Unbeknownst to many, something of a political aberration is playing out in Imo State and it is coming from one family: the family of former Senator Ifeanyichukwu Ararume.
Recall that former Senator Ararume had served one term as Senator representing Okigwe zone (or Imo North Senatorial zone). After his rather uninspiring stint in the Senate, Ararume abandoned ship and ran and lost the governorship of Imo Stare under PDP in 2007.
Four years later, in 2011, his vaulting ambition led him astray to the defunct ACN (Action Congress of Nigeria), from which platform he contested and woefully lost the Imo governorship, again. This was after decamping from the PDP that took so much electoral damage in 2007 to support his poorly-run pitch to become Imo Governor in 2007.
Yet again, in keeping with his abject lack of political discipline and loyalty, he double-decamped to both APC and APGA, from which platforms he ran and lost more bids for Imo governorship, either as an aspirant or a candidate.
As if that was not enough, he later desperately re-decamped to APC and entangled himself in an unholy alliance with former Governor Rochas Okorocha, who rewarded him by appointing his son, Ifeanyi Ararume Jnr, a Commissioner.
Information in public domain shows that the younger Ararume failed woefully as a Commissioner and, as a consequence, was quickly discarded by Okorocha in a rather humiliating manner that underscored his infamous under-performance as a Commissioner.
Against the foregoing background, the older Ararume sought to re-invent his checkered political career by making a go at garnering the Chairmanship of NNPC. This was however stopped by a President Buhari that was shocked to see Ararume’s name on the list of appointees to the NNPC Board. And that’s how Imo lost a seat on the NNPC Board, thanks to Ifeanyi Ararume.
From that failed heist, the Senior Ararume seemingly got together with the junior Ararume (his own son) and they both decided to game the system by splitting themselves into two political parties – PDP and APC, all with an eye on the 2023 elections.
As it stands, while the senior Ifeanyi is fronting as a ranking member of APC and finessed his way to membership of the party’s senatorial screening committee for Imo State APC, the junior Ifeanyi surreptitiously embedded himself into PDP from which platform he is running to represent same Imo North in the Senate.
In other words and to be clear, whilst the senior Ararume fixed himself in the APC to screen its Imo senatorial aspirants, the junior Ararume is comfortably ensconced in PDP, running for a Senate seat in Imo State. If this is not a political heist and double betrayal of this era, I don’t what is.
In their hardly disguised clumsy political reckoning, what the two Ararumes are scheming to do is simple, and that is: While the senior Ararume works from inside APC to frustrate the party’s APC Imo State senatorial aspirants/candidate, the junior Ararume will be taking advantage of this lacuna to win the Okigwe senatorial seat, surely as a front for his father who then decamp to PDP and substitute his son as the PDP candidate.
This is the tale of the two Ararumes in Imo State and political watchers are watching to see whether APC will standby and unwittingly tolerate a situation where former Senator Ararume (the senior Ararume) will betray the APC from the inside while his son is using an unsuspecting PDP to advance the nepotistic designs of father and son.
Odey writes from duncanodey@gmail.com
