By Ike Abonyi
To keep quiet and allow Senator Chimaroke Nnamani escape with his tirade against the immediate past Governor of Enugu State, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, and the phenomenal politician of this era, Peter Obi, is to deny facts to the public.
Senator Chimaroke struggled to paint himself as a hero when he knows as a fact that he is not one. The indisputable truth is that the major political problem of Ugwuanyi started with his romance with Chimaroke Nnamani.
Ugwuanyi took over power from Sullivan Chime but refused to pick a lesson from Chime who turned 360 degrees against Chimaroke soon after he gave him power to save his tenure. And Chime in truth ended well as the Governor of Enugu state.
Ugwuanyi’s political problems began when he went and resurrected a person most Enugu citizens had said good riddance to.
If Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi had not made the costly mistake of bringing back Chimaroke, maybe he would not have suffered his current fate. Given what the people went through at the hand of Chimaroke, anybody bringing him back was not going to be a friend and lover of the people.
It’s therefore amusing that Chimaroke in his obvious bemoaning of his electoral failure in 2023 is blaming every name, from Peter Obi to Ugwuanyi and even polling agents.
The truth is that he should look at his past and identify where his problems are. Peter Obi left office as Governor nearly a decade now but has continued to be relevant not only in the state he governed but nationally, all because of his antecedents. The story behind Peter Obi makes loving him irresistible. The story behind Chimaroke makes disliking him irresistible.
If Chimaroke wants Enugu people to believe him that Ugwuanyi was made by him which is not even true, has he forgotten his story with his godfather Chief Jim Nwobodo, how he chased him out of town after he had helped him become governor?
We have all been educated not to play with stones if we are living in glass houses, but what Chimaroke did by attacking Ugwuanyi violates that advisory. In comparison, Ugwuanyi’s political history is far more enticing than that of Chimaroke even though he lost the election. If Ugwuanyi is undergoing any political cleansing, doing away with Chimaroke should be his first step.
The people of Enugu state should therefore not join Chimaroke in his endless political lamentations and sorrow and forget where they are coming from with him. Chimaroke knows from his heart of heart why he lost his senatorial seat, that should be his concern, not Ugwuanyi or Peter Obi.
I can imagine Ugwuanyi’s pain today that the man who caused his political misfortune is blaming and deriding him. When Chimaroke and his Nkanu Kingdom took the Senate and House of Representatives seats and still wants Governor, leaving Isi Uzo with nothing, they forgot the omnipresence of the God of Justice.
Enugu people are waiting for the correction of this injustice and should not be distracted by the endless wailing and sobbing of a man who should be history.
For my brother Ugwuany l leave him with Giannis Delimitsos’ quote: “It is a token of a healthy spirit to freely lament your loss and hold dearly the pain and sorrow that come with it, being at the same time careful not to cling to the past, let alone mentally live in the past. The sorrow and the pain are the unerring proofs that what you have lived was strong and real and that nothing was in vain!”