Enugu State in a quagmire: The reason Enugu will need Chijioke Edeoga as governor instead of Peter Mbah
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Chijioke Edeoga, Labour Party governorship candidate in Enugu State
By Emeka Ugwuonye Esquire
As I have stated in previous posts, my assessment of the two alternative Governors of Enugu State has little to do with my opinion of their respective personalities. I got to know of Peter Mbah and Chijioke Edeoga two weeks before the last election. Rather, my position is driven by my assessment of what I consider to be in the best interest of the people of Enugu State. In an ideal situation, my view as to which of them should be the governor would have been irrelevant because INEC would have conducted a fair and free election and declared the rightful winner. It is the people of Enugu State that should choose their governor in a free and fair election, and not by the opinion of any individual, however strongly held such opinion might be. However, since INEC failed so woefully to do its work, the question of which of them should be the governor remains an open one and it now lies with the courts.
While we all have to wait for the courts, we must admit that the Judicial option is an inferior option for choosing a governor. The tribunal came into the equation because the primary means of choosing a governor failed when INEC ignored the candidate that won the greatest number of votes, and rather chose to sell the office to the highest bidder. As we fell back to the judicial option for choosing the governor, we remain open to air our views on who should be the governor of Enugu State.
The problem of Enugu State is that soon after the return to civil rule in 1999, the people of Enugu lost the benefit of democratic means of choosing their leaders. The PDP Governor then (Chimaroke) killed democracy. Democracy means that the people have a genuine choice over who should lead them. Democracy involves fair competition for political power, with the voters as the determinants of which politician serves their best interest. And knowing this to be the case, every contender for political office will go as far as possible to please the people. Conversely, when there is no democracy, there will be no competition. Instead of the people deciding their destiny, a few individuals will form an oligopoly and corner power for themselves at the expense of the people. This is so obvious even in Peter Mbah’s choice of commissioners. Appointing the children of PDP Godfathers in the State as Commissioners just confirms what we knew – that these people are sharing power among a clan of friends, at the expense of the people.
In the absence of competition, a few individuals in Enugu State cornered power. They did anything they wanted. They stole the resources of the state and concentrated and recycled the perquisites of power among themselves. Each Governor chose who would succeed him and sold the office to the person he selected. Each Governor cornered the land resources of the state and shared them among his friends. No more elections or competition in the entire system of choice of leaders. Everything was fixed and election was just an affirmation of the Governor’s idiosyncrasies imposed on the people. Even local governments offices were fixed on the Governor’s whims and caprices, and the people could not chose their representatives even at local government level.
What we need in Enugu is not any particular individual, but a fair process that honors and respects the tenets of democracy. We want a process where every governor would know that he could lose election if he does not govern well. We want a system where each governor will be beholding to the people of Enugu. This last election was the best God’s intervention in the affairs of the people of Enugu by giving the people a choice they desperately needed. For the first time, a PDP candidate was on his knees begging to be voted for. In the past, who would have known that the candidate of the sitting governor of Enugu State would be so vulnerable. It was a moment in which it was clear that the power was in the hands of the people. And the people knew what they wanted. They wanted a break from the ugly past. Hence they voted for Chijioke Edeoga. That was a restoration of power to the people.
Unfortunately, INEC did what it swore not to do. It rigged the election it was supposed to conduct as an umpire. If Mbah remains in office, that will be a rape on the will of the people. That will be a frustration of democracy and return of our people to the dangerous conditions they have lived under for the past 24 years. On the other hand, if the truth prevails and Edeoga successfully reclaims his mandate, it will be to the benefit of the people. That will mean that for the first time, Enugu people can truly say they have a choice. They will serve as a powerful opposition to keep Governor Edeoga in check. When these cases are concluded and Edeoga is sworn in as the Governor of Enugu State, I expect Mbah and his friends in PDP to form a vigorous opposition and keep Governor Edeoga on his toes. When the Governor in office is faced with a powerful opposition, that is the golden era for Enugu people. We must not return to the terrible days when PDP Governors ruled like oriental potentates. Let them sweat for power. Anybody who wants to govern Enugu State must sweat for it. That is the era that Edeoga’s government will usher in for the people of Enugu.
It is the desperation of PDP and Mbah that led us where we are. When political candidates are determined to do anything – violence and fraud alike – to be in office, the people suffer. If Mbah were to be in office for the next four years, he will spend the four years settling scores and paying back to his Godfathers. He will spend the four years justifying his NYSC certificate debacle. It is already underway: Who is Mbah’s Chief of Staff? It is Mr. Victor Udeh. And who is he? That was the lawyer friend of Mbah who was writing those letters for Mbah claiming that Mbah did NYSC in his office (Udeh & Associates Law Firm) in Surulere, Lagos, in 2003. He wrote those letters, which NYSC says it never received. In other words, Edeoga’s lawyers are now saying that those letters written by Mr. Victor Udeh were actually bogus falsehood prepared to create a false impression that Mbah performed his national service. In fact, when Mr. Victor Udeh was writing those letters, Mbah was the Chief of Staff to Governor Nnamani. So, it is an expected twist that Victor Udeh is now Mbah’s Chief of Staff. That way, Victor Udeh will remain loyal and maintain the lie that Mbah did NYSC in his firm in 2003. The government of Peter Mbah is going to be a government of a thousand lies. He will have to tell countless lies to sustain the primary lie about his NYSC. The people of Enugu State deserve better than spending four years trying to prove a lie true.
If the Supreme Court returns a verdict for Chijioke Edeoga, it will be the beginning of the healing that the State needs so desperately. For that reason, Enugu people are better off with Edeoga than with a continuation of a kleptocratic order that PDP had foisted upon the people of Enugu for the past 24 years. The PDP gang in Enugu State has been a hypercarnivorous beast, which does not care where its food comes from – whether by active predation or scavenging. Someone will be quick to remind me that Edeoga was once a part of PDP. But that does not change the argument. It does not change the fact that there is now an element of political competition which is healthy for the people of Enugu. It is for that reason that we need Edeoga in office, so that the healing can begin and the people of Enugu can breathe at last.
