The South East is a major epicentre of the electoral wars 2019. It is the place where contention over the election has taken dramatic turns with the potential for explosion. The South East sits on a timebomb.
Whether by accident or design, electoral materials are blowing up in the South East. On Tuesday, a truck that was conveying voting materials burnt in Awka. Burnt were 4, 950 INEC card readers. There was an earlier fire at Isiala Ngwa South. There was also one in Plateau State. Conspiracy theorists have noted that these are strongholds of the opposition party. Convenient, but unnecessary. The lizards are visiting the ant-infested faggots! Plateau makes it difficult to finger people of the South East for the arson incidents.
The South East is not the only stronghold of the opposition. There are many other states and regions where the opposition to the ruling party is very strong. The bush rat has gathered intelligence from the house rat and is acting. It is the internal but needless schism in the region that has brought out the beast.
The battle in the South East this weekend is three-pronged. There is one over which of the parties, PDP or APC, the Igbo will choose. Burning of the card readers is part of that battle. There is the other over voting or boycott. Then another over a so-called referendum. And yet one more in Ebonyi State.
The Igbo face serious battles over choice of direction and identity. I submit that the battles are proxy wars for the poor governance that has characterized the region and nostalgia over the achievements of an earlier generation in the direst circumstances over three years. Biafra is the elephant in the room. Rather than confront the wielders of political power directly, the Igbo have been externalizing.
From IPOB through Ohanaeze Igbo, the recourse is to engage in the blame game against forces external to the region. The buzz has grown from marginalization through the call for a new Biafra and restructuring. As the morning shows the day, the South East should show capacity for internal correction, autonomous growth and self-regeneration with the resources and capacity currently available. The resources are enormous indeed, from federal allocation to internally generated revenue.
Where is the strategic plan for each of the South East states that would deliver the enabling environment for fruition of the acclaimed brilliance and capacity of its citizens? Why do we not have better-living spaces or demonstrably better management of resources than the rest of Nigeria? That is the challenge of today and tomorrow.
On Saturday, 16 February the call on the electorate in the South East is to go out and vote. Ignore the misguided call of IPOB for a boycott and a purported referendum. We cannot afford such escapism.
General Elections 2019 will mark the end of the beginning. Chapter Two will unfold after the elections when the region must confront the real wars of culture, identity, direction and strategy. It would matter little who becomes president. One will make the Igbo further hanker down, while the other may offer a more enabling environment for unleashing of individual capacity and negotiation of the desires of the region. There is work ahead internally post-election.
Hurricane Maria
The David versus Goliath battle in Ebonyi State playing out also on 16 February 2019 is one that speaks to the can-do spirit of the people. Hon Maria Ude Nwachi aka Nwanyi Afikpo is squaring up for a seat in the House of Representatives for the Afikpo North/South Federal Constituency against the PDP’s Chief Idu Igariye.
Maria Nwachi sits in the Ebonyi State House of Assembly. She entered on the ticket of PPA, probably the only member on that platform. This time her platform is the Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN) party. Her election in 2015 was proof that love wins elections with the citizens defying the odds to stand behind her.
Nwanyi Afikpo is rewriting the story of political representation in Nigeria. It would take a more definite form if she wins on Saturday. The battle this time is fiercer than in 2015. The ego of the PDP and the Ebonyi State Government is involved, and they are willing to do any and everything to short circuit this interesting story.
The narrative is that candidates who identify with the electorate can and will win their support in Nigerian elections despite the negative forces of rigging, intimidation and party supremacy. Maria Nwachi continues to pay a high price for insisting on representing her people against the odds. Twice the Ebonyi State House of Assembly suspended her, the one for ostensibly lowering the esteem of the house by going around taking photographs! They soon stepped down from their high horse given how ludicrous the reason sounded.
May Maria Ude Nwachi move to Abuja in May 2019 to represent her beloved Ehugbo people and rewrite the narrative of grassroots politics.
Chido Nwakanma
