This piece is all about the registration of the All Progressive Congress (APC) by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and its implications on the political landscape of Imo State.
Those who say that the coming of the party in the State is no cause for worry are dead wrong. They are politically aloof. Or simply put, oblivious of the political implications of the arrival of a party that has the capacity to take power at the centre.
If the APC was no threat before its registration, then why was booby traps and banana peels thrown on its path before it was eventually registered by INEC?
This is not the gist in this essay, rather as one who has been a close observer of the political terrain in Imo since the return of democracy on our shores in 1999, I will say that it is a major political development with long term political implications in the State.
Only an unbiased politician in the State will attest to this fact. The biased will readily brand me an APC proponent, while the uniniated will see reason than fiction.
For those, who are oblivious of this fact, I will say they are either living in a fools paradise or delibrately stoking political semantics just to cover up whatever fears they have about the consequences of the arrival of a new party in the Imo polity.
I told a colleague in the pen profession last week that the coming of the APC is dangerous. It is more trouble for the ruling party at the centre and here in Imo, it alters and changes the political equation.
The PDP had the herculean task to contend with APGA in 2011. It focused its target on the rampaging and sinous tentacles of the ACN led then by Senator Ifeanyi Araraume and Dr. Alex Obi. Even those who piloted the PDP ship then attest to the fact that it was not Rochas Okorocha and his APGA train that was their headache, but Senator Ifeanyi Araraume and his political henchmen in the ACN.
While the PDP watched the then ACN with a binoculars in order to see and decipher its moves and antics, APGA like a thief sneaked into the dead of the night and stole the Imo governorship seat from its kitty.
Two years after that historical political event in Imo, we are seeing the arrival of another deadly political octopus. A party that has similar strenght and ruggedity like the PDP. A party that possess the same political urugraphy which the PDP can boast of as well.
When a thief goes after a fellow thief, it is deadly, dangerous and suicidal to when a thief is hunted by law enforcement agents.
If two lions engage each other in a fierce battle, the intensity of the battle becomes fiercer. And If the lion easily prey on weak animals daily for a meal, certainly it will raise an eyebrow when a fellow lion appears.
This is the situation in Imo State. What we are about to see in the State is a game of wits, the clash of political giants where contending forces with similar political strenght and prowess will engage themselves in a brawl. We are about to witness in the State a titanic electoral contest, a clash of the titans in 2015.
The arrival of the APC and the continued resilience of the PDP in the State indicates that the days of rag tag and mushroom political parties are numbered. Proponents of mushroom political parties should desist from believing that manner will fall from heaven. It will not. This time the manner will fall on the lap of those who crave for it.
Gone are the days surprises spring up in the political arena of the State. Those who think that what happened in 2007 will re-occur again are dead wrong. That year, the internal implosion in the PDP was the ultimate gain of the PPA, party which only existed in the minds and hearts of its founders and evaporated into thin air afterwards.
In 2015, if the PDP goofs, it will be APC’s gain. If the APC fumble, the PDP will make a mincemeat of it. Things will be different in all ramifications. We shall not only see the return of two strong parties, but a balanced political contest, remniscent of a Mike Tyson Vs Evander Holyfield boxing encounter. And in such contest, the pendulum of victory could swing either way.
The botched Oguta re-run election is a reflection of what we are about to envisage in the next elections in Imo State. In Oguta, it was a battle for the strong, the fittest as exemplified by then APGA (Now APC) and the PDP.
The Oguta re-run was more than an election. The State quaked and prayed that an election, not a war should take place to assuage the yearnings of the people who has no representative in the Imo House of Assembly for over two years.
Due to the intensity of the electoral contest in Oguta,the polls caught the attention of the nation. If an election in a local Government in Imo State with less than 100,000 people could generate so much fuss natiowide, what happens when Imolites scattered in 27 Local Governments go to the polls in 2015 to eject or re-elect new leaders that will propel the wheels of governance of the State for another four years?
In 2015 in Imo, its going to be (APGA/APC)+ACN+ANPP=APCvsPDP Vs APGA=Fight To Finish. That will be the political arithmetic.
That is what we should expect.In a State politics is the only thriving “industry”,we should expect to see the greatest political battle now that another political cobra has crawled into the political field.
I also anticipate that the coming of the APC will promote political competition which will allow Imolites to make infomed choices on those who will receive their mandate to govern them. It is unfortunate that Imo State is a place where politicians expend so much time, energey and resources on elections than what they will do for the people if they are eventually elected.
Therefore, one hopes that the arrival of a new democratic alternative in the State will offer our people the opportunity to assess and reasses the credentials of those who want to govern us.
The time has come to re engineer the political process in the State. Emphasis should be placed on which political party has the right programmes and policies to improve the living condition of Imolites. This is the beauty and benefits of two strong political parties in the polity.
This is why in the United States and Britain, two of the largest democracies in the globe who have embraced two strong and dominant political parties, the people have the opportunity to elect or eject in and out of power those that lack the competence to pilot the ship of governance.
In our beloved Imo State, there is the belief that the entrance of the APC offers that opportunity for Imolites to choose between the devil and the angel, in otherwords, the two political platforms offer the people the opportunity to ascertain if the PDP or the APC possess the right programmes to transform our dear State.
This will invariably lead to issues driven campaigns which has taken a flight in our polity. It is regretable that what we have prior to elections in the State is political mudslinging adopted by major political parties in the State as a tool to win elections. The end product of this practice is obnoxious political tactics which undermines the power of voters. We hope that era has come to an end.
