<\/p>\n
_By Comr. Obioma Onwuegbucha
\n(Concerned Son of Ngor Okpala)_<\/p>\n
There is a popular saying in igbo palance that: the pregnant sheep, upon hearing that her fellow had given birth, rushed to deliver her own\u2014premature and ill-formed (Aturu nuru na ibeya amuola omuo nke n\u2019 akaghi aka). That, in the most fitting terms, captures the tragicomic outings of our brother, Hon. Bede Eke, the Imo State Commissioner for Housing and New Cities Development. The image is exact: sycophancy and mischief clothed in desperation.<\/p>\n
Of late, Bede has begun to posture as both the spokesman of Ngor Okpala and the self-appointed herald of Governor Hope Uzodimma\u2019s administration. He deserves pity, not respect, because in both roles he is laughably unqualified. Worse still, the very issue that dragged him into the public square and exposed his ineptitude is one about which the overwhelming majority of the people of Ngor Okpala have no patience for equivocation.<\/p>\n
The emergence of Dr. Chima Matthew Amadi has providentially answered a long-standing insult Ngor Okpala had endured from neighbours who would sneer: \u201cWho do you have?\u201d At last, Ngor Okpala has an answer, and it is not Bede. Unlike Bede\u2014whom Ngor Okpala people trusted with their mandate four consecutive times, only to be rewarded with emptiness\u2014Amadi has, without ever holding any public office, lifted the pride and hope 1of his people and given them the grounds to stand tall in Imo politics.<\/p>\n
Today, no political discourse in Imo State is complete without mentioning Chima Amadi and Ngor Okpala. The last time Ngor Okpala enjoyed such stature was under the late Dr. Basil Nnanna Ukegbu. Yet even Ukegbu never had Bede\u2019s extravagant privileges: eight years in the Imo State House of Assembly, eight years in the House of Representatives\u2014sixteen years of public office, more than most politicians in the state can ever dream of. And what do Ngor Okpala people have to show for those sixteen squandered years? Nothing but decay and mockery.<\/p>\n
In his first embarrassing intervention, Bede attacked Hon. Blyden Amajirionwu for daring to ask why Ngor Okpala\u2019s roads remain deathtraps. The least competent man on earth to answer for that disgrace was Bede himself. Take the Ulakwo\u2013Imerienwe\u2013Umuekwune road: re-awarded by the Niger Delta Development Commission three years ago, yet abandoned after a single kilometre. Bede was in the House of Representatives when the original contract was awarded. For eight years he warmed a seat in Abuja, but could not stir a finger to ensure that NDDC\u2014a federal agency\u2014delivered on its obligations. After his wasted tenure, he now quarrels with Amajirionwu, who has spent less than two years in the State Assembly, for not \u201cmoving a motion.\u201d His attack was not just petty\u2014it was perfidy against the whole of Ngor Okpala. Outsiders laughed at the emptiness of his reasoning. His language was pedestrian, his logic embarrassing, his utterances beneath even a councilor, let alone someone who had sat in Green Chambers in Abuja for nearly a decade, indeed, what a fiasco!!!<\/p>\n
But Bede did not stop at disgrace. In his bid to prove relevance, he blundered into an even more shameful episode: his reaction to Dr. Amadi\u2019s August 25, 2025 stakeholders meeting at Nguru Umuaro, organized under The Mazi Organization (TMO). Two days later, Bede\u2019s puerile rejoinder appeared under the title: \u201cStop Insulting Sensibilities of Our People.\u201d In it, he \u201ccautioned\u201d Amadi to desist from \u201cname-dropping\u201d Ngor Okpala leaders in pursuit of governorship ambition.<\/p>\n
Hear Bede in his own fumbling words: \u201cDr. Matthew Amadi is our brother from Ngor Okpala LGA but I will advise that he discontinue (SIC) his insults on the sensibilities of my people\u2026 His campaign of calumny\u2026 will not guarantee him a ticket to Douglas House.\u201d He went further to call the stakeholders meeting \u201ca demonstration of desperation of a man who is yet to ascertain what he really wants politically,\u201d and claimed \u201cleaders of thought\u201d avoided attending to escape backlash.<\/p>\n
Still not done, he scolded Amadi for \u201cdropping the governor\u2019s name\u201d and in the same breath compared him unfavourably with men like Tony Chukwu, Johnbosco Ozigbo, and Alex Mbata\u2014wealthy cronies who supposedly attract development \u201cwithout making noise.\u201d It was infantile, tactless, and humiliating for the administration he serves.<\/p>\n
Three things must be said about this charade.<\/p>\n
First, Bede\u2019s claim that Amadi was \u201cinsulting the sensibilities\u201d of Ngor Okpala is itself the greatest insult to Ngor Okpala. Every schoolboy in the LGA knows it. To attack Amadi for raising the glaring neglect of Ngor Okpala is to spit in the face of the entire community. Bede may enjoy the perks of office and the luxury of Owerri hotels, but he cannot silence the cries of a people who daily drive through mud and ruin. His attempt to gag them is contemptible.<\/p>\n
Second, his ignorance of the very phrase \u201cname-dropping\u201d is revealing. To call on the governor to address infrastructural collapse is not name-dropping. It is civic duty. That Bede misused the phrase shows his lack of the most basic competence even as a spokesman.<\/p>\n
Third, his suggestion that stakeholders avoided Amadi\u2019s meeting out of fear of being seen as anti-governor paints Ngor Okpala as cowards. This is both false and unforgivable. Elsewhere in Imo, people have denounced Governor Uzodimma in far harsher terms without anyone gagging them. Are Ngor Okpala now to be portrayed as the governor\u2019s serfs? Are we no longer in a democracy? Does Uzodimma himself not have the right to sue Amadi if he feels libelled? His handlers have already unleashed worse vitriol against Amadi, yet it is Bede who feels compelled to crawl out with feeble reprimands.<\/p>\n
Even more damning is the hypocrisy. The Ulakwo\u2013Imerienwe\u2013Umuekwune road\u2014still abandoned\u2014was awarded to one of the very men Bede cited as paragons of silent philanthropy, a close ally of his boss, Governor Uzodimma. Why is the road abandoned? Why is the contractor untouchable? Why has Bede not used his \u201cgood offices\u201d to compel action? Instead, he wags his tongue at Amadi while signing communiqu\u00e9s begging Uzodimma to recall the contractor back to site.<\/p>\n
Some say Bede\u2019s sudden zeal is nothing more than blackmail politics, a clumsy bid to prove to Uzodimma that he is the only Ngor Okpala appointee willing to attack his own people. If so, it is shameful beyond words. In saner places, he would have rallied his colleagues into issuing a sober, conciliatory statement. Instead, he chose cheap propaganda wars, which governments never win, especially against a disenchanted populace.<\/p>\n
To crown the absurdity, Hon. Obinna Egu, member for Ngor Okpala in the State Assembly, joined Bede in issuing his own anti-Amadi statement. Whether he spoke for himself or on behalf of his commissioner-wife is anyone\u2019s guess. But the spectacle of each Ngor Okpala appointee lining up to issue personal denunciations of Amadi is the height of ridicule. So shameful. So cheap. So utterly unworthy of who we are as a people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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