2027/2028 IMO GOVERNORSHIP: CHARLES ORIE’S GUBER AMBITION IS NOT ORLU DOMINATION -

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2027/2028 IMO GOVERNORSHIP: CHARLES ORIE’S GUBER AMBITION IS NOT ORLU DOMINATION

By: Chief Kingsley Nwachukwu (writes from Owerri-Imo State).

There is a peculiar seduction in political arithmetic in Imo State. That seduction is about counting the years, adding the tenures, colouring the senatorial zones, and then announcing a verdict as though history itself has signed a deed of transfer: Orlu has had 24 years. Therefore, Orlu must not contest again in 2027.

It sounds tidy, doesn’t it? But it is also intellectually indefensible. The article, “Imo Guber: Orlu Has Had 24 Years; Why Seek Another Turn in 2027?”, raises a legitimate political question, but it attempts to answer that question by smuggling a political preference into what it presents as historical fact. Nobody disputes the arithmetic. Since 1999, Achike Udenwa, Rochas Okorocha, and Hope Uzodimma have all come from Orlu Zone. If Uzodimma completes his present tenure, Orlu’s cumulative occupancy of Douglas House since 1999 will indeed amount to approximately 24 years.

But here is the inconvenient truth: 24 years of political success does not create a constitutional prohibition against another Orlu candidate. Nor does it prove that every Orlu candidacy is an act of “Orlu domination.” That conclusion does not follow from the evidence. The Imo governorship has never been a property passed from one senatorial zone to another according to an enforceable timetable. It has been contested through party primaries, alliances, defections, elections, judicial decisions, and, ultimately, voter choice.

Those who debate the Imo governorship must not see this distinction as academic because it is the entire argument. Consider 1999. When democracy returned, politicians from across Imo sought the governorship. The eventual dominant contest was between two Orlu sons: Chief Achike Udenwa of the PDP and Engr. Ezekiel Izuogu of the APP. Udenwa won with 388,680 votes against Izuogu’s 379,491. If the governorship had simply been “allocated” to Orlu, why did two Orlu candidates have to fight for it? Because it was an election. In 2003, Udenwa again contested and won overwhelmingly, polling 695,405 votes against Izuogu’s 142,942. Eleven candidates were registered in that election. Again, Orlu won. But saying “Orlu won” is not the same thing as saying “Orlu exercised a permanent entitlement.” A candidate won an election. That is what happened.

Then came 2007, and the tidy zonal theory encountered a rather inconvenient fact. Ikedi Ohakim of Okigwe Zone won the governorship, defeating another Okigwe son, Ifeanyi Ararume, and an Owerri son. Ohakim polled 749,800 votes against Ararume’s 309,273. Orlu politicians were not magically erased from the contest. They participated. Owerri politicians participated. Okigwe politicians participated. And an Okigwe candidate emerged. If the political system were governed by an immutable Orlu entitlement, 2007 should not have happened. But it did. That is because Imo politics is not a mathematical timetable.

In 2011, Rochas Okorocha of Orlu returned to the contest and defeated incumbent Ikedi Ohakim of Okigwe. Okorocha polled 336,859 votes against Ohakim’s 290,496 in a field of 19 candidates. Was that “Orlu domination”? Or was it an election in which an Orlu candidate defeated an Okigwe incumbent? The answer is important because political reasoning cannot change its definition of democracy depending on who wins. In 2015, the contest again exposed the weakness of the simplistic argument. Okorocha, from Orlu, faced Emeka Ihedioha, from Owerri, among a large field of candidates. Okorocha won with 416,996 votes. Once again, the zones were not taking turns by administrative fiat. Candidates were competing. Voters were choosing.

In 2019, the argument becomes even harder to sustain. Emeka Ihedioha of Owerri Zone was declared winner by INEC with 273,404 votes. Uche Nwosu of Orlu came second with 190,364. Ifeanyi Ararume of Okigwe came third with 114,676. Hope Uzodimma of Orlu came fourth with 96,458. Pause over those numbers. Owerri first. Orlu second. Okigwe third. Orlu fourth. That is not the pattern of a pre-written zonal script. It is the messiness of democracy. The subsequent Supreme Court judgment that nullified Ihedioha’s election and resulted in Uzodimma becoming governor is equally part of the constitutional history of the state. One may debate the judgment politically, legally, or morally, but one cannot simply delete it because it disrupts a preferred narrative. Thus, two facts can exist simultaneously: Ihedioha was declared winner by INEC, and Uzodimma subsequently became governor following the Supreme Court decision. History does not become false because it is inconvenient.

Then came 2023. Here the three major candidates represented the three senatorial zones: Hope Uzodimma (Orlu, APC) got 540,308 votes. Samuel Anyanwu (Owerri, PDP) got 71,503 votes. And Athan Achonu (Okigwe, Labour Party) got 64,081 votes. All three zones were represented. All three contested. Two lost. One won overwhelmingly. What exactly was undemocratic about that? Was Uzodimma supposed to lose because his zone had already produced governors? Was the electorate supposed to reject him because a newspaper had calculated that another zone was “due”? If so, then we should stop pretending that we are discussing democracy and simply admit that we are discussing political allocation.

And that is precisely the problem with the argument against Charles Orie. If Charles Orie is constitutionally qualified and chooses to seek the governorship, that ambition is not “Orlu domination.” It is a candidacy. It is a political proposition. It is a request for a mandate and it is subject to acceptance or rejection by voters. Nothing more.

The Constitution does not say that a citizen’s right to contest expires because another person from his senatorial zone previously occupied the Government House. No provision of Nigerian law says that a senatorial zone accumulates political credits, exhausts them, and must then surrender the right of its people to contest. No constitutional authority has declared that Orlu has used up its political rights until some predetermined year. And certainly no columnist, political association, or senatorial zone possesses the authority to convert an informal political convention into a constitutional disqualification.

This is where we need to be honest with ourselves. The Charter of Equity is a political argument. It may be a powerful political argument. It may be a desirable political convention. It may even command substantial public support. But it is not the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and it does not legally prohibit an Orlu man from contesting the governorship. It does not appoint the next governor, and it does not remove the power of political parties to nominate candidates. And it does not remove the power of Imo voters to choose among qualified candidates.

Indeed, the Charter itself has never enjoyed a single universally accepted interpretation. Some advocates understand it as strict rotation. Others see it as equitable opportunity. Others regard it as a moral compact among political elites. Still others reject zoning altogether and insist on competence and popular choice. So why pretend that one interpretation is settled law? That is not historical scholarship but political advocacy masquerading as historical inevitability.

And there is an even deeper contradiction. Those who invoke equity to deny an Orlu candidate’s right to contest must answer a simple question: Can equity legitimately be achieved by violating equality? Suppose an exceptionally competent, credible, and widely supported candidate emerges from Orlu in 2027. Suppose he enjoys substantial support in Owerri and Okigwe. Suppose he is capable of winning a free and fair election. What exactly is the argument for telling him: “You cannot contest because somebody from your zone has already served”? That is not equity. It is exclusion by geography. A citizen’s constitutional rights do not become collective property. They are not accumulated by his zone. They are not exhausted by another man’s tenure. They cannot be inherited, transferred, or cancelled according to senatorial arithmetic.

If we establish the opposite principle, we should be prepared to apply it universally. If an Orlu man can be disqualified politically because Orlu has produced three governors, then tomorrow an Owerri man can be disqualified because Owerri has already produced a governor in Ihedioha. An Okigwe man can equally be told to wait because Ohakim has already served. At that point, we would no longer have democracy. We would have a rotational bureaucracy in which citizens wait for their geographical turn to become politically eligible. That is a dangerous idea.

The phrase “it is our turn” is politically understandable but it is not constitutionally dispositive. It is also a fact that Orlu Zone has never occupied all the top offices. Under Achike Udenwa, a man from Okigwe Zone, Engr. Ebere Udeagu, was his deputy. Under Ohakim, a woman from Owerri Zone, Lady Ada Okwuonu, was his deputy. Under Okorocha, a man from Owerri Zone, Sir Jude Agbaso, was the deputy. Agbaso was impeached and replaced by Eze Madumere. Under Ihedioha, a man from Orlu Zone, Engr. Gerald Irona, was his deputy. Under Uzodimma’s first term, a man from Owerri Zone, Prof. Placid Njoku, was his deputy – with a man from Okigwe Zone as the Speaker of the Imo State House of Assembly and another as the Secretary to the State Government. And now, a woman from Owerri Zone, Lady Chinyere Ekomaru, is the deputy, with Okigwe Zone occupying the Speaker’s seat and the Office of the Secretary to the State Government.

Owerri Zone may have the right to argue that it deserves another opportunity to produce the Governor, just as Charles Orie from Orlu Zone wants to be governor. But Owerri Zone has no right to accuse Orlu Zone of dominance just because another Orlu man wants to become governor. Okigwe Zone also has every right to make the same argument as Owerri Zone. But Orlu also has the right to say: we have qualified citizens, and we intend to compete.

The answer to that proposition should not be censorship, intimidation, or invented disqualification. The answer should be competition. If “turn” means that every zone deserves a fair opportunity to seek the office, that is a legitimate political philosophy. But if “turn” means that once a zone claims entitlement, every candidate from the other zones must surrender before the election, then we have crossed the line from equity into entitlement. And entitlement is the enemy of democracy.

The Imo governorship is not a traditional stool. It is not ancestral property. It is not a parcel of land divided into three portions. It is a constitutional office. There is no “Orlu governorship,” no “Owerri governorship,” and no “Okigwe governorship.” There is only the governorship of Imo State. And the person who occupies it must ultimately obtain a mandate through the constitutional political process.

We must accept the fact that convention is not law. Arithmetic is not entitlement. And political expectation is not constitutional disqualification. The electoral history of Imo State makes the point with brutal clarity: 1999: Orlu candidate defeated Orlu candidate. 2003: Orlu candidate won. 2007: Okigwe candidate won. 2011: Orlu candidate defeated Okigwe incumbent. 2015: Orlu candidate defeated Owerri candidate. 2019: Owerri candidate was declared winner, before the Supreme Court altered the outcome. 2023: Orlu, Owerri, and Okigwe candidates contested, and Orlu won overwhelmingly. This history demonstrates that Imo’s governorship has never operated as a simple conveyor belt. It has been shaped by candidates, parties, primaries, alliances, voter preferences, political realignment, and judicial intervention.

The attempt to reduce all of that to “Orlu has had 24 years, therefore Orlu must not contest” is not sophisticated political analysis. It is arithmetic replacing history. And arithmetic is not enough.

There is another question the critics of Orlu candidacy must answer: why should zoning be allowed to defeat competence before competence is even tested? If a candidate from Owerri is incompetent, does Owerri become entitled to the governorship just because its turn has arrived? If a candidate from Okigwe is unpopular, should voters be compelled to support him because a certain zoning calendar says so? If Charles Orie from Orlu Zone is more competent, more credible, and more broadly accepted, should the electorate be instructed to reject him simply because another zone has calculated that it is owed the office?

If the answer to these questions is yes, then we should stop talking about popular sovereignty. We should simply rotate the office. But that is not how democracy works.

The proper questions about Charles Orie are therefore not where he comes from. They are: What does he stand for? What is his record? What is his vision? What can he offer Imo? Can he unite the three zones? Can he command support beyond Orlu? Can he persuade Owerri? Can he persuade Okigwe? Can he govern competently? Can he provide accountable leadership? Can he win?

These are serious political questions. “He is from Orlu” is not. An individual ambition is not a zonal conspiracy. A candidacy is not domination. An election is not a coronation. And a senatorial zone is not a person.

It is important to note this because there is a danger in treating every Orlu aspirant as the embodiment of Orlu Zone. Charles Orie is an individual. If he chooses to run, he does not do so as an Orlu candidate but as an Imo candidate of his political party. And it is left for Imo voters to decide to accept him or not. That is democracy. And what could be more democratic than that?