The arena is set for Enugu’s turn of Asiwaju’s political buga dance . Yet, February 25th and March 11th 2023, the hour will come for _Ndi Enugu_ to decide their fate for the next four years and for incumbent and aspiring political leaders to test their popularity amongst the people and their electoral value. The time for perfunctory rhetoric, grandiose arrogance and empty posturing will fade to usher in moments of stark epiphanies and unexpected realizations. _Anyi ga ama ndi akwa siri ike n’ukwu_. While I would not like to preempt outcomes, I can also not ignore the very conspicuous foretelling signs of a disastrous run for the All Progressives Congress (APC), a party that has imploded into warring factions gnawing at each other’s throats with stalwarts deserting in search of more credible and stable platforms. 

And to mention the factional chairman, Ugo Agballa, a self-proclaimed _Ijele_ without acolytes, emperor without generals and in the Nigerian parlance, “one-man MOPOL”, terribly impersonating a drunken master, dancing on the edge of a cliff with wobbly feet. Ever since his emergence in a parallel convention, he has been trotting through mires of controversies with no end in sight. Once issued with his certificate of return by INEC long after other party chairmen, Ugo Agballa set out to put a torch on the Enugu State chapter of the APC, wielding a machete to cut down beams and pillars that manage to survive the raging inferno. To himself and the party he claims to lead, he is the boogeyman.

Ugo Agballa’s reputation is growing for the wrong reasons. Hundreds of millions of naira allegedly released to the Enugu State APC chapter to fund electioneering activities vanished into thin air under his custodianship. Rather than be a leader by embracing accountability and transparency, and uniting his party’s emaciated forces against the inexplicably formidable opponent in PDP, the somewhat illegitimate chairman is in the words of Chinua Achebe “putting a knife to what holds the group together”. His off-putting demeanor, grisly composure and self-serving narcissistic actions are driving out heavyweights from the party who have been forced to seek sanity in various other quarters or at best stay aloof. Mr. Agballa would instead surround himself with an army of very scanty sycophants to fuel his maniacal tendencies, cheering him on as he makes futile attempts to vilify notable people in the state whose sandal straps he is unworthy to untie.

Ugo Agballa, through a process that was not even remotely democratic, masterminded the emergence of Chief Uche Nnaji as the Governorship flagbearer. Then he outdid himself by ignoring the unwritten tenet that has kept the Nigerian contraption together – diversity in leadership that begets unity in diversity – to field Mr. Robert Ngwu as the placeholder Deputy Governorship candidate. By virtue of shocking failure to find a replacement before the window allowed by the Electoral Act closed, Mr. Ngwu remains on record as Chief Nnaji’s deputy. This total mess of a situation betrays a lot of inadequacies about the person of Ugo Agballa and the wrecking ball that he and his cronies are. The devastating implication in the eye of the law is that the APC’S Gubernatorial ticket in Enugu has been invalidated and perhaps completely lost in the maze of Ugo Agballah’s gaffe and profaning idiocy. Whether it is ignorance or sheer insensitivity to justice, equity and inclusivity, Mr. Agballa has managed to orchestrate the emergence of a gubernatorial candidate and a deputy who not only hail from the same Enugu East Senatorial zone but are both from the Nkanu clan. Even though they now parade one George Ogara from Enugu North senatorial district as Chief Uche Nnaji’s running mate in defiance of INEC as an institution of authority and due process, the fact that it took them ages to find a proper candidate qualifies APC, more literally than figuratively, as a drowning ship whose captain lives in a bubble, blind to reality. 

Besides the overshadowing legitimacy and competency questions, what are really the intentions of Ugo Agballa and Chief Nnaji? At least the Labour Party, despite knowing that crushing defeat awaits them, are showing semblances of competition. The party looks ambitious even as the clock ticks down to the day they meet their inevitable nemesis at the polls. Can we say the same thing for APC under Mr. Agballa? You tell me. The party has only placeholders for 11 out of the 24 State House of Assembly seats and also have no candidates for many positions at constituency and local government levels including Nkanu East/Nkanu West Federal Constituency where the younger brother of their governorship candidate, Chief Nnolim Nnaji is running for reelection on the platform of the PDP. If truly Mr. Agballa wasn’t simply staging a circus to scam the party’s national leadership of campaign funds he has no intention to use for electioneering, why is he instigating wars with and ostracizing the pillars of APC in the state? The likes of former Senate President Ken Nnamani, Chief Onyemuche Nnamani, former Governor Sullivan Chime, former Speaker of Enugu State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Eugene Odoh, Senator Ayogu Eze and Ambassador Fidel Ayogu, a few of which Mr. Agballa had attempted in vain to frustrate out of the party. What are the offences of General Okoloagu, General Ugwu, Chief Gbazuagu Nweke Gbazuagu, Chief Osita Okechukwu and a host of other stakeholders that had selflessly kept the party intact since inception?

It will not come as a surprise if the APC never gives _Ndi Enugu_ a  manifesto or even ever get to constitute a campaign organization and flag off their vote-hunting exercises. These do not appear to feature in Chief Uche Nnaji and his chairman’s  unwholesome scheme to line his pockets with the APC campaign largess and destroy the party while at it. These electoral puppets, political neophytes and perennial underachievers should be woken up to the reality that a troubled Hope Uzodimma can never choose a governor for Ndi-Enugu, just like the infantile claim to reclaim the Lion Building via a dubious acquisition of victory in the courts is even more laughable. While the Enugu chapter of the APC stands no chance in the elections and never will under the shambolic, rudderless, loquacious and incorrigibly corrupt leadership of this looting hegemony, Enugu State needs them in opposition to maintain the strength of our democracy. So not only is Mr. Agballa a menace to the APC, but he and his mercantile recruit are also settling disquietingly into the role of an enemy to Enugu’s political and socioeconomic progress, which for the past 7 years under Governor Ugwuanyi has been unprecedented and history-making. From wherever you stand, Ugo Agballa and Uche Nnaji have cremated APC in Enugu. They are bad news. Tinubu beware!!.

Chime Onyia wrote in from Ekeh in UDI