By Orba Concerned Elite
We had read with awe and disbelief the various acerbic vitriol and excoriation poured on the person of our dear son and governor, Dr Lawrence Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, by some persons from Nsukka cultural zone; persons who at one time or the other had benefitted from the kindness of Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi by way of assistance and/or appointments to positions in his government; persons with whom we share brotherliness, camaraderie, friendship and easy sociability, and we wonder where the rains had begun to beat us.
We had paused to take a dispassionate perusal of the sponsored writeups making rounds on social media. We are vicariously ashamed at the kind of language in which the calumnious campaigns are written. The language is base and vain, and unfit for use on the person of the governor, our own son, for no cause worth the while. Besides the form, the contents as well are clearly evident of personal vendetta. The claims that Ugwuanyi had achieved nothing fall short of terminological inexactitude and hawkish malice over political issues of interest. We find them unnecessary, for they somewhat smack of unrestrained emotions and the urge to cut some pounds of flesh.
We have been in the game of politics to understand it could go to any direction, at times unexpectedly incredible. Anyone who would play politics has got to make their heart a steel or a heavy stone, very much impervious to the pangs and shock of unfavourable outcomes. Right from the outset, the politician is prepared to risk it and take the outcome in the spirit of sportsmanship, knowing it is a game.
For us in Nsukka Cultural Zone or if you like Enugu North Senatorial Zone, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi is a son and good one at that. He is an illustrious son in whom we are well pleased. We say this without any equivocation, not because we share the same clan but with every sense of objectivity, and we have in mind his personality, competence, integrity and superlative scorecard, not just in Udenu as some have politically claimed, but also in virtually all the local governments of the zone, to say nothing of the entire Enugu State. While Udenu ring road is there as well as SUMAS which cuts across four communities in two local governments: Udenu and Igbo-Eze South, others like Nsukka Stadium, the type three hospitals in the six local governments of Enugu North Senatorial Zone, the secretariat annex at Ede Oballa, the various rural RAMP roads, the Opi-Nsukka Road, Echara- Ikenga Road, Tectonics Road, Amaeze Road, Enugu Road down to Ogurugu Road, Oloto one and two, Justina Eze Road, the Ezeani- Ugbene Ajima Road, the Orotuma Road in Igbo-Etiti, the Federal Polytechnic Ohodo, and many infratructural facilities all over Nsukka Zone, to mention just a few of them, are in place. We have yet to mention appointments, scholarships, employments in droves and various empowerment schemes extended to the people. There is no doubting the fact that Ugwuanyi has done very well, especially when the paucity of funds at his disposal as occasioned by economic recession is taken into consideration.
If virulent irredentist politics to the point of primitiveness did not make for the tendentiously damaging and umbrageous campaigns against His Excellency,Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, then entitlement mentality may be behind what seems like insatiable abyss of demands even to the point of brazen request that only Nsukka should take the lion share of everything, while others fold their arms and wait for Godot, because our son is the governor.
We have known Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi for over 50 years and can attest to his goodness. He is kind, humble and compassionate. Ifeanyi does not believe in clannish politics. He has this large heart to contain even foes and friends and that may account for why some persons may think he favours his severe critics, something some critics had mistakenly referred to as prebendalism. Ugwuanyi has a forgiving spirit and extends the olive to all.
The party primaries have come and gone.The time to reunite and look forward to a successor that would consolidate the achievements of the Ugwuanyi administration and do more is now. In the wisdom of the ruling party in the state, the choice of Peter Ndubuisi Mbah as its governorship candidate is irretrievably made. And the young man is promising with his running mate, Ifeanyi Ossai, our son who himself is a cerebral lawyer. That Mbah is from Nkanu East Local Government would not make him the governor of Nkanu East instead of the entire Enugu State. Let us understand that once he is elected, the entire state becomes his constituency.
The other political parties have got their candidates. They are Enugu citizens. Should any of them emerge governor, they would be the governor of Enugu State irrespective of their local government or zone.
So, let us learn to tone down the divisive politics of zones and understand we are one state. Divided we fall; united we stand.
Governor Ugwuanyi, naturally as it is the case with political leaders all over the world, might have made inputs in the outcome of the party primaries, even his body language is in itself an input, but we are sure he followed his conscience and sense of equity. Interests are also there but everyone, whether from the hill or valley, has their own interests. Interests may as well be realigned after outcomes and it is the way of politics. We make bold to say that such acrimonious politics of bitterness as is being bandied about, leading to sponsored name-calling and defamation shares border with what may be rightly described as political immaturity. Let us do away with intemperance and synergize for a better Enugu State.
We, therefore,appeal and call on the divides to sheath their swords. We are brothers; we are friends. We can as well pursue our interests in the various parties without slandering one another. Let love lead.
CONCERNED ORBA ELITES
