AS OHAKIM CLEARS THE AIR ONWUASOANYA FCC JONES Chief Sir Ikedi Ohakim, the former and potential Governor of Imo State come 2015,yesterday laid lots of speculations to rest and also got analysts breaking their heads over what his next line of action might be. A clear 22 days after the fraud laden governorship primary election of the PDP, in which the two biggest thieves and manipulators are collectively laying claim to victory, Chief Ikedi Ohakim who was and is still the darling of a majority of the PDP delegates came out yesterday with more revealing and convincing facts about what really transpired, what his demands are and what his next line of action might be. For those who have been misled into believing that he actually lost out in that sham of an election, Chief Ohakim made it clear that nobody can be said to have won or lost in that primary election. He also made it clear that the election was from the onset skewed in such a way that it could only favour one of the aspirants. Ikedi Ohakim as a true Party man and an adherent of the rule of law followed laid down rules within the Party to ensure that his reservations about the Partys electoral arrangement were conveyed to the Partys highest administrative organ. It is curious that this organ of the Party ignored these complaints and concerns of a man who is known to have contributed and sacrificed immensely for the good and progress of the Party. It is important to appreciate that Sir Ohakim could have resorted to self help measures in order to truncate that primary election(The only thing he needed to have done was to raise the alarm over the plan to rig him out of the contest and the youths of the State who see him as the clearest hope for their survival would have set that stadium ablaze. No amount of armed personnel would have been able to stop them), but he chose to keep quiet and allow the process to go on. In keeping to their plans, the electoral panel as fully superintended by Nnamdi Anyaehie and Terngu Tsegba ensured that the election was rigged, through the shoddy sorting and counting method it adopted, which kept the agents of all aspirants several meters away from where the actual counting and sorting of votes took place. It is near faultless to posit that the ballots cast in favour of Ohakim would have been sorted in favour of Ihedioha or Ararume. It is also safe to assume that most of the votes sorted in favour of the two biggest beneficiaries of that fraud may have been the votes cast for Ohakim. This may explain why they were unable to reconcile the votes, leading to a situation where the number of allotted votes is higher than the number of votes cast. Ohakim may have actually garnered up to 600 votes from the real voting. This fraud would have been easily detectable through forensic analysis of the ballots, but one cannot be sure that the electoral panel members in cahoot with the Caretaker chairman of the Party have not gone behind to rewrite the ballots in favour of their preferred aspirant, since they hurriedly left the election venue with all the materials, without even waiting for the agents and other necessary signatories to append their signatures to the result. (Neither the SSS, Police or INEC officials signed the result sheet) . Ohakim also seized the opportunity of that radio interview to address some issues as it relate to his stewardship as the Governor of the State, comparing his time as Governor to the present with Okorocha as the Governor of the State. He said what every Imolite knew. Imo has turned to a dead State, even though the State is receiving more than five times what it received during his regime as governor.With an allocation that hovered around 2 billion Naira monthly and an oil price which was around and about $38 per barrel during the Ohakim regime to more than 11 billion Naira monthly allocation and an oil price that has mostly stayed above $140 per barrel under the Okorocha administration, one should expect Okorocha to have performed at least seven times better than an Ohakim who had very little resources at his disposal, yet had to contend with over forty litigation against his victory at the polls. The unfortunate reality is that Imo has gone several years behind in development and economic improvement, while a clique of criminals consistently stuff their pockets with our money. Things have become so bad that the only business that seems to be working in the State now is mortuary and businesses linked to it. The implication is that families in the State have had to bury more of their own within the last three years of Okorochas administration than they buried in the twelve years of Achike Udenwa and Ikedi Ohakim put together. Chief Ohakim also made it clear to the listeners that he is a finer administrator cum democrat than the present occupant of Douglas House. I do not have any doubt about that and I think an overwhelming majority of Imolites will not doubt that claim, as Ohakim showed sterling leadership within the years he was in power. Ohakims days in power are incomparable with these years of arrant brigandage being superintended by Chief Okorocha. The interviewer, Mr. Alex Ogbonnaya of Hot 99.5 Fm, Owerri pushed him to talk about what his next political steps might be and he kept no one in doubt about his unrepentant PDPship, if you will permit that word. Ohakim also made it clear that his primary and most important project is not only to ensure that Jonathan wins in his reelection bid come 2015, but to spearhead the Jonathan/Sambo campaign in such a way as to ensure that the President wins overwhelmingly in the Southeast and every other place. There is hardly anyone within the PDP family in Imo State who has contributed better than Ohakim to the growth of the Party in the State. Ohakim should be the undisputed leader and father of the present PDP in the State. Yet, he has had to contend with the worst betrayals and the stiffest opposition from within the same Party than any other person. As a Governor, Ohakim struggled before the national leadership of the Party had to concede the leadership position of the Party to him. A good number of this same people who have continued to push for the Partys destruction were the same people who subjected Ohakim to the most bitter fight within the Party, even as a sitting Governor. Most of them were also instrumental to the ousting of Ikedi Ohakim from power in 2011. Some of them played the spoiler game against the Party, with hope that Okorocha was going to bring them into his government. When Okorocha refused to play their cards, they returned to the same Party they worked assiduously to ensure its destruction. Some of them are still playin the opposition card within the PDP family. Some of them are enjoying mouth watering patronage from the Okorocha government, hence, they will do everything to ensure that the PDP in the State is weakened to a point where they can hardly wrestle power from the incumbent. That explains why that set of traitors within the PDP family have been unrelenting in their opposition to Ohakims emergence as the flag bearer. They know like you and I do, that Ohakim is about the only person who has the capacity and spread to effectively defeat Okoroca in a free and fair election. Ohakim made it clear that if he will be joining another Party, that would only be if he has exhausted all the conflict resolution channels within the Party and the Party insists on going ahead with an unjust agenda. To Ohakim, politics is about service, hence, it mustnt be a do or die affair. Hence, if he is to join another political Party, it doesnt have to be for the sake of power, it has to be to ensure that service is rendered to the people, one way or the other. Ohakim would be failing in his duty as a political leader if he keeps quiet at the prevalence of evil. A leader must stand up against injustice, any leader who cannot stand up against injustice is not worth being called a leader. Ohakim has every right to join another political Party if he so wishes and I think he will be right to do so, of the PDP family decides to uphold the injustice that is presently reigning supreme as long as the governorship ticket is concerned. The PDP as a political Party will be able to keep its members together, if and only if they are able to resolve the crisis ravaging it, in such a way that justice wouldnt only have been done, but seen to have been done. The Partys right to choose who flies its flag is not in doubt and cannot be contested, but the Party must be seen to have actually shown good leadership by ensuring that injustice does not prevail. I will insist that the duo of Ifeanyi Godwin Ararume and Emeka Nkem Ihedioha are not qualified to fly the Partys flag at this moment. This is because their credibility as individuals have been called into serious question and they will be a very hard sell to the people. They are also guilty of having taken the Party to Court as against the Partys guidelines. The best thing for the Party at this moment, would be to pick someone outside the duo, who will be able to bring all the other aspirants together and ensure that they work together for the Partys victory at the general election. IMO GA ADI MMA OZO!
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 11:48:58 +0000
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