Loading ...Imo APGA, Ararume And Agukwe’s Embarrassing Trajectory – By Prof. Chinedu Anosike
First, let’s consider a picture.
The All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) suddenly came up with its guidelines. A section stipulated that a member wishing to serve as a delegate would have to pay and purchase a form to that effect at the rate of Ten Thousand Naira (N10, 000). That person in addition must pay another sum of N4, 800 being compulsory four-year membership dues to the party. In all, a member of the party wishing therefore to serve as a delegate must pay a total of N14, 800 to be qualified to aspire for such a position.
Now another dramatic rider; this amount only qualifies you to aspire for a single delegate position to either House of Assembly, House of Representatives, Senate or Governor.
To qualify as a delegate for the four offices which ordinarily was the norm in other political parties, an intending delegate aspirant would have to cough out a total of Forty-Four Thousand and Eight Hundred Naira (N44, 800).
And trust, party loyalists did with humble submission and millions of naira were swindled from poor unsuspecting party members.
Then; and suddenly, no forms were issued. Confusion and conspiracy of silence were introduced. Members’ monies diverted. Fake forms even surfaced in some quarters. No delegates’ elections took place as advertized. Private delegates’ lists started flying around; talks of harmonized list filtered the air…and at the end, no successful primary elections took place.
Thuggery became order of the day. And just as party faithful were questioning the “P” in the word “psychology”, a certain Senator Ifeanyi Ararume who just joined the party about a fortnight was declared winner in an alleged “primary election” of the party that never took place. Ever since then, the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) as the only living cock crying for the Igbo nation has known no peace.
As the confusion continues to grow with APGAns, Imolites and Ndigbo trying to wade off the blanket on their eyes, merchantile politicians are receiving huge envelops and bank alerts to support the day-light robbery of our collective psyche. Publishers of local tabloids and online journalists including their “E-Rats” counterparts are already blowing screaming headlines supporting a man who, like a fart released by the palmwine tapper which confuses the fly, stole the peoples’ mandate and destroyed the symbol of our Igboness.
Reading through the banner headline of *Daily Nigerian Horn newspaper of Wednesday October 17, 2018 with the caption: “2019 Imo Guber: Only Ararume Can Stop Okorocha – Agukwe”*, I couldn’t but wondered what on earth is wrong with some Imo politicians who parade themselves as Imo leaders. It does seem Imo as a state has been cursed and reserved to permanent subjugation by shameless men whose only means of survival is engagement in sycophantic operations.
That a certain serial political extorter, Nze Elvis Agukwe who in some weeks back while with me at Dr. Ikedi Ohakim’s dinning set described Sen. Ararume as *“rubbish and unfit to govern Imo”* was on that paper promoting Ararume as “the best thing that happened to APGA in Imo state” is unbelievable.
My roundly take is that these politicians are simply watery and unreliable. At what point has Agukwe’s “rubbish Ararume…” suddenly become saint and best to govern Imo?
What changed in some weeks and how much exchanged hands between Ararume and Agukwe that the Agukwe who in some weeks back promoted through his article that a single term be considered Okigwe zone through a man that already has experience (Ikedi Ohakim) could just turn around praising Ararume?
While I delayed in publishing and severally edited and re-edited this article in order to avoid being read as taking on the personality of Agukwe, suffice however to advise him to once show decency in politicking.
Agukwe should understand that politics is not all about deceit as it also involves humanity. Every action of a politician tells on his children and relatives either while he lives or at death.
APGA in Imo died and will continue to remain so as long as people like Agukwe continue shamelessly to make Imolites accept hook-line-and-sinker the insult Ararume brought to our collective sensibilities through his desperations displayed in hijacking the ticket of the party that many people labored to build.
What kind of Imo do we expect from such a person and his bunch of praise singers like Agukwe?
I am not a politician the way they promote theirs, and will never be. Agukwe should have known that ndimo and ndigbo are not looking for someone who “can stop Okorocha” because some brave men like the Distinguished Senator Hope Uzodinma and others who stayed put at the All Progressives Congress, APC had already succeeded in stopping Okorocha. APGA is not just interested in stopping Okorocha but also interested in winning the guber election of 2019.
At the moment, nothing apart from showing incapacity to face competitions has shown that Senator Ararume is acceptable by Imolites to be voted as their governor in 2019.
The issue here is not about Ararume’s political personality which I am not going to dwell on, but on how he was produced. I think it’s also high time that our Ishiebu Isiala-Mbano born politician asked himself why he had remained a virus sort of, that whenever he joined any political party, that party often tears apart.
Is this do-or-die nature of his a deliberate ploy to frustrate Ndimo from enjoying good leadership or is it that there is something in his gene that produces this? A person who emerged through a backdoor should not be placed on a high table. Imo desires credible leadership from 2019 and whosoever that has shown traces of cancer either now or in the past must be avoided, no matter how much he pumps into such a venture.
Entrance of Sen. Ararume and his manner of emergence have destroyed APGA. A public analyst, Afam Echi reported that many of the governorship aspirants had deserted the party.
The wife of the party’s late leader, Ambassador Bianca Ojukwu had also condemned the primary election describing it as embarrassing and the worst in the nation.
Dr. Sam Amadi speaking for other aspirants and the N-APGA said the party had committed “theft and betrayal”. Even the state’s Publicity Secretary of APGA in Imo state has accused the national leadership of the party as responsible for the frustrations members in Imo state witnessed.
And while here, Agukwe; a man who could not even stand a primary election in his constituency is praising a faulted process and singing Ararume as best thing for the party. What nonsense and disgusting personalities we have in Imo politics!
In 2019, Imolites will vote according to their consciences. Whatever evil designs such elements seeking their personal pockets against Ndimo will never succeed. This is because I see a hand interested in the affairs of Imo state from 2019. That hand will never allow darkness replace darkness, therefore no amount of money spent on spreading falsehood and propaganda will change the views of Imolites about the process that brought about the emergence of Senator Ifeanyichukwu Godwin Ararume as the “flag-bearer” of the APGA in Imo state.
Ndimo already know everybody and his personage. Agukwe’s personality is already known in Imo. Everyone knows what propels his opinions, and there is no evidence that he wouldn’t be singing for the next highest bidder after his “god-sent Ararume”
*Prof. Chinedu Asinu- Anosike (Cona) Brand and Campaign Consultant*
