By Frank Odoh

Whether it is the Emperor Caligula, who suffocated his benefactor and uncle, Tiberius, who nominated him to the position and also referred to as a monster; whether it is Emperor Nero, known for the indiscriminate execution of his critics and even killed his mother so he could remarry by divorcing and executing his first wife and is notorious for fiddling while the fire he set on Rome raged; whether it is Emperor Caracalla, notoriously known as "the common enemy of mankind", Emperor Maximinus Thrax whose reign is noted for "Military Anarchy"; whether it is Emperor Tiberius, Emperor Commodus, Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus II (Elagabalus), Emperor Diocletian, etc., it sounds very strange, perhaps unthinkable, to associate any player in a democratic setting with the imperial figures of ancient Rome. 

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However, it is what it is. Many dictators started off as benevolent, harmless, and popular democrats. Various democracies are known to have sometimes bred their own versions or incarnations of the better forgotten Roman emperors if mistakenly handed the reins of power. That is where names like Isias Afewerki of Eritrea, Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, BasharbAl-Assad of Syria, Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan, Mobutu See Demo of Zaire (Democratic Republic of the Congo), Paul Biya of Cameroun, etc. readily come to mind.

So, when in October 2022 I read about how the governorship candidate of the Labour Party in our state, Enugu, Hon. Chijioke Edeoga, has dealt quite ruthlessly with his people of Eha-Amufu, I expected him to clear the air. More so when such graphic tales of brutality and trampling on the poor were told by his known townsmen, particularly Mgbuji Eha-Amufu, and published by major national news outlets like Arise News and Thisday newspaper. But typical of an average Nigerian politician when caught pants down, loud silence has been the answer, hoping that such serious allegations of brutality that have even gotten to the courts blows away.

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For those that missed the reports and interviews, this running battle between the governorship hopeful and his community over lands started several years ago resulting in a December 2020 petition by the villagers to Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi over what they termed misuse of political positions, intimidation, coveting and expropriating of their landed properties. The petition, which was filed while Edeoga was a commissioner was titled, “Re: Unlawful and Forceful Expropriation of Land from the Umu-Ugwu Nwebe Orube Family of Omulor, Mgbuji Autonomous Community, Eha-Amufu, Isi-Uzo LGA of Enugu State with Threats of Morbid Dimensions: Petition Against Hon. Chijioke Edeoga, the Honourable Commissioner for Environment and his Cohorts”.

However, according to the people, when Edeoga and his cohorts saw that they could not easily take over the lands, they now claimed that Enugu State Government had exercised its powers under the Land Use Act to acquire the wide expanse of land for the construction of what Edeoga called “Omulor Housing Estate”.

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Suspecting the move to be a false pretence by Edeoga and his cronies to dispossess them of their ancestral lands since no government agency had approached them, the villagers then challenged them in court. The lawsuit, filed at the Obollo-Afor Division of the Enugu State High Court is marked OB/4/2021 and has Chief Shedrack Edeoga, Hon. Chijioke Edeoga and five others as defendants. 

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However, the emperor that Edeoga is, he had no patience for the rule of law to take its course. Therefore, while the case was still pending in court, deadly thugs suspected to be working for him and his cronies sacked the poor farmers and widows from their lands and totally destroyed their hectres of cassava farms. In the ensuing protest by aggrieved villagers that went viral on social media, very elderly women, some of who striped themselves almost naked in their traditional way of laying causes were seen wailing and bemoaning their fates.

But rather than retrace his steps, make peace with the villagers, and restitute all they had lost, Emperor Edeoga and his cohorts rounded up some village leaders and dumped them in police detention, claiming that the spontaneous protest that ended at his gate was a planned threat to kill him. 

Consequently, the head of Umu-Ugwu Nwebe Orube family, Mr. Silas Ofiagu, among others were clamped in detention from 19th July 2021 to 2nd August 2021, using Edeoga’s influence in government without any regard whatsoever to the rule of law.

The affected families filed another petition to Governor Ugwuanyi on 25th July 2021, attaching the names and phone numbers of over 38 villagers, whose farmlands were destroyed by Emperor Edeoga’s boys.  

Another petition was equally written to the Commissioner of Police while lawsuit No. E/797/2021 was filed at the Enugu Judicial Division of the State High Court for the enforcement of Ofiagu’s rights. That suit has Chijioke Edeoga, DSP Suleiman Abubakar, and Inspector Michael Akalele as defendants. 

Edeoga's community believe that they have only tears and sorrow to show for his twenty-five years in various elective and appointive political positions as Council Chairman of Isi-Uzo LGA, Member House of Representatives, Special Assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan, Commissioner for Local Government in Ugwuanyi’s first term and Commissioner for Environment in Ugwuanyi’s second term.

According to them, the only constituency project Chijioke Edeoga attracted to the entire Enugu-East/Isi-Uzo Federal Constituency, as their representative is an uncompleted building around Central School Eha-Ohuala, Eha-Amufu, which is in total ruins and overgrown by weeds over two decades after.

For instance, anyone who takes a random trip to Edeoga’s immediate community, Mgbuji, would meet face to face with poverty and underdevelopment. The major bridge leading to Mgbuji has collapsed for decades and the hanging bridge they currently use was facilitated by Senator Gil Nnaji, a Nike son, while he was Senator. 

However, the anger of the people of Eha-Amufu, particularly Mgbuji, is not just that they have nothing to show for all the lofty offices occupied by their son, but that he has exploited and oppressed them like an emperor and done all within his powers to ensure that no one rises beyond him politically in the entire Eha-Amufu. Is that the kind of person Enugu people want to govern them? Hell no!

So, if Edeoga’s governorship ambition is not receiving the support of the people of Eha-Amufu communities due to the age-long oppression, intimidation, and exploitation they have suffered in the hands of Edeoga and his musketeers; if Eha-Amufu and Isi-Uzo in general are evidently the hub of opposition to Edeoga's dream, it is because they don't want a dangerous cub to grow into a tiger or bear the eternal infamy of giving to Enugu a totalitarian and maximum ruler and emperor, who destroyed and decimated the state and it's people.

Odo writes from Enugu.