OPINION: Dave Umahi And Incestuous Reasoning

By Valentine Obienyem

“I remember accompanying Obi one early morning to see Umahi in Abakaliki. The meeting culminated in Obi handing Umahi a bag after which he (Umahi) rattled off the names of four other individuals who, he said, deserved similar packages.”

It is customary for some critics to argue conveniently that the movement known as the “Obidients” is wont to abuse anyone who does not support Mr Peter Obi. To this, we must clarify: the Obidients are not defined by partisan pedigree, but by a shared revulsion against the systemic ills of Nigeria and a fervent desire for national redemption. Obi happens, by circumstance and record, to be the candidate they see as uniquely equipped to midwife a new Nigeria.

A careful survey of our political landscape reveals that the Obidients do not attack individuals simply for opposing Obi. Rather, they go after those whose political conduct appears devoid of reason and steeped in malice – those who, instead of engaging within the limits of civilised opposition, resort to unprincipled warfare. A prime example in the South East is Governor Charles Cain Soludo, who appears perpetually bent on cutting down his younger brother, Mr Peter Abel Obi. Closely allied to him in temperament, though far more crude and unrefined, is Engr Dave Umahi.

There is not a method by which the emotions of the people can be aroused or inflamed that Umahi is not prepared to employ. He has perfected the politics of emotional provocation, ethnic insinuation and calculated grievance, deploying each whenever it suits the political moment.

In any civilised polity, a man of Umahi’s current standing should be busy answering serious questions arising from controversies that have surrounded his political career, including the young lady that recently died in his house. Instead, he surfaced a few days ago to proclaim that Ebonyi people should not vote for Igbos originating from outside Ebonyi State. He singled out Peter Obi, ridiculously challenging him to name a single Ebonyi indigene he employed during his tenure as governor. He also accused Obi of maintaining silence when a street in Anambra State was  renamed from Abakaliki Street to Club Road. I remember that I personally wrote against it, describing it as a harebrained act by Gov. Willie Obiano, probably borne out of his obsession with clubs, which he himself visited with abandon.

Could one witness a more breathtaking display of pettiness? This is precisely the malaise Obi laments daily: how desperate politicians weaponise religion, ethnicity and tribalism to fracture the Nigerian polity whenever it serves their fleeting ambitions. Whenever it seems to the oppressors that the people are coming together, they resort to such narratives to divide them and usually end up wounding those fabrics that hold us together. 

The pertinacity with which Umahi sometimes speaks unadulterated nonsense is rivalled only by Soludo. Governor Hope Uzodimma may harbour bigger political ambitions in the coming dispensation, but the difference lies in the need to study his maturity, composure and political restraint. Ambition, after all, is not merely about how loudly one announces oneself; it is also about the discipline with which one carries oneself when power is within reach.

When figures like Obi act, they do so on the bedrock of humanity, justice and fairness – never on the parochial calculus of geographic origin. As governor, he did not favour his native town of Agulu. He treated the entire state with equitable balance. He was perhaps the rare governor who refused to populate his government with blood relatives. The late Chief Nwobu-Alor, whom critics occasionally cite as his uncle in government, was actually appointed by Dame Virgy Etiaba during Obi’s brief impeachment. As governor, with Agulu having already claimed its large share of representation, it received no other portfolio in his cabinet – a sharp departure from the nepotistic norm. This is precisely one of the reasons Nigerians believe in his ability to unity the fractured polity. Have you seen PBAT appointments? Over 98% of grade one appointments went to his tribe and friends. Is this how to rescue the country? 

Today, by contrast, Professor Soludo maintains a cabinet heavily populated by indigenes of Isuofia. Birds of a feather flock together; and, true to form, Umahi’s administration was frequently criticised for the prominence given to members of his family and close associates. Reports have even placed his son at the helm of a local government council. Can anyone honestly miss the chasm between such political instincts and those of Peter Obi? No wonder that, even as the people of Ebonyi State have rejected both him and his statement, it is only Soludo’s aides  that are defending him with such vehemence as seen in Izuchukwu Adichie and Ejimofor Opara. These characters appear willing to even estrange their own wives should they support Obi. 

As governor, Obi was entirely blind to ethnic provenance. In fact, some of his senior security details, including the head of his DSS detail, hailed from Ebonyi State. Out of respect for protocol, I withhold their names, though I have no doubt that Umahi’s present posturing must strike many of them as deeply hypocritical.

During the height of COVID-19, Obi constituted a high-powered team – comprising Prof Chinyere Stella Okunna (the leader), Prof Patrick Obi and myself – to tour hospitals nationwide distributing palliatives. We visited every single state in the South East, including Ebonyi. Obi himself has personally visited educational institutions in Ebonyi, such as the Mater Misericordiae College of Nursing Sciences in Afikpo, offering them generous financial support. How else does Umahi expect him to demonstrate goodwill? Or did Umahi expect him to issue formal proclamations over the renaming of Abakaliki Street? By that skewed logic, Umahi might one day demand that Obi intervene personally in a brawl between rival street urchins  from Ebonyi state and Anambra at an Anambra motor park or risk being classified as anti Ebonyi State. 

I recall vividly that in 2019, when Obi was chosen as the running mate to Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Umahi led the opposition to the choice. When Atiku insisted against all odds, Umahi put on a theatrical display of support. I remember accompanying Obi one early morning to see Umahi in Abakaliki. The meeting culminated in Umahi being handed a bag, after which he rattled off the names of four other individuals who, he said, deserved similar packages. Disturbed and deeply uneasy, I later told Obi that I expected someone of Umahi’s supposed stature to independently sponsor the Ebonyi campaign as a genuine sign of solidarity. Little did I know then that the man was a dangerous undertaker, merely waiting for the opportune moment to deliver a knock-out blow to Obi.

The warped mindset that governs Umahi’s approach to fellow Igbos is the same mindset with which he governed Ebonyi State. In a frantic, breathless rush to make Ebonyi outpace its peers, he engaged in vanity projects borne out of  “ajo obi”.  He invested heavily in projects such as an airport whose utility and economic justification became subjects of considerable public debate. What a man; what a stunted philosophy of governance!

Umahi has passed through virtually every conceivable form of political controversy, intrigue, alliance and liaison. Yet he seems perpetually imprisoned by the heritage of grievance he himself has helped to construct. Always looking backwards, always searching for an enemy, always finding another group of people to blame.

He is a Judas to every truth that stands in the way of his immediate calculation; and, in his more destructive moments, he resembles the proverbial mad dog that bites everyone within reach. Such politics may generate headlines, but it cannot build the fraternity that the Igbo nation – and indeed Nigeria – desperately needs.

Have you ever watched Dave Umahi closely? His public interventions often carry the unmistakable impression of a man permanently engaged in political combat. With his ceaseless antics, divisive actions and inflammatory pronouncements, one is tempted to ask whether some politicians have forgotten that public office is ultimately an instrument of service rather than a permanent theatre of personal warfare.

Nigeria cannot be rebuilt on such incestuous reasoning. A country of more than two hundred million people cannot afford leaders who tell citizens that the accident of birthplace should determine whom they may support, employ or regard as their brother. Peter Obi’s record in Anambra offers a different proposition: that public office should enlarge the circle of citizenship rather than shrink it, whereas Umahi’s latest intervention seeks to reduce that circle to the narrow boundaries of birthplace. That is not statesmanship; it is the politics of fear, grievance and exclusion. And at a time when Nigeria needs leaders capable of rising above such narrow calculations, what the country needs is not more politics of division, but the kind of inclusive, humane and nationally minded leadership that Peter Obi has consistently represented.