Umahi’s Tirades as Self-indictment
The Ebonyi State Governor, Dave Umahi, has become a problem rather than part of the solutions to the problems in the South-East, writes Ndubuisi Francis
The recent outburst by Governor Dave Umahi of Ebony State in the wake of his woeful outing at the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential primaries was an exercise in duplicity, a shameless and brazen self-indictment.
The finger-pointing was not only outlandish and puerile but a study in pseudo-comic rascality.
Few days after his foretold thrashing by better-prepared and organised co-aspirants at the event, the man who is effortlessly manifesting the tendencies of an emperor gave vent to the old saying that a bad workman always quarrels with his tools.
He embarked on shadow-boxing, attacking everybody in the South-East, but himself for his lack-lustre performance.
He did not only excoriate Ohanaeze Ndigbo and its President-General, Prof. George Obiozor, he blamed delegates from the South-East for his (Umahi’s) personal failure in a contest that he participated to advance his ambition.
The 18th century Irish poet, Oliver Goldsmith once wrote: “You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.”
Umahi is the Chairman, South-East Governors’ Forum, making him the primus inter pares among the governors in that region. This confers on him the very important privilege of galvanising efforts for the common interest of that geopolitical zone and Ndigbo in the Diaspora.
Pray, can Umahi, list his pro-Igbo footprints to elicit the love and support of Ndigbo that he earnestly craves?
What is it in Umahi’s activities and conduct that underscored his love for his ethnic stock that make him special and convinced that he deserves people grovelling before him?
In what way has Umahi advanced the collective interest of Ndigbo prior to his emergence as governor or since he became one to curry the love and support of Ndigbo?
Besides his much-advertised infrastructural development in Ebonyi State, Umahi has demonstrated an abysmal lack of interest to build bridges of unity in Igboland.
He has neither initiated visible collaborative efforts with his fellow governors nor the Pan-Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, to better the South-East since 2015 when he became governor.
On what justifiable plane is he beside himself with rage that delegates from the South-East and Ohanaeze failed him and other aspirants at the recent APC Convention?
Is his failed ambition to become presidential candidate of the APC greater than the collective interest of the South-East? If that was the case, then ambition should be made of sterner stuff (apologies to Shakespeare).
Dr. Ogbonaya Onu (from the same state with him), is not only his senior in age but by every parameter, including political seniority.
Onu is urbane, never talked down on his people to curry favour from Abuja; a respected Igbo son and founding member of the APC which he (Umahi) bumped into in the middle of the road.
Before the APC Convention, how much did Umahi give practical expression to the evergreen saying that charity begins at home? What was Umahi’s winning formula in collaboration with other contestants from his zone before he left for the political turf?
To drive it home, the Igbos say ‘izu ka mma na nneji’ (you confer better with someone from the same womb). Did Umahi put his house in order with his ‘elder’ brother (Onu) and by extension, other APC aspirants from his region before taking a plunge into the market square?
His post-defeat outburst against Ohanaeze and its leadership stemmed from the reported reluctance of the group to endorse him as the preffered candidate.
What on earth gave Umahi the impetus that of all the presidential aspirants from the South-East, he deserved to be endorsed by Ohanaeze Ndigbo as the ‘anointed’ one?
Since he was elected chairman of the South-East Governors’ Forum on February 26, 2017, barely two years into the Buhari administration, it has been a harvest of woes, calamities and retrogression in the South-East, the once-peaceful and prosperous region.
With his co-travellers–Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu, Willie Obiano of Anambra, and Rochas Okorocha of Imo, the first true test of leadership was bungled. Before their very eyes, the first orchestra of “Operation Python Dance” was displayed in the region.
Despite Umahi’s famed ‘closeness’ to President Buhari, he could neither deploy diplomacy nor fashion out appropriate political engineering to dissuade his ‘benefactor’ from deploying Operation Python Dance which came with huge collateral damage to the region.
Many defenceless youths, including non-supporters of IPOB were mowed down and many maimed or dehumanised.
At another scene, scores of youths who were also peacefully protesting in Nkpor, Anambra State were reportedly killed by troops.
Amnesty International documented this, yet not a question was asked by Umahi and his fellow governors.
Other phases of Operation Python Dance and ‘Egwueke’ followed and the region was militarised with the attendant human carnage and rights abuses.
Reports of countless criminal pastoralists attacking defenceless communities (including those in his home state), destroying farmlands, killing and raping women across the South-East abound.
As the arrow-head of the political leadership in the region, what did Umahi do?
As the rallying point of the Igbo political and socio-economic agenda has he by his actions deemed it fit to see the safety and unity of the South-East as pivotal to prosperity.
Rather than being a rallying point, he has become a centrifugal force, whipping up base primordial sentiments to divide Ndigbo.
Rather than trying to find solutions to the multifarious problems ravaging the South-East, Umahi has become a split-image of late Wada Nas, a one-time minister of special duties under late military dictator, General Sani Abacha.
Nas was seen as a rabble-rouser, an alarmist of uncommon stock, and derisively nicknamed ‘Wada Nasty’, ‘Wada Noise’, ‘Wada Nonsense’ or ‘Wada NADECO’.
In the hey days of the agitations for the actualisation of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, Nas at every turn raised false alarms to rattle opposition elements. He was quick to accuse pro-democracy group, NADECO and its protagonists of every real or imagined crime.
With that predilection, many pro-democracy activists accused him of talking before thinking.
Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State
as chairman of the governors forum in the South-West represents what Umahi is to the South-east.
The former has visibly demonstrated qualities that endeared him to people from that region. He had risen to be counted at every turn when the interest of his people were at stake.
Despite staunch opposition from the powers that be in Abuja, he stood firm until the South-West regional security outfit, Amotekun, was born, demonstrating in word and deed that he is people-centric.
Where is Umahi’s Ebubeagu working in the South-East today?
Even his blood brother, Major General Abel Obi Umahi (rtd), who was chairman of the implementation committee of the purported regional security outfit resigned, accusing the governor and his co-travellers of not providing the needed tools for the take off of the outfit.
What has Umahi done to endear himself to Ndigbo? What are his footprints to reverse the sad trajectory of blood and destruction now ravaging the South-East?
Kidnappers-for-ransom, criminal herders are killing, raping women and destroying farmlands.
What is Umahi’s blueprint for the larger Igbo interest?
A man who loves his people is large-hearted, makes sacrifices, works for their collective interest, protects them, discounts their ‘sins’ (if any) and humbles himself at all times. He is not egocentric and divisive.
The other day, he launched into a very divisive diatribe, that Ebonyi people were not regarded, and matter-of-factly ruled that the people from that state would not vote for Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s presidential candidate in the 2023 polls.
Yet, this is the same man who says he was clamouring for a president of South-East extraction. What a leader!
