Imo State Governorship: It’s Turn of Owerri Zone, Iheanacho Insists

Segun James 

As the race for the governorship of Imo State begins, former Minister of Interior, Captain Emmanuel Iheanacho, has stated that for the sake of equity, fairness and good neighbourliness, the next governor of the state must come from the Owerri zone.

Iheanacho said this is made pertinent because along with Yewa zone in Ogun State and Idoma zone in Benue State, Owerri zone remain the only senatorial zone that have never produced governors in the country.

Speaking at the Imo Harmony Project, a pressure group set up to actualise the realisation of the Owerri Governorship Project, he stressed that since “the transition to civil democracy in 1999 and in that time, we have had several people who have governed Imo State, but none has come from Owerri zone. That’s 26 years after the transition-after from the seven months of Emeka Ihediora.”

Faced with this reality, he, therefore, called for shift for an Owerri son or daughter to be allowed to vie for the 2027 governorship race.

He added: “We believe that the opportunity to govern the state is something that really should go round. Everybody should have an opportunity. “There’s only a few states-about three states-that have not had contingency arrangements to ensure that there is inclusiveness in terms of the personality who governs the state.”

Iheanacho insisted that even the group is bent on actualising Owerri Zone desire for the governorship.

“So that’s what we have come to talk about. If you look at that name, it’s a very unique name: The Imo Harmony Project. It is a project that has in its membership people from different political parties. We make no difference within. We do not discriminate against anyone. So you could be APC, you could be PDP, you could be any of these new political parties, as long as you do not come in there on a party political basis and start clapping for one person to go forward,” he stated.

On his political ambition, the former minister, who contested the position in 2015, stressed that his move is not motivated by any personal ambition 

According to him, “I don’t think that I have done anything to give people that impression that I am here to contest. I haven’t said that I’m going to do that, so if I haven’t said it, you must give me the benefit of the doubt to say, if he doesn’t, if he hasn’t said it, then maybe he doesn’t want to do it. 

“In times past, when people ask me this question, I would answer in a categorical manner; when I recently thought about it, and I said when you look at the head of state now, that’s the president, he is about the same age as me, if he went around just before he became president, saying to the people, ‘I don’t want to be president. I am too old. I’m going to be infirm, then he will not have needed it. We are not God. I am not God.”