingly. It is really ridiculous and laughable that the PDP which abysmally failed to accomplish any meaningful result for twelve (12) years that they were in power could still open their mouth widely and say that they would return to power after May 29th this year to continue from their ugly past. I am happy that our people are well informed, and enlightened and as such cannot be taken for granted. PDP is merely participating in the election for formality and not to win any single seat in the state because of its antecedents. The achievements of the APC controlled government in the past three years have been unprecedented. Governor Okorocha’s administration has been the first time Imo people are seeing real democracy dividends. Enumerating the governor’s achievements in the state would almost be tantamount to counting the sands of the Sahara desert – where will I start from and where will I stop? What will anybody in the state tell parents whose children have been enjoying free education for the first time not to vote for the very person who provided this for them? Voting for the governor’s re-election will be the only way for parents and guardians to reciprocate the governor’s gestures, magnanimity, generosity and benevolence. Of recent, the Minister of State for Education, Prof. Viola Adaku Onwuliri, and the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Chief Emeka Ihedioha, have taken it as their professional job to insult and to embarrass Governor Okorocha on trumped up charges in order to score cheap and undeserved popularity. The duo are my relations because we are all from Mbaise, Ihedioha is my younger brother who is reportedly angling to rule this state, but I want to tell anybody who cares to listen that a vote for him is a colossal waste and a vote thrown in the waves for the wind to blow off. I do not believe in sentiments, primordial or clannish interests. Ihedioha lacks the capacity, wisdom, intuition, vision and administrative ingenuity to govern Imo. For the twelve (12) years he has been in the House of Representatives, I challenge him to point to any single tangible thing that he did for the people he is representing – let him tell our people what happened to the contract for the construction of the Owerri/Umuahia Road which he hijacked before asking for votes from Mbaise. Our Mbaise people cannot vote for Ihedioha because by all considerations, he is not mature to attract our votes and because our people usually vote for maturity. The APC is a moving train that is moving to the deserved destination and our people cannot afford not to join this train that is popular with the masses. Our children have benefited from Governor Rochas Okorocha free education and there is no family in Imo State today  including those of Ihedioha and Onwuliri that have not benefited from the Rescue Mission agenda. I personally challenge them to tell our people  what they have been able to accomplish since they came into government. It is like the president has a parameter to measure and to reward PDP members in Abuja who insult and embarrass Governor Rochas Okorocha most. The minister of State for Education has a notorious penchant to insult governor Okorocha at any point in time. As an academic and a mother I expect her to be a role model and an ideal mother who should abhor any acts capable of overheating the polity. For now the people of Mbaise have resolved to give their votes to governor Okorocha and there is no amount of propaganda, intimidation, blackmail, or inducement from anybody that can make them to change their mind. The time for an Mbaise governor is not now because there is no vacancy in Imo Government House till 2019. By then, the Mbaise people will sit down and assess our sons and daughters that will be generally acceptable to the whole Imolites. For now Ihedioha is on his own because the people of Mbaise have not given their consensus of who should be their governo. Governor Okorocha has been fair and accommodating to the Mbaise people by placing a number of us in strategic positions such as commissioners, chairman of the APC in the state and the Director General of  his campaign organization and we must reciprocate this by voting massively for him.

The apex Igbo socio-cultural Organization, the Ohaneze Ndigbo, was reported to have endorsed the re-election of President Goodluck Jonathan and asked all Igbo politicians nursing  presidential ambition to discard their dream. But governor Okorocha still participated in the APC Presidential primaries. 

Ohaneze Ndigbo never endorsed President Goodluck Jonathan for the 2015 general elections. Go and verify this, and there was never a time the highly respected Igbo socio-cultural umbrella body directed all Igbo politicians interested in the presidential race to jettison  their ambition. What happened was that a section of the organization, for their own selfish interests, and who are in a state of perpetual servitude, purportedly endorsed the president for a second tenure. Can you mention any prominent Igbo leader with enviable credibility, honour, and respect that appended his signature in that so-called endorsement? Of course, immediately after that highly discredited endorsement appeared, the real Ohaneze Ndigbo came out and countered it. Did you not hear the submissions of His Excellency, the former Vice President, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, after that purported endorsement? How can the Igbo endorse the president for a second term when he is already on his way out of Aso Rock? There is absolutely nothing on the ground in the entire Igbo land to warrant the endorsement of Mr. President for another tenure? There is no refinery in the South-East and the already existing ones outside the shores of Igbo land lack Turn Around Maintenance  (TAM) even though billions  of naira had been sunk for this. It is only in APC controlled slates that you can see real governance and Passion. For now, a number of PDP controlled states are owing salaries and with no federal government presence. If there is any federal government presence in Imo, let the President come and commission such projects.

Governor Rochas Okorocha reportedly promised not to seek re-election if elected governor in 2011. But today he has made a volte face. Why? 

I can authoritatively tell you that there was no such statement from his Excellency in 2011. What rather happened was that the governor said that he had the ambition to run for the presidency of this country to further contribute his quota to move the nation forward. He also made it clear that he would rather like to first of all serve as a governor before gravitating to the presidency hence his participation in the APC presidential primaries. However, while in the APC presidential primaries, he was inundated with repeated calls, pleadings, persuasions and pressures to drop the idea and come back home to take another shot at the Imo state government House so as to complete the good job he is doing. He decided to seek re-election in response to the worthy  yearnings and aspirations of the people who  want him to come back so as to consolidate the gains  of the democracy dividends they are enjoying  I can  show you copies of the letters written to his Excellency by some well meaning indigenes of the state, asking him to seek re-election.