Operation Replace Ekweremadu

The quest for the ‘Ndi Udi’ to be given a chance to produce a replacement for Chief Ike Ekweremadu, Senator representing Enugu West District, reaches a crescendo.

On Saturday August 14, a political pressure group, known as Udi Stakeholders, held a congress and warned the Deputy Senate President, Chief Ike Ekweremadu, against pursuing his third term agenda in Enugu West Senatorial District of Enugu state. The group, also, issued such a warning to the member representing Udi and Ezeagu in the Federal House of Representatives, Chief Ogbuefi Ozomgbachi. (Pic left is the outgoing Senator Ike Ekweremadu; Right is the Senator to be , OAU Onyema)

The Stakeholders summit comprises all political appointees, meaningful sons and daughters, political party executives and party financiers of Udi descent among others. Udi, home of Governor Sullivan Chime, is one of the five constituent local government areas that make up Enugu West Senatorial District. The four others are Senator Ekweremadu’s Aninri, Awgu, Ezeagu and Oji River.

In the stakeholders’ conclave, chaired by C.O.C Egumgbe, a lawyer and one-time commissioner in Enugu state, the Udis resolved against a ‘third term tenure for any elective position within Enugu West Senatorial District ranging from the senate, the House of Representatives to the state Assembly’. While Ekweremadu occupies the senate seat of the constituency, Chief Ogbuefi Ozomgbachi is the incumbent member of the Federal House of Representatives representing Udi and Ezeagu.

The stakeholders’ congress, further, resolved that on the basis of equity, fairness and natural justice, as well as the conventional rotation of offices within the senatorial district, both the senate and House of Representatives have rotated to Udi. Consequently, the summit, therefore, called on interested Udi sons and daughters to rise up to the challenge and run for these elective positions.
The foregoing positions of Udi stakeholders seem to be a reinforcement of earlier resolutions of both the Ezeagu and Udi General Assemblies. The two bodies have similarly continued to insist that there would never be a third term tenure for any of their current representatives.

In particular, the constituents of Udi are contending that they have been denied the senatorial slot for the past thirty (30) years. Part of their agitation is that their contemporary council areas have respectively produced a senator for the district at one point or another, yet none has come from Udi.

For instance, Chief Hyde Onuaguluchi had served as Senator representing the District from Oji River council while Ben Collins Ndu served from Ezeagu council. Then from Greater Awgu, specifically, Mpu community in Aninri council area hails Senator Ekweremadu. Ekweremadu (alias Ikeogu) has been in the Senate for two terms of eight years (2003 to 2011).

It is sequel to the foregoing that constituents of Udi council have vigorously contended that it is their turn to produce senator for the District.

Recently, Enugu West Elites, another pressure group, canvasses support for 'Ndi Udi' to be allowed the opportunity to produce senator for the District for the first time since 30 years. The group argues that Greater Awgu (comprising Awgu/Oji-River/Aninri LGA) has just held the senate for almost eight years.

The body states: 'Automatically, Senate will revert to Udi/Ezeagu block. Since Ezeagu LGA has produced Senator twice, it is most sensible without sentiment, for the sake of Justice, equity and fair-play for Ezeagu LGA to leave it for Udi LGA, which has never gone to the senate at all'.

The group contends that it would be unfair to oppose the constituents of Udi council area from ' enjoying their legitimate and inalienable right to the senate simply because the Governor hails from Udi'.

Citing instances, the group holds that the people of Kwara state did not disturb or victimize Governor Bukola Saraki's Local Government Area when senate rotated to Saraki's council area: 'Their constituents allowed his council to still produce a senator, and his sister was elected. In like manner, Obasanjo's council area never lost their chance to the senate when he was President. His constituents allowed his Local Government Area to still take their turn, and his daughter was elected'.

Pushing the arguments a little further, the group asserts that even in Enugu West Senatorial Zone, the serving Senator Ekweremadu got his younger brother, Bernard Ekweremadu, elected Aninri council chairman, and even got him re-elected for second term, and things were moving.

‘In Enugu East Senatorial Zone, between 2003 to 2007, a Senator, Ken Nnamani, a member of House of Representatives, Goddy Agbo, and a member of House of Representatives, Offor Chukwuegbo, all came from the same ward, not even Local Government Area. Yet things went well’, argues the body.

Enugu West Elites, also, mobilizes support for Governor Chime for second-term (2011-2015 ). Their support for Chime's second term derives from the various tangible achievements of his government.

To demonstrate their determination over the senate slot, the Udis and, indeed, other constituents of the senatorial district, have been projecting one of their sons, Ogochukwu Agapitus Umunnakwe (OAU) Onyema, for the post. And Onyema, a political strategist, is almost in his last phase of consultations, as prescribed by the PDP constitution, before finally throwing his hat into the ring to slug it out with Senator Ekweremadu.

Ekweremadu had recently challenged any person interested in the race to come out for the political fight of the century, OAU Onyema, massively supported by his kinsmen, seems to perfectly fit into the hole. Sources told Insider Weekly that by the time campaigns begin, Ekweremadu would have realized that the Udis are not just jokers, that they mean every bit of their pronouncements on the senate seat having rotated to them this time around.

It is unarguable that many constituents of the senatorial district feel that Ekweremadu, having served as Senator from the zone for two terms of eight years, ought to respect himself and step aside for a candidate from another council that hasn’t taken any shot to the plum position. The truth remains that although Ekweremadu has the constitutional right to run for the senate for as many terms as he likes contrary to the decision of the majority of his constituents, his chances of emergence, if he insists and runs, look very, very bleak and hopeless. Apart from his (Ekweremadu)’s belated gestures of generosity to a negligible percentage of his constituents, Ekweremadu’s perceived non-performance in Enugu West Senatorial District is glaring or, rather, legendary.

Beyond the initial persuasions on OAU Onyema (Akpaagu Ikenga), by a group which called itself, ‘Friends of Sir OAU Onyema’ to run for the senatorial job, the choice of his (Onyema)’s candidature has literarily caught fire across the five council areas of Enugu West Senatorial District. And for now, Onyema remains the only candidate that, when he is finally given the nod by the party high command in Enugu state, to give Ekweremadu a titanic political battle.

‘In fact, it is OAU Onyema who will retire Senator Ekweremadu politically, whether he (Ekweremadu) likes it or not’, asserts a constituent.

Ekweremadu is, of course, aware of the ‘big’ fight ahead. Recently, the Deputy Senate President, noted for his primitive accumulation of wealth across Enugu metropolis in recent times, distributed 406 Peugeot cars to his campaign coordinators and the PDP council chairmen across the seventeen council areas in the state. This is aside from his recent assemblage of a political war team, aimed at assisting him win the 2011 elections. Ekweremadu, it is learnt, hopes to deploy all the political arsenals in his amoury towards winning the election at the fullness of time.

Although a few supporters of Ekweremadu had argued that it would be incongruous for Udi Local Government Area to produce Senator for Enugu West District when the Governor (Chime) comes from the council. But this logic has since been dismissed by many who hold that it does not hold any water because the two positions have two different conditions for their attainment.

Chime, it is argued, emerged from a state-wide elective process, which made him governor of the whole Enugu State. In the case of a Senator, he (the Senator) emerges from the Senatorial zone, and each local government is expected to produce a senator over time to represent the District.

The Udi people, also, maintain that they are not only marginalized in the senate representation, but in the Udi/Ezeagu Federal House of Representatives.
All in all, the people of Udi are worried over their alleged marginalization in the politics of Enugu state. Udi, they argue, is the oldest Local Government Area among the four others that make up the senatorial district. Udi Division was so vast that all the local governments in the old East Central State used to be under Udi Division. Udi should, ideally, be the most civilized of all the councils east of the Niger, having produced eminent personalities in all spheres of life.

On their own part, the Ezeagus believe that they would share political positions amicably with their Udi brothers. This is why the Ezeagu General Assembly, in concert with a similar body from Udi, recently summoned their elected representatives for an interactive forum which Senator Ekweremadu shunned.

The purpose of the forum, according to Chief Richard Ozobu, President General, was to enable the Deputy Senate President and his co-elected representatives to render their individual accounts of stewardship to the people they are representing. But none of the elected representatives, led by Ekweremadu, honored the invitation. However, the Ezeagu General Assembly, according to Ozobu, has sent out the second invitation for the interactive forum with the officials.