The All Progressive Congress, APC, is the ruling party in Imo State. From all indices, the Imo masses would wish if the party and all that has to do with it passes away after the 2019 general election.
The Imo electorate cannot wait for the election year to come for their bottled up anger to be unleashed through their voting rights.
And I foresee a situation where Imo State may be set on fire, should there be any underhand to manipulate the wish of the teeming masses.
For those who may not know, Imo State usually look docile, until you take the people for granted and you will be shocked with their voracious anger.
Before 2011, Imo State was on the path of decency and discipline, which fits the State that is majorly populated with urbane and quiet populace made of educated civil servants.
Then Imo was clean and peaceful, with its roads well paved, flowers well cutten, trees perched by whistling Birds, refuse bins removed on time, traffic lights working and obeyed by road users, Artisans and road side mechanics relocated to comfortable zones, street lights illuminating the streets at nights with wonderful night lives etc.
But the people of Imo State said they wanted more, and thought an Owelle Rochas Okorocha will be that man to provide them with their dream illusions. Therefore, Rochas they got.
But why not! Owelle is a man of the people. He eats corn on the road side with the poor. He rides Keke with ordinary commuters. He attends churches with the worshipers.
He promised to use three cars in his convoy. Education will be free. Food will be cheap. The Government House gate will be open always for the people to come in and eat every day.
Now, seven years after, the chicken has come home to roost. Okorocha does not near where they sale corn again. He has banished Keke to Siberia. He has built his own church. His convoy is the longest ever used by any Governor in Imo State history. Intake into IMSU has reduced for Imo born students, while they pay higher tuition fees ever.
Despite Government Agricultural Programmes, Food is difficult to find in Imo State. Imo Government House, which used to have just one gate before Okorocha arrived, now has over six gates before you reach the Governor. Before, at least the Imo people could peep through the gate while passing, but the Mami Market/Shell Camp road has since been blocked forever.
If the masses cannot even sight the Government House again, even from Okigwe Road Round about, how do they gain entrance to dine with Owelle, who is now too scarce in Imo, but more available to Abuja residence who did not vote for him?
Under this scenario, Imo electorate are angry. Not that Okorocha tricked them, but because they trusted him, which was why they were able to fall “mugu”.
They say that you cannot decipher a man’s mind through his face. Therefore, while the Imo populace thought Okorocha meant all he was telling them, they never knew he could turn out to be their tormentor in Chief.
However, Okorocha nearly escaped the Imo peoples wrath if not for his confidence that he has so fooled the people that they cannot recover their minds again, until he gave them the final knock.
And that knock was his plans to foist a successor of his. But as usual, when mugu fall, maga chop. This time, it took the coalition group to arouse the Imo people from their slumber. And as Okorocha continues fighting to regain his former Kingdom, the people get more wiser.
But don’t deceive yourself that a lot of people are abreast with Okorocha’s gimmicks. His Rescue Mission members are too far gone with Okorocha that it will take them until after 2019 for some of them to discover that they are on a path of nowhere.
For instance, take the case of the so called local government election in Imo State. For umpteenth time, Okorocha had told Journalists in Imo State that he cannot conduct council elections in Imo because there is a case in Court instituted by the past elected chairmen under PDP platform pleading that their tenure be restored as they claimed they were sacked illegally.
That has been the situation. But at each time Okorocha announced dates for elections, they never held. But yet, at these failed dates, some people who claim to be adults, educated, exposed and politicians obtained forms for these yet-to-be- conducted elections.
Now, if the former dates were not realistic, what made these would-be council chairmen think that it can be feasible now, when nothing has changed in the courts.
Not only that, the situation in Imo APC is more compounded with the crisis in the party, which has given birth to two factions of APC now.
Even at that, between the Hilary Eke and Chris Ogoma factions, which one is more authentic?
In the first place, no candidate contests for election in Nigeria without a political party platform, since the constitution is yet to recognize independent candidacy.
Therefore, looking at the existing situation, Hilary Eke at least for now seems more the Imo APC Boss, having gone through the legally approved procedure of APC; which is congress and inauguration by the party hierarchy in Abuja.
In the case of Ogoma, who made him chairman? Did he go through a congress? Yet, you see APC members paying through their noses for Local Government election forms whose legality is called to question following the unfavouring development surrounding the exercise.
Never before in the history of Imo has the State witnessed such a bizarre type of administration where everything seems to be in disarray. Imo people are too confused now that those who have places to go outside the State are leaving at least to remain sane.
The people are so disenchanted that they hardly believe what spews out from the Government of the day, even when those who release such stories do not believe them too.
Imo people have lost hope, but luckily for them, what began seven years ago has just a few months to round of, therefore this is the reason Imo populace are calm, for if the scenario was this bad in the last few years, something must have given.
However, much as the blame goes to the Governor, who voluntarily in 2011 appealed to run Imo State, the masses should also realize that Okorocha has boxed himself into a tight corner both politically and administratively and therefore should bear with him.
Politically, Okorocha had his mind made up ever since, to dominate Imo politics in the next twenty years. And this was what occupied his mind, while he once in a while dishes out some goodies to the people in terms of China infrastructure.
But in order to control the human resources, and power of the populace to call the shots, Okorocha embarked on economic decimation of the masses, so that he can control the people through dishing dispensing stipends.
This theory would have also enabled him to plant his successor, who he could manipulate from outside to do his bidding till a time he would be ready to pursue the Igbo Presidency Project.
But unfortunately for the Governor, a hungry crowd is an angry crowd. This was the reason late Obafemi Awolowo said that it easy to govern an educated society. This is because educated people can remain disciplined and controlled. Today, the war between Okorocha and the Coalition has led the masses to regain their lost voices and are now wiser and deadly to be subjugated. The Imo masses are now free.
But Okorocha and APC have left a scar on Imo people as a reminder of what they went through both.
For the first time, a sitting Governor was completely stripped of his party structure, with the jubilation of the common people who do not even know what the matter is all about, only that they heard that “Okorocha has been defeated”.
The Governor accused his opponents of going against the rules, which was why he was outwitted.
But taking a look at what passed as party primaries for the LGA chairmanship election recently, under Okorocha’s own APC faction led by Chris Ogoma, one wonders what would have happened had Okorocha got his hands on the congress materials, which he claimed gave his opponents the upper hand to decimate him out of APC structure in the State.
Therefore, like the Coalition, like the Rescue Mission. From all indications, the Rochas Okorocha Rescue Mission Family is not better-off in handling internal party issues, because astonishing stories of hijack, kidnap, ambush, attack dot the primaries conducted within the assumed political family, which Okorocha prides is peaceful and loyal to his words.
If what he learnt happened during the APC LGA election primaries is anything to go by, it means the Imo State Governor has tough political times in his hands.
If his so-called political family would fight this dirty to maneuver one another, it therefore means that even the centre is not holding for Okorocha in his cherished Rescue Mission outfit.
