Imo 2015: Can Nzeribe Stop Rochas?
IMAGINE a doughnut without a hole!What do you see? Ok; replace the
image with the picture of Distinquished Senator Arthur Nzeribe. What
difference,if any, do you find? Well, the answer isn’t hard to find:it’s
like six and half a dozen. You know why? Nzeribe without controversy is
like a doughnut without a hole.For some people,Nzeribe is an
inscrutable fellow, a procrustean bed,a myth of some sort who can make
any villainous scheme happen.
And how do you deal with a myth? It is a question no one could find an answer to for many years.As such, that toga of a myth stuck with him and became an oxygen that kept Nzeribe surviving every disingenous scheme he contrived or was used to carry out.
I remember an interview Folake Ofoha(of defunct National Concord)and I(as Champion newspaper correspondent in Imo State) had with Nzeribe in his “Haven of Peace”, Oguta in 1994.
We had asked him, among other things, why he took the political risk that culminated in the annulment of June 12 Presidential election of 1993, in which Chief MKO Abiola was widely believed to have won.This was his answer:” Abiola and his people underrated me,they thought I was a lousy fellow, incapable of doing nothing”.
If there was anything that gave Nzeribe fame and a badge of notoriety (some call it maverick status),the callous annulment of the 1993 presidential poll by Babangida-led military regime, was it.Since then,Nzeribe had galloped from one controversy to another, caused some many political chutzpah, call it upheavals, with supreme confidence.
There was no single storm in the Senate where he was between 1999 and 2007,be it bribery allegation or impeachment,that didn’t have the hand of Senator Nzeribe, a notoriety that made his fellow Senator then, Jonathan Zwingina to call him( Nzeribe) “a man who is allergic to good reputation”.
It was Anyim Pius Anyim as Senate President that clipped Nzeribe’s wings by causing his suspension from the Senate.That was how the myth was demystified. I recall one tale Eze Acholonu, late Igwe of Orlu used to tell his children(as Dr. Douglas Acholonu told me in 1994),” if someone is a myth,bring him to me in a bottle, but if he’s mad man,bring him in chain”.
Anyim brought Nzeribe in a bottle and decapitated him,politically speaking.
All of this was before,but this is now.It raises few vital questions: Is Nzeribe still politically relevant? Can this man still flip heads and decide the outcome of an election? I come from the same local government with the distinquished former Senator. I think he is now a spent force, even though he still deludes himself he can still make things happen.
Now this is the gist:Governorship election in Imo,like many other states will hold next year. Baring any unforseen or hinged event,the incumbent Governor of Imo State,Owelle Rochas Okorocha will seek re-election.But Nzeribe has vowed that Rochas would not be re-elected, because the governor “is full of baggage”. His exact words,” On May 29,2015, Douglas House in Imo state will play host to a baggage-free brand new governor. The fresh governor will emerge from one of the distinct groups in Imo politics,made up of 15 candidates. The ‘new governor’ that will emerge, Nzeribe boasted,would be influenced by him.
You may ask: how can he do that? This is his answer:” Here in Imo State, critics may want to know why Nzeribe has taken it upon himself to pontificate on who should govern the state in 2015. Should this question arise, it will be an interesting poser”. Nzeribe also claimed that in the last three governorship elections in Imo state (2003, 2007 and 2011), he looked the other way “when the governors were installed by outsiders”. But, this time around, pointing to next year,” I will never look away again, I made genuine mistakes in the past and kept quiet, but this time around, it will be undemocratic,if not immoral and cowardice of me to keep quiet”.
It’s all about Nzeribe’s quirk of politics. With such grandstanding, some get intimidated, and because fear is a tormenting spirit, he gets the better part of the person he is threatening. Many people get frigtened by Nzeribe out of the myth built around him. I know a former local chairman of Oguta who died in a car accident when he was told that Nzeribe was after his life. The truth is that Nzeribe had no hand whatsoever in this man’s death.They only had a little rift which is common in politics.And then Nzeribe was a Godfather par exellence.It was just fear of Nzeribe, which is like a fox entering a chicken coop that made this man to ram his car into a stationary cart.
It must be said that Gov Okorocha will be up against a “mountain” in his re-election bid for reasons I will adduce in future, but to say Nzeribe will be a factor in Imo election is to continue to wallow in the mythology that had seen deserted the man like tale of Samson and Delilah.
Source:sunnewsonline.com
And how do you deal with a myth? It is a question no one could find an answer to for many years.As such, that toga of a myth stuck with him and became an oxygen that kept Nzeribe surviving every disingenous scheme he contrived or was used to carry out.
I remember an interview Folake Ofoha(of defunct National Concord)and I(as Champion newspaper correspondent in Imo State) had with Nzeribe in his “Haven of Peace”, Oguta in 1994.
We had asked him, among other things, why he took the political risk that culminated in the annulment of June 12 Presidential election of 1993, in which Chief MKO Abiola was widely believed to have won.This was his answer:” Abiola and his people underrated me,they thought I was a lousy fellow, incapable of doing nothing”.
If there was anything that gave Nzeribe fame and a badge of notoriety (some call it maverick status),the callous annulment of the 1993 presidential poll by Babangida-led military regime, was it.Since then,Nzeribe had galloped from one controversy to another, caused some many political chutzpah, call it upheavals, with supreme confidence.
There was no single storm in the Senate where he was between 1999 and 2007,be it bribery allegation or impeachment,that didn’t have the hand of Senator Nzeribe, a notoriety that made his fellow Senator then, Jonathan Zwingina to call him( Nzeribe) “a man who is allergic to good reputation”.
It was Anyim Pius Anyim as Senate President that clipped Nzeribe’s wings by causing his suspension from the Senate.That was how the myth was demystified. I recall one tale Eze Acholonu, late Igwe of Orlu used to tell his children(as Dr. Douglas Acholonu told me in 1994),” if someone is a myth,bring him to me in a bottle, but if he’s mad man,bring him in chain”.
Anyim brought Nzeribe in a bottle and decapitated him,politically speaking.
All of this was before,but this is now.It raises few vital questions: Is Nzeribe still politically relevant? Can this man still flip heads and decide the outcome of an election? I come from the same local government with the distinquished former Senator. I think he is now a spent force, even though he still deludes himself he can still make things happen.
Now this is the gist:Governorship election in Imo,like many other states will hold next year. Baring any unforseen or hinged event,the incumbent Governor of Imo State,Owelle Rochas Okorocha will seek re-election.But Nzeribe has vowed that Rochas would not be re-elected, because the governor “is full of baggage”. His exact words,” On May 29,2015, Douglas House in Imo state will play host to a baggage-free brand new governor. The fresh governor will emerge from one of the distinct groups in Imo politics,made up of 15 candidates. The ‘new governor’ that will emerge, Nzeribe boasted,would be influenced by him.
You may ask: how can he do that? This is his answer:” Here in Imo State, critics may want to know why Nzeribe has taken it upon himself to pontificate on who should govern the state in 2015. Should this question arise, it will be an interesting poser”. Nzeribe also claimed that in the last three governorship elections in Imo state (2003, 2007 and 2011), he looked the other way “when the governors were installed by outsiders”. But, this time around, pointing to next year,” I will never look away again, I made genuine mistakes in the past and kept quiet, but this time around, it will be undemocratic,if not immoral and cowardice of me to keep quiet”.
It’s all about Nzeribe’s quirk of politics. With such grandstanding, some get intimidated, and because fear is a tormenting spirit, he gets the better part of the person he is threatening. Many people get frigtened by Nzeribe out of the myth built around him. I know a former local chairman of Oguta who died in a car accident when he was told that Nzeribe was after his life. The truth is that Nzeribe had no hand whatsoever in this man’s death.They only had a little rift which is common in politics.And then Nzeribe was a Godfather par exellence.It was just fear of Nzeribe, which is like a fox entering a chicken coop that made this man to ram his car into a stationary cart.
It must be said that Gov Okorocha will be up against a “mountain” in his re-election bid for reasons I will adduce in future, but to say Nzeribe will be a factor in Imo election is to continue to wallow in the mythology that had seen deserted the man like tale of Samson and Delilah.
Source:sunnewsonline.com
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