Last week, Victor Umeh’s campaign billboards were defaced at a village in Agukwu, Uche Ekwunife’s home town. All fingers pointed in Ekwunife’s direction. Few days ago, campaign billboards of Victor Umeh were again defaced at Ezinano junction, near Agukwu. Again all fingers pointed at Uche Ekwunife. It is not the first time Uche Ekwunife is on the news for defacing her opponent’s campaign posters and billboards. It has been a recurring decimal in her campaign strategies through the years.
There has to be an end to impunity. Ekwunife needs to be reminded that impunity and desperation cannot fetch her Anambra Central Senatorial seat; neither can rascality fetch the senate seat for her. The way Hon. Uche Ekwunife has conducted her campaign so far is nothing short of a campaign of a rascal. It has been a bouquet of namedropping, vicious lies, blackmails and desperation. Even the deepest pit of hell would marvel at the ease with which Ekwunife dishes out vicious lies against the person of Chief Victor Umeh and the APGA government in Anambra State. Even the Governor of the state, Chief Willie Obiano and his family has not been spared by Ekwunife’s yarn of lies. There was nothing Ekwunife did not spin up in her bid to unseat the governor through frivolous petitions. On failing in her bid, she migrated to PDP knowing full well that she had squandered the goodwill APGA bequeathed her. To cover her tracks, Ekwunife went to town with a plethora of lies against the National Chairman of APGA, Chief Victor Umeh. As the Ndigbo say, ‘he who cast himself out of out of the boat is always quick to say that the boat could not contain him’. Ekwunife spewed ridiculous tales on why she left APGA, when it was obvious to all and sundry that her naked ambition drove her out of APGA.
Since Victor Umeh declared interest to vie for the senatorial seat of Anambra Central, Ekwunife has gone haywire. She went to town dropping the name of Mr. President and his wife, Dame Patience Jonathan. When that could not work she took to spinning out tales against the governor and his wife. Having failed in all these, she took to defacing Umeh’s posters and billboards. But what Uche forgot in her rascality is that the name ‘Victor Umeh’ OHAMADIKE is a household name in the country. He needs no introduction. Every politically aware Nigerian knows about the man with long red cap. The image of Ohamadike Victor Umeh on his long red cap at the National Conference agitating for the creation of an additional state for the Southeast is indelible in the psyche of Nigerians.
It is becoming glaringly clear that Ekwunife is now appreciating the stature of the man she is going to duel with for the senatorial seat o Anambra Central; hence she is taking out her frustrations on his billboards. Defacing Umeh’s billboards will not remove him from the consciousness of Ndi Anambra. Every politically aware adult in Anambra State knows that Victor Umeh is vying or the senatorial seat of Anambra Central Zone. No amount of campaign rascality can undo that.
There are limits to rascality. The fact that impunity worked in the past does not mean that it will continue to work. Ekwunife was an obscure banker who cashed in on a weakness of a former governor of Anambra State to rise to power. Her sudden wealth and sudden prominence are thanks to the governor’s weakness. The votes must count come February 2014. Uche is in the House of Reps today courtesy of APGA. Since she has decided to dare APGA, the party that made her, she must be prepared to test her popularity. Uche Ekwunife ought to be reminded that the contest for Anambra Central District is a popularity test rather than a rascality test. Taking down Umeh’s billboards will not help her neither will it stop Umeh.
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Obiorah Okonkwo wrote in from Awka.
