• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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The allegory of Rochas Okorocha

Rochas Okorocha

The more he struggles with the reality of the outcome of his electoral iberiberism, the more Rochas Okorocha positions as an allegory for constant retelling for generations to come. The trajectory of Okorocha is a narrative for folklore. He replicates all the elements in those moonlight tales depicting wisdom, foolishness and the many paths not trodden.

Rochas Okorocha was the main loser of the governorship poll in Imo State on March 23, even as INEC did not list him officially as a contestant. Uche Nwosu was one of the candidates on the ballot. The outgoing governor of Imo State sought to extend his eight-year tenure through the husband of his daughter. It was a very bold gamble typical of persons who take brazen risks such as Okorocha.

At the same time, Okorocha wanted to go to the Senate to represent Imo West Senatorial District. He pursued the quest with bravado and overwhelming confidence in his capacity to intimidate and overwhelm. He then met an electoral officer who looked both he and his gun in the face and lived to tell the story.

Returning Officer Innocent Ibeabuchi announced Rochas Okorocha winner of the senatorial race with a resounding caveat. He stated, “I have been held hostage here for days so I’m trying to ease off and take my life home back to my children and for the sake of that I am calling these results under duress.” The Independent National Electoral Commission has held on that to state that it would not recognise Okorocha’s “election” as Senator.

“Under duress” haunts and taunts Okorocha today as does the victory of Emeka Ihedioha as the person to succeed him at Douglas House, Owerri. Ihedioha is one of those Okorocha defeated in 2015. He kept at it, and the people of Imo State have welcomed his victory with so much approbation and enthusiasm.

Okorocha is now under pressure from the “under the duress” of Returning Officer Ibeabuchi. He is casting about for blames. He likes to blame his former “my people, my people” of Imo State and the rest of Igboland. He hauls imprecations at the Igbo, accusing them of naivety and swearing how the Igbo cannot be president. The people respond, sometimes with hubris and no equivocation, that they want a functional polity that restructuring would yield rather than the presidency of a dystopia such as Nigeria.

Okorocha’s trajectory contains many lessons. Here is a successful executive in the Nigerian tradition, an entrepreneur with claims to many ventures. He lived out the notion that success favours the brave. He pursued the presidency even when it sounded like a wild goose chase. Then he zeroed in on his state. Onyekwe chi yaekwe, as the Igbo say, and a complex of factors worked in his favour. Okorocha became Governor of the state with the most professors in Nigeria. He then rode roughshod over the land, playing on their intelligence. Across Imo State are several abandoned projects signposting plans for hospitals or other people-centric ventures. They did not happen because there seems in retrospect that the plan did not include the execution of the projects.

Okorocha’s first tenure rode on the wave of these seemingly ambitious grassroots projects. Then he returned for a second tenure and switched off the lights. The people groaned. Okorocha not only ignored them but hatched a scheme to perpetrate dynasty.

In an earlier intervention last year, I urged the people in the All Progressives Congress in Imo to ensure they did not allow Okorocha subvert Imo culture. A friend and double schoolmate Theodore Ekechiwas in the forefront of those who foiled it. But Okorocha would not heed the whistle.

There are many lessons. Ambition and the courage to pursue it are still valuable traits. They can fetch the intrepid high office such as the Governorship of a significant state. In Nigeria, people can take advantage of the low standing of the people on the Maslow hierarchy. However, our people would play Pavlov’s dogs only so far and no further.

Civil society and the electorate are growing their sinews and will punish failure in governance. More importantly, they will punish those who take them for granted and accuse them of iberiberism. They respond with ohashierism (when the people cook for one man it is a suicidal dinner as against when one man prepares for the mass).

No one person is so politically savvy he dwarfs or envelops his constituents. Even in Nigeria, power flows from the people. There is only so much citizens should stomach from their leaders. Our stomachs even in the physical have limited elasticity for condoning maladministration and malfeasance.

 

Chido Nwakanma