By Mike Ebuka
Enugu State Labour Party governorship candidate, Chijioke Edeoga’s choice of a running mate from the Enugu West senatorial district as against Enugu North senatorial district took the politically-minded Nsukka people completely unawares.
Notwithstanding his loss in the governorship primary of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), many Nsukka folks had backed his defection from the PDP out of sheer sympathy, given the cultural and political affinities of his home, Isi Uzo Local Government Area with Nsukka zone. Isi-Uzo LGA was for long politically conjoined with the present Udenu LGA in the old Isi Uzo Division (later renamed LGA) until Udenu was excised therefrom in 1996.
Youths of Enugu North (or Nsukka zone), who had been mobilizing support for the Labour Party gubernatorial candidate were dismayed by Edeoga’s announcement of someone from Enugu West zone as his running mate. Even his most fanatical supporters were jolted and mortified. Some have questioned why Edeoga took what justly belonged to them and handed to someone from Enugu West where the current Deputy Governor, Mrs. Cecilia Ezeilo hails from. They wonder if it is not a gratuitous appeasement and genuflection to a zone that has occupied the Number Two office in the state for almost 8 years now to retain it for yet another 8 years making a total of 16 years should Edeoga win in 2023. Where now is the justice for the people of Nsukka?
Since the onset of democracy in 1999, an enduring zoning formula has seen the most important offices in the state equitably shared and rotated among the three senatorial zones in the state. From 1999 to 2007, Enugu East produced the Governor and Majority Leader of the House of Assembly; Enugu West produced the Speaker of the House of Assembly and the State PDP Chairman; while Enugu North produced the Deputy Governor, Deputy Speaker and State PDP Secretary. These offices were rotated clockwise in the next democratic dispensations, 2007 to 2015, and 2015 to 2019. With the governorship slot ceded to Enugu East zone for the next cycle of power rotation, it follows logically that the Deputy Governor belongs to Enugu North as a matter of right.
With his vast experience as a former local government chairman, former member of the House of Representatives, and lately, former State Commissioner, Edeoga knows that the zoning of the most important offices in Enugu State is not only upheld by the political elites like a moral imperative, but resonates with the general populace in the state. In fact, the Edeoga phenomenon, if that be a proper term, is predicated on what he himself described as the justice of zoning, the widespread sentiments in Nsukka zone that our kin in Enugu East zone was about to be unjustly sidelined from the governorship race on the trivial account of his genealogical ties to Nsukka.
What a great paradox that Edeoga’s governorship ambition requires the propitiation of some selfish political interests in Enugu West with the most important office zoned to Enugu North. Perhaps Edeoga and his handlers are by this move saying that he is unelectable with an Nsukka running mate. An equivalent to this robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul maneuvering would of course be the vexatious Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC). By picking a Northern Muslim running mate, the Yoruba Muslim, Bola Ahmed Tinubu in effect took from the teeming Northern Christians in the party a slot that should be unquestionably theirs by all norms of natural justice, equity and fairness.
The Nsukka youths still chorusing Edeoga or nothing do so convinced that he is more Nsukka than Enugu East and should therefore choose his deputy from Enugu West. And yet we were told all along that Edeoga was as deserving of the governorship ticket as any Enugu East aspirant, Isi Uzo being an integral part of Enugu East. A number of questions, however, arise from this unwise, perfidious decision taken by the Labour Party’s flagbearer. This step has aroused from intelligent and politically conscious citizens of the state to agitate their minds on why a supposedly Enugu East senatorial district’s person would, without regards to equity, fairness, inclusion, whimsically jettisoned the spirit and letter of zoning to suit his selfish interest.
When has ancestral history now become a yardstick for determining zoning in Enugu state? When have we started relegating senatorial zone rotation on the altar of clannish rotation in our state politics? Why were notable leaders like Barr. Sullivan Chime, Emperor Baywood Ibe, Senator Hyde Onuaguluchi and others from Enugu West fighting the aspiration of Ekweremmadu when he was inordinately bent at distorting the existing peaceful rotation in order to usurp the governorship slot of Enugu state as against the turn of Enugu East interest? If Edeoga is more of Nsukka than Enugu East Senatorial zone, why has he not fought for Nsukka to be given the position of Ambassador the same time his brother Ambassador Kingsley Ebenyi was nominated for Ambassador to Spain during Obasanjo’s era? The unending questions continue, and it’s hope Edeoga would find time to respond to them.
It is obvious from these questions that Edeoga has done nothing for Nsukka people to show that he is enamored of them. Rather he went ahead to sideline them probably because the major financiers of his gubernatorial project will withdraw their support if he failed to give it to their imposed political pulpit in Enugu West. The people of Nsukka are well celebrated for their resolve to always fight for what belongs to them, and they will never settle for less. Deputy Governor or nothing. Nsukka people will not allow what is rightfully theirs to be thrown out to dogs. They’ll never occupy the lowest rung of the ladder because of politics. Has the Nsukkahood grown wings and flown away because of Edeoga’s sentiment? Nsukka Asadu, why are you being more Isi-Uzo than Isi-Uzo men when betrayal is already staring at our faces?
