GOV. CHIME: GOING LOCAL & GOING OPPOSITION

Obori Adaka

Driving into Udi town, the hometown of His Excellency, former Governor of Enugu State, Barrister Sullivan Chime leaves no one in doubt of the preparation for a big event.  The primary school adjacent to Chime’s sprawl compound is being decked out in canopies of various colors and sizes.  The seamless transition which started with a facebook post is coming to head as the D-day arrived for Gov. Chime to formally declare and register in APC right in his hometown of Udi Kpomkwem, his political ward of Udi/Agbudu, his Udi local government area of Enugu State where he held sway as Governor for 8 solid years.  Congratulations Gov. Chime for exiting the space for your successor.

Remarkably, today’s event is going to be historic in the sense that Gov.  Chime is not only surprisingly subscribing to the popular American saying that All Politics is Local, aptly said in 1935 by American former House Speaker, Hon. Tip O’neill during his campaign for the house seat; also Gov. Chime is going further to do what has eluded Enugu State the past 18 year of democracy, that is, breathe new life into the perennial tepid opposition party.  Enugu state has never had a real opposition party since 1999.

In effect, Gov. Chime is doing now what he did not think about doing in the past 8 years of his reign and he is offering Enugu state what they never had for the past 18 years which of course are beneficial to the people of Enugu state. In examining Gov Chime’s dual role of going local and going opposition, there are pertinent questions yearning for answers:

1. GOING LOCAL:  As the Americans say all politics is local, their English counterparts say that Charity begins at home and does not end there.  How does Gov. Chime rationalize his stark neglect of his Udi hometown, Udi North and the entire Enugu West with his second missionary journey in the politics of opposition?
2. Is Gov. Chime returning to politics to right some wrongs such as denying his people degree awarding institution of higher learning in the entire Enugu West on the guise that there is a law forbidding establishment of another campus of ESUT. The law mysteriously vanished in 2017 with the establishment of a campus of ESUT in Uzo-Uwani
3. Is Gov. Chime coming back to seek for office even though he said he is going to…...and if he does, and he is going local now, is it to attract federal money as possible VP candidate to fix Udi General Hospital was abandoned during his tenure?  
4. GOING OPPOSITION:  Will Gov Chime breathe enough juice to spark real opposition party activities in Enugu state?
5. Having not played active politics before being entrusted into the governorship by Dr. Nnamani, is Gov Chime prepared to lead his opposition party to challenge the policies of the government and possibly produce alternate policies?
6. Is Gov. Chime and APC ready to challenge and question the government of the day and hold them accountable to the people of Enugu state ---the same government he helped elect and a feat he did not tolerate during his reign?
7. Is this Gov. Chime’s journey to opposition a ruse, a compelled run for cover, or a self-aggrandizing quest for revenge on PDP which let him down 2015?
8. Is this whole charade a complicated innate disorder in Gov. Chime to repress predecessor and seamlessly transition away and oppose from successor?

Perhaps, answers to these and many other questions will go a long way to shed lights to the event happening today in Udi.  Politics is indeed local only when you start from local and proceed to state and national.  Enugu state could be better off with this political development.  The government of the day could sit up and take note that new opposition party with experienced leader who know where the dead bodies were buried has arrived.

Finally, we welcome Gov. Chime, our former Executive Governor of Enugu state, as he goes local and opposition at the same time.  He did his best at the helm.  He is human and as such made some mistakes.  We will hold him to those mistakes and we hope he is going to do better in his second coming.  Politics is like sport and should be played without bitterness, without meanness and without malice.  Enugu state will be better off with a strong opposition however let it be constructive rather than destructive opposition. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jn, rightly said, We need leaders not in love with money but in love with justice. Not in love with publicity but in love with HUMANITY.  Enugu state has in His Excellency, Gov. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi - GburuGburu a leader in love with HUMANITY.  

Let’s keep it clean and let freedom reign.

Obori Adaka, a political strategist and social commentator writes from Enugu