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What Does Joe Igbokwe Want?
Written by Odimegwu Onwumere

Greed has not allowed some of our people to differentiate truth and lies from politics.
They tell lies so much. And many Nigerians, when they see someone telling the truth
while in politics from the other divide, they term the person an anti party player. This is
the fate of Engineer Joe Igbokwe, the Publicity Secretary of Lagos State Action
Congress in the eyes of traducers.

As Nigerians could remember, Igbokwe has been a man who stands for the truth. I have
been reading his articles, though not a tactful writer; but his syntaxes are correct. As a
prolific writer Joe Igbokwe is, a lot of traducers are now bent on sending him to Golgotha
for always standing on the truth, mainly as they relate to those of his home state,
Anambra. They are now accusing the dude of anti-party since he is asking Chris Ngige
who took to the Tribunal against the incumbent Peter Obi to allow peace to reign. They
are also accusing the dude that Obi has promised giving him two commissioners slot in
his cabinet.

One Obidigbo Mgbachi, who says he lives at No. 59 Market Road, Ekwulobia, Anambra
State accused Joe Igbokwe of playing anti party outright in an article titled “Who and
what is Joe Igbokwe fighting for?”

Hear the Mgbachi: “Let the rumour making the rounds now about Igbokwe’s relationship
with Obi not turn to reality. From the grapevine, it is being said that once Obi gets
inaugurated in March, he would re-jig his cabinet to include one or two nominees from
Mr. Joe Igbokwe. Time shall tell”. But is the time not here, since March?

Whatever that means, no one can eat the crab in a hideout, and Igbokwe is that crab.
Crab must make noise. While Dr. Chris Ngige is my man any day, I think if Joe Igbokwe
asked him to resign to his fate having lost the election to Obi is no crime. What will be
crime is if Igbokwe is asking him to heat up the state for whatever reason, as the likes of
Mgbachi were advocating that the election was not peaceful.

Hear Mgbachi again: “...it was not totally peaceful because many were wounded as
recorded; it was not free because many were disenfranchised and it was not fair
because Obi did not record the constitutional mandatory cut-across score of 25% in at
least two-thirds of the number of LGAs in Anambra State. Forget the afterthought of
INEC and Obi’s employed mathematicians like the one at the University of Lagos whose
coloured advertisements in the print media are known to have been sponsored by Obi”.

Mgbachi went further: “Therefore it should have occurred to Joe Igbokwe that for fair
and free exercise, there should be a peaceful run-off. What is Obi afraid of regarding
this; after all he achieved through tribunal even when INEC supported Ngige in 2003,
and therefore Obi should allow tribunal to determine this”.

Well, I wouldn’t know how many casualties that can be recorded if there happens to be a
re-run in Anambra as the myopic Mgbachi is indirectly advocating? As we knew,
Anambra State makes a good sales of newspapers whenever the name is used as
headline in the papers, but the news that make these headlines are not always good
news, when they are coming out from the political circles in the State. And this could be
what Igbokwe is fighting to avert in Anambra State.

While I bemoan any alleged fraud that may have seen to Obi’s victory, it is imperative
that such loopholes are allowed to be amended through the electoral reform and not
through the Tribunal.

Even if Ngige perhaps wins in the Tribunal, I will be happy, but if he allows Obi to
continue and then fight to make sure that the electoral process in Nigeria is reformed,
which even Igbokwe is fighting for, that will be a great success.

Assuming that Ngige wins Obi in the Tribunal and the court orders for a fresh election, I
am afraid who will win an incumbent in the Nigeria’s electoral system. The ‘anointed’ will
always win irrespective of the party.

Cautioning Joe Igbokwe as wont in the media by ‘unemployed’ and employed writers is
not a good thing. It is those that still reason like Olusegun Obasanjo from 1999-2007
that will see Igbokwe as a party threat. He is not. Who would like this nation burn while
defending his party? Except the people like Obasanjo. No matter the different interests
among politicians, there will be no Action Congress neither People’s Democratic Party if
Nigeria burns. A good statesman is accentuated by the love of his country and not by
the love of his party.

Joe Igbokwe is a man that can be relied and reposed on any day. Though, I don’t know
him in person, but people speak volume of good about him. That is how a man is rated,
especially in ala-Igbo. You don’t ask a man’s wife how good her husband is but his
kinsmen.

Igbokwe wins a landslide vote in Nnewi in the public parliament, as I left my home in Port
Harcourt to Nnewi to ask who this Joe Igbokwe is. His people don’t joke with him. Not that
he is the richest or the poorest, but a humanist and an altruist, a truth sayer and a
visionary, who empowers people with wisdom and also his little income.

Let this bad belle people that are against Joe Igbokwe stop selling disinformation to the
reading public. Joe Igbokwe is a great man of enviable good behaviour. He is a man that
should be holding the headship of Anambra State, because of his antecedents. Any
doubting Thamoses can go to Nnewi and make investigation. I have done. And I was not
disappointed. He has Nigerians at heart. That could be the reason he uses
‘nationalvision’ as a name of one of his email addresses. He has a vision for Nigeria. At
his age, he is not relenting even a minute to comment on any issues bothering to that of
Nigeria.

As my Ngige “warriors” are bent on seeing that Obi is ousted from the governor’s seat, I
will suggest that we listen to what Eng. Joe Igbokwe is talking about so that we do not
see again Anambra where a  governor was ruling from Delta State, part of the
government house was burnt, miscreants trying to slap a sitting governor, guns were not
hidden, arson and anarchy were loosed upon Anambra. Let any backing dog lay low.
Anambra is for all of us. We that supported Ngige should take the winning in the spirit of
sportsmanship. Obi is an Igbo, likewise Ngige and even Igbokwe. Men are not known
today by warring but by warning. We should always warn each other when the other
erred, and not war.   

I don’t think Joe Igbokwe is putting up spirited argument to proof that governor Peter Obi
of APGA without won the election without hitches, but he is saying that we all have to
sheathe the sword for peace to reign. He has not relented in even asking Chief
Odumegwu Ojukwu to forget the clarion calls by Ojukwu on Ndiigbo to support IBB come
2011. It is very bad to give a dog a bad name in order to hang it. How is he playing anti-
party? If he can tell Ojukwu who is the national leader of All Progressive Grand Alliance
(APGA) that Ndiigbo will not hearken to his call; how is he then supporting APGA against
Ngige?

Odimegwu Onwumere is a Poet/Author, Media Consultant and the Founder of Poet
Against Child Abuse (PACA), Rivers State, Nigeria;.