[OPINION] Governor Umahi As The Albatross Of Political Predators

• By Ogbuatu Chidi Simbad

It is not only in the animal kingdom that predators exist; they also exist in political kingdom where they exhibit unrestrained predatory animalism. Is anyone in doubt of this human animalistic idiosyncrasies? Well, Aristotle captures the scenario succinctly in his summary description of the nature of man; “man is by nature a political animal”- Aristotle(382-322 BC).

One hard truth about Nigerian politics is that most of our political elites often look forward to money sharing as they support candidates’ for political positions. They may not voice it, but at the back of their minds, the sharing of money after elections had been won and lost and power acquired and consolidated, hangs rapaciously like the gluttony of a goat.

It is unfortunate as it is heart-rending that these predatorial political elites do not care about the masses. As far as they are concerned, the proletariat can go to blazes because their egocentric interest is simple; so long as State financial allocations keep coming to a round table for sharing, they don’t give a hoot whether the state is developed or not and whether the masses were empowered or not. Their own is to feather their selfish nests in all directions at the expense of the state and the people as they regularly smile ostentatiously to the bank, while the people suffer abject penury. Chief Gani Fawehinmi describes them metaphorically as political predators. In Ebonyi State, Governor Umahi is their greatest albatross!

If Governor Umahi’s frugal and prudent methodology in the management of state resources had not emasculated their greedy hands and blocked the conduits through which others equally siphoned our exchequer, our collective patrimony would have been aggressively and irredeemably raped to stupor and Ebonyi State would have still remained irretrievably in the denigrating and derisive doldrums of primitivity, wearing the opprobrious epithet, “Dust of the Nation”.

Indeed, man is also capricious. This explains his ability to support and to oppose, to love and to hate at any point in time. The caprice of political predators is driven by either gratification or the denial of it. If Governor Umahi had thrown our patrimony open to their whims, they would be hailing him, but after power they will be blaming him for sharing moneys that could have been used to develop the state regardless of the fact that they were the beneficiaries. So, it is the best thing for Governor Umahi to be castigated, cajoled and maligned on social media by political predators and their crumb eaters for not sharing state allocations among them now that he is in power than to share the allocations and be pilloried after power for not developing the state by the same people who see him from their avaricious prisms as a left-wing ideologue.

Apparently, when we side our dear Governor and support him and the policies of the state, we do so because he places state priorities on the right pedestal and sidelines political predators who are only after their personal enrichment. This explains why the Governor ploughs our state resources into the development of our dear State for the betterment of the masses, future generations and even the ruinous political predators who want allocations shared among themselves as the only reason for them to be happy with the system.

Governor Umahi is the greatest albatross of these political predators who inhabit our political ecosystem, eating up the vegetables of our development in the past. Today, they are not hiding the fact that they are not happy, but what is the justification for their anger with the Governor’s uncompromising stance against heist of whatever guise? Even when they equally savour the infrastructural bliss of the Governor, they still want the allocations raw like the sacrificial meat; demanded raw by Hophni and Phinehas in the Holy Writ. It’s a sin against God.

Leaders of Governor Umahi’s breed who checkmate the pillaging of state resources are called “stingy” and opposed by malevolent capitalists who desire to keep getting richer while the poor keep getting poorer. Weighed down by the burden of frustration, having failed to get the Governor to “share the money” in his six eventful years of administration, these political predators have resorted to spewing concocted stories and malicious falsehood about Governor Umahi and the Ebonyi State Government in the media, achieving nothing.
Ironically, the more these disgruntled political predators attempt to rubbish Governor Umahi with allegations based on fallacies, the more they portray him to the world as a powerful leader who could resist selfish centrifugal forces.

Need I add that most Nigerian politicians play opposition politics mainly when they are disgruntled? Cases abound and justified anyway because politics is a game of interests. But then, these interests become personalised when political predators believe that their oligarchic interests should supersede that of the masses. It’s a sin against democracy! More so, this is the difference between supporting Governor Umahi based on masses’ interests rather than on personal, individualized, egocentric and the egoistic greedy interests of political predators.

For the records and in case these political predators do not know; Governor Umahi is President Buhari’s kind of leader. He is the type of leader Mr. President desires to succeed him because he too is aggressively averse to the sharing of our national wealth to please the insatiable appetite of “iron law oligarchy.” One remarkable thing about such leaders too is that the more political predators sponsor image damaging writings against them in the media, the more they win elections. This equally explains why they sweep the polls and coast home to victory in every elections. Come 2023, we shall know who is more popular than the other at the polls again; Governor Umahi who employs leadership strategies that favour the masses or political predators who deploy stratagems that favour only themselves.

Simbad is the Ebonyi State APC Publicity Secretary