Martins
The unprovoked and utterly unguarded attack launched against the immediate past Imo State governor, Rt. Hon. Emeka Ihedioha CON, KSC, by the commissioner of information, strategy and public orientation, Hon. Declean Mbadiwe Emelumba, is not only irritating but also condemnable.
It is on record that since the supreme court sacked Ihedioha on January 14, 2020, the former deputy speaker of the House of Representatives has never commented on the administration of his successor, Governor Hope Uzodimma, no matter the provocation.
Even in his recent Arise TV interview, no matter the professional twist by the host to commit Ihedioha, he never made any comment about the Imo State Government.
For Emelumba to have recklessly released such a caustic bash on Ihedioha who never contested the last governorship election even as he has maintained his calm, is a clear indication of the commissioner’s lack of tack and confirmation of his clueless bearing on his duty post.
The fact remains that we cannot join issue with a man with unbridled ambition who has reduced a serious ministry like that of information, strategy and orientation to gullibility by basing his judgement on what he gleaned from the social media as well as other undignified platforms.
The writer Emelumba copiously quoted in his incoherent article was only voicing out his personal opinion as a private citizen as allowed by the law of the land. He is not a member of the Ihedioha Media Team just as Ihedioha cannot also authenticate his/her identity.
A peep into the Commissioner’ s piece titled Ihedioha’s “Fantasy and Distortion of History, ” reads, in part, “Anyone unfortunate to read the gibberish entitled, “Emeka Ihedioha: Imo’s last hope opportunity for growth, development,” written by one Kelechi Jeff Eme and published recently in the media, would be stunned that someone seeking the high office of governor would authorize just a toxic publication that ended up exposing his little mindedness and egoistic malady. This foolishness is not entirely surprising because Ihedioha’s bane has been his ridiculous belief that Imo State needs him as the Messiah.
From the headline alone, the assumption is that without Emeka Ihedioha, Imo would never make progress. Of course, that is a fallacy….
“Now, to the distortion of facts. Firstly, no one expected Ihedioha and his band of cheerleaders to give credit to Governor Hope Uzodimma for his monumental transformation of the state in all sectors; after all, the man punctured his daydreaming of being a governor after he stole a mandate that wasn’t his. Till tomorrow, I blame our system that allowed all those who violated the constitution by declaring Ihedioha governor when he didn’t win the election to walk the streets, still free men. I don’t think it was enough for the Supreme Court to pronounce Uzodimma as the rightful winner without jailing those who engaged in stealing the mandate in the first place. Both the perpetrators and the beneficiaries of the robbery ought to be in jail. If that had happened, none would have had the guts to pollute the environment with their putrefaction of legacies. I still believe that there is a need to erase the period of that illegal occupation by the courts declaring it as not having existed at all.
The constitution and the electoral act were clear that apart from scoring the highest number of votes in an election, a person cannot be declared a governor except he secures one-quarter of votes in two-thirds of the local government areas in the state. After Emeka Ihedioha used his sister-in-law and colluded with INEC to manufacture the so-called highest number of votes, he met the constitutional requirement of spread in only 12 local government areas and not 18 required by the constitution. Yet a professor of mathematics declared him a winner, and INEC accepted that brazen rape of democracy. If Hope Uzodimma had not fought to reclaim his mandate, Ihedioha would have set a dangerous precedent with that inglorious conduct. The truth is that even in 2015, when Emeka Ihedioha came second after Gov Rochas Okorocha, it was only in his Mbaise enclave that he got the sprinkle of votes in that election.
Strangely, these same Mbaise people were the first victims of his abuse of power, avarice, and primitive acquisition of wealth and landed property in the seven months he illegally served as governor of Imo State. Did Ihedioha complete one single road in those unfortunate seven months? Of course not. When he was not blaming Rochas for the state of the streets, he was using the rains as an alibi to cover his cluelessness. Yet he dared to suddenly go blind in the face of the road revolution wrought by Hope Uzodimma by grudgingly acknowledging only three roads as the government’s achievement.
It is essential to remind Ihedioha and his cohorts that within his first 100 days in office, Uzodimma completed
nine (9) solid roads…”
I have quoted him copiously to show that the writer of the opinion piece under his review ought to be the Commissioner’s subject of attack and not Ihedioha who neither authourised nor accredited the opinion piece.
We make bold to say that we understand Emelumba’s antics and antecedents. For too long, he has always leveraged on the negative pulses of heating up the polity so that he can latch on it for personal illicit gains. Since Emelumba has not been functioning as a commissioner, Imo has been calm and peaceful. As he returned, he started off on the terrible note of causing confusion. How can a commissioner be central in the act of destabilizing his own state just for a mere vested interest and other dangling interests?
In conclusion, Emelumba and his cohorts cannot erase or even dismantle, no matter how hard they try, Ihedioha’s established good work and hallmark accomplishments already engraved in the sands of time.
… Ori is media aide to Rt Hon Emeka Ihedioha, CON, KSC.
