By Jimanze Ego-Alowes
These sitting and former governors, Rochas Okorocha, Ikedi Ohakim, Achike Udenwa, 2OU, if you liked, are three of a kind. This is despite their apparent differences in styles and gestures. And this sameness is in the matter of their substance and approach to governance. In plain terms the three constitute the origin and coming to full flower of nepotism as the platform of governance in Imo State.
The fact of this may come as a mild shock to many. But that is expected. Darker truths and reality often lie hidden behind the façade of forged and spectacular faces. And to begin to unveil them is to shock the unbelieving eyes. Even more, logic leads us too often to the unexpected. In fact, to think logically means to be continually amazed. Those are not our words. We are actually paraphrasing a Russian writer, Osip Mandelstam.
Anyway, the reason many will be amazed on the sameness of the 2OU trio, is this. It is simply because they have not spared thoughts to it. Perhaps it is that the many are too afflicted with the hunger of buharinomics to waste a thought on what may not bring crumbs to the table. Life, apparently, has to go on. If so, why bother about former peoples and their present doppelganger?
However, if any man did give a thought to the matter, he did come to an inevitable conclusion. It is that historically, between Okorocha and his alter egos – Udenwa and Ohakim – there is nothing to chose.
To understand the dynamics and forces at play, let’s take this. Records show that it took the United Kingdom 200 years to industrialize, or more properly to invent industrialization. Evolutionarily, the rest of Europe caught up with Britain. Anyway, the details of their so doing do not add or subtract to our story. So we skip them. However, for the Asian big three, the data are as follows. It took Japan, Korea, China, 50, 40, 30 years respectively to industrialize.
Now this mental teaser. Between the United Kingdom at 200 years and Japan, Korea, China, at 50, 40 and 30 years respectively, which country industrialized in the shortest time?
By calendar time, it is China. But that is being completely inertial, not dynamical as scientists would say. And that too is being unhistorical and even un-mathematical. To get our tallies right, it is indicated we bring the data under one coordinate point. If we tried to do, we would come to the following conclusions. First, that there is a learning and evolutionary curve to all things; and that, the most miraculous and thus shortest of times is in the time of the invention of any idea or equipment. That is even if the invention of a process, idea, etc takes a million years, it is still more momentous, more breathtaking and thus of less living and dynamical time, than any time it takes to copy perfected examples or models. The truth of this is wittily expressed thus: ”Men invent in haste, in heightened time and copy in leisure, in loosened time”, Mother A’Endu.
It is for this reason that the greatest man in any discipline or way of life, including of course nepotism, is their first great founders. This explains why Archimedes is easily one of the greatest mathematicians of all times. Yet, all Archimedes knows of mathematics is several notches less than what we learnt around first year university mathematics curriculum. That is, while we are more knowledgeable than Archimedes in mathematics, Archimedes is a supreme mathematician and we are not even rookies. The fact and perspective of this are supremely important.
And this same style consideration happens in business and all life. So in Imo State, the greatest practitioner of nepotism is no other person than the governor who inaugurated it as state policy. So who did?
Now, Okorocha is famous or infamous for wanting to privatize Imo State into a private shithole. Those as close to him as his sisters, in-laws, outlaws etc are, like him, milking Imo State, to see if it can die. That much, some of his admirers even admit.
And Okorocha was cornered and asked, why are you so nepotistic? To save himself the humiliation of answering to his despoliation of a state, he left things to his minions and motor mouths. According to one of those:
Don’t you think that it will be unfair on the people of Imo State if after Okorocha has spent eight years in office, his son-in-law takes charge and he also will think of spending another eight years?
It doesn’t matter whether the person is a son-in-law or mother-in-law to the governor or not. Okorocha is not the first governor in Imo State to make his relation his chief of staff. Achike Udenwa was governor for eight years and his kinsman was his chief of staff. Ikedi Ohakim was also governor for four years and his immediate younger brother was his chief of staff.
I’m not desperate to become Imo gov –Nwosu, Okorocha’s chief of staff
So as the facts stand, the evolution and progression of nepotism did not begin with Okorocha. Udenwa was the first to engineer the trigger, the crude nepotistic DNA for governance. And Ohakim in inheriting the Udenwa governance DNA, not only took up the guiding protein, he perfected it. He appointed his blood brother, a guy with whom he sucked the same pair of mother’s breasts, to help turn Imo into a land of incest, political incest.
The point is that immediately such a state of replicated DNAs is perfected, ala Ohakim, its further replication becomes automated and industrial.
Ivan Ivanoff, a Jewish-American geo-mathematician retained by The Turf Game calls the Ohakim regime the evolutionary equivalent of the Cambrian Age. And I asked what is Cambrian Age? Cambrian Age is the age at which there is no going back. At that point, evolution takes a life and momentum of its own. In today’s speech, it will be said evolution goes viral, Ivanoff concluded harshly.
Anyway, all that is to say Ohakim’s reign is really the index or Cambrian age of nepotism in Imo State. In other words, Ohakim may be taken to be the Archimedes of Imo nepotisms. Udenwa may be characterized as a pre-Socratic founder of nepotisms in Imo State. These are largely the words of Ivanoff.
Anyway, as the data indicate, these conclusions inevitably follow. Some may argue that the Eagle plume, sorry, the vulture wings, for Index or Cambrian Age nepotism should be shared by the twins of Udenwa and Ohakim. We hold no positions on that. But perhaps Ohakim should make the plea?
Why have we gone this distance? It is to help Umu Imo get a tack on things. As Mother A’Endu would say, ”things don’t just sprout, they first take roots”. And to stop any growth, it is best to stave life off her roots, not just branches. So understanding the origin, history and archeology of nepotism in Imo State is crucial to our stopping it tomorrow.
Immediately we are on one page on this, the next question is what then is to be done? The first is to demand from both Udenwa and Ohakim that they must solemnly stand before Umu Imo, confess their sins and seek deliverances with diligence. And that deliverance must come in the guise of asking their near relations to refund, in tokens at the worst, all that they took off Imo State via sources known and unknown. And that they, having sodomized Imo State with political nepotism, shall never again be recognized as having served Imo at all.
One, if they don’t do this they stand no moral grounds to criticize Okorocha, whose founding father they are jointly and severally. It is their DNA that Okorocha merely replicated with virulent vengeance. In all, the fact of what Okorocha did is indicated in both evolutionary politics and biology. In other words, the two are the authors and finishers of Okorocha political DNA and dynasty.
But a larger question must be asked. Why is it that men, when granted expansive and open public trust, will retreat into their nepotistic cocoons? And answers are not lacking. According to Okezie, a wit from Owerri Ngba Otor:
Any time a president and or a governor begins to consolidate his relations, in-laws, and outlaws as the nucleus of his governance, any time a governor or president begins to preach or act that excellence and trust are only habituated in his familial connections and not in representativeness, then they jointly and severally have elected to be bandits. Please forget the high office, the sanctimonious preaching, what you got are bandits watching over public treasuries. You can now take this home as an iron lore.
There is no way a man who is not set to steal and rob as the thief in the night, will call upon his uterine ones to be chief butchers over public games. Contrast their game with the play of the great Zik. Zik was from Onitsha, in today’s Anambra State. His main men were, Okpara from Umuahia, today’s Abia State, and Dr. Ibiam from today’s Ebonyi State, Anyiam from Nkwerre today’s Imo State, Osadebe in today’s Delta, etc. As is apparent, Zik scattered and shared out all powers over the distinct Igbo sub-nations and left no man out. He did not share it all out to Ndi Onitsha.
But what are today’s potentates doing? Immediately they get elected they call upon their blood and near relations: the state has fallen a victim into our hands. Come help me let us rob it dead. So governance in Nigeria, has become a crime, a criminal-family business. Almost like the mafia business in Italy. Welcome to Imo State, welcome to Nigeria.