The magic of one good head: Nnenna Oti on my mind

Through all ages, meaningful and impactful changes in society have always originated from a few good men/women. It does not take a multitude to positively impact a society. Just one good head can save a whole nation.

In countries where politicians are self-serving, it can only take one good man to turn things around. Highly corrupt institutions can be turned around by just one individual that has his/her head fitted in the right place.

It took a ruddy boy, David, to end many years of reproach from Goliath, a Philistine giant and warrior.

It took the sheer wisdom of a young man, Joseph, to save a whole nation from many years of famine.

It took the sacrifice of a young lady, Esther, to save the lives of all the captive Jews in Shushan the Palace, a major ancient city in Persia, under King Ahasuerus.

In his gospel song “A Few Good Men” Suzanne Gaither Jennings, scripted: “God doesn’t need an orator; Who knows what just to say; He doesn’t need authorities, To reason Him away; He doesn’t need an army; To guarantee a win; He just needs a few good men…”

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How many Alex Ottis have been denied the opportunity to recreate their states? How many states have been denied the opportunity of development? How many presidential candidates have been denied the opportunity to make an appreciable impact in Nigeria by mercantile Returning Officers and corrupt electoral officers?

It takes one good head to bring sanity to a chaotic situation. It takes one good head to deliver a nation that had wallowed in the darkness of misgovernance. These good heads are being frustrated from reaching the finishing line, by compromised referees.

It is three years now when the intervention of one good head saved Abia State from its backwater status.

Although it prides itself as ‘God’s Own State’, the state knew little or nothing about a life that is moderated by the Almighty God. It was a state systematically plundered by caterpillars and cankerworms. Its so-called leaders reduced it to a laughing stock in the comity of states.

Any time anybody wanted to cite an example of a plundered state, Abia easily came to mind. Even Abia sons and daughters did not contest the shameful appellation because what was being said of their state was not made up but a true reflection of the reality on ground.

From Abia South to Central and to Abia North, the state was a pure waste land. It was so bad that someone wrote that it was fitting to auction out the state to whosoever willed.

Don’t forget, in all of these years, the state lacked no governors. They presided over a decayed wasteland. They were not even sensitive to perceive the stench because their olfactory lobes had since been sacrificed to the god of political chicanery.

They had perfected their rigging methodology. At every election cycle, they rolled out their arsenals. They always worked against the phrase in democratic systems, “the majority will have its way, but the minority must have its say.” For them, it is the other way round.

Over the years, the political actors in the state had perfected plans to pad the votes from Obingwa Local Government Area (LGA).

So, in 2023, when they saw that Alex Otti was coasting home to victory, wham, they got the INEC to stop further collation of the result. Then, all manner of consultations and movements ensued.

While the “kurukere” moves were on, the Returning Officer in the election, Nnenna Oti, a professor, and vice chancellor of the Federal University of Technology Owerri (FUTO), released the authentic result to the chagrin of the manipulators.

The declared results by the returning officer saw the Labour Party (LP) candidate, Alex Otti score 175,467 votes to defeat Okey Ahiwe and Enyinnaya Nwafor, who got 88,529 and 28,972, respectively.

Had she delayed, the figures could have been doctored. This is a past time among the Professor-Returning Officers that the INEC has been engaging since the Professor Attahiru Jega era as the chairman of the INEC.

Some mercantile professors, many of whom have not seen the kind of money that politicians move about with (and are willing to give out to be declared winner by all means), easily compromise themselves.

Nigerians have watched some of the returning officers struggle to call the figures they themselves entered into the result sheets. Some of them feign incapable of seeing what they wrote after mutilating the result sheets.

This was a route that Professor Oti refused to take. She came under incredible pressure from those who were willing to give her the whole world if she could just alter the numbers.

Talking about her experience then, she said she was promised huge monetary inducement to change the will and mandate of the people of Abia but that she remained resolute in the face of heavy intimidation and threats.

“As an electoral officer, I have never in my life participated in any election, but duty came calling, I made my enquiries from Abuja,” Oti said.

She borrowed the exact words by Esther (earlier mentioned), “If I perish, I perish. They came with their threats, they came with their money, they came with their intimidation.”

She also said that she stood on her ideals and principles not to short-change anyone and ensured that the will of the people of Abia prevailed and that their votes counted during the election.

“I didn’t start today; I stand here before God, Jesus Christ. I have never defrauded anyone, all l did was to declare the riot act as follows: Under me, votes must count. Under me, the people’s mandate will be upheld because I, Professor Nnenna Oti, can never do evil,” she said.

Three years down the line, real Abians have not forgotten that good deed of hers. Every well-meaning Abian can testify to the re-engineering work going on in every nook and cranny of the state.

Indigenes of the state, who had never felt anything like government presence in their locality for 24 years, are today enjoying the presence of government in the state.

The state has suddenly become a reference point for good governance in Nigeria. The sing-song today is “Go to Abia and see what Governor Otti is doing.” That was made possible by the determination of one good head to say “No” to manipulation.

Governor Otti, in appreciation of what the professor did, particularly how she saved Abia from extinction (because, if the state had remained in the hands of the undertakers, by now, it would have disappeared), immortalised her a few days ago, by naming the newly constructed multimodal bus terminal in Umuahia after her.

The facility was inaugurated on Wednesday and christened “Nnenna Oti Bus Terminal.”

Governor Otti said of her, “By standing firmly by the truth and refusing to treat her role as an invitation to a sudden banquet, she reminded us that ordinary people can achieve extraordinary results by simply saying no — no to manipulation, injustice and conspiracy.”