.jpeg)
IS UMAHI TRADING HIS PEOPLE FOR POLITICAL AMBITION?
BY DONS EZE
Ebonyi State Governor, Engineer Dave Umahi, is not looking back in his quest to be President, or Vice President of Nigeria come 2023. That was why he quickly resigned from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the party which he was State Chairman, which made him Deputy Governor, and made him Governor for two terms, and decamped to the ruling All Peoples Congress (APC).
Since then, Umahi has been restless. He has been firing on cilinders, shouting himself hoarse, while making one spurious accusation after the other, against his own people, thus selling them in the process.
Last week, when it appeared to Governor Umahi that his voice was not being heard loud enough, particularly with some other people showing strong interest in the same position he has been angling for, he quickly moved to Aso Rock, the country’s seat of power, to address a press conference, with President Buhari’s spokesperson, Femi Adesina, moderating the press conference, just to tell the world that his people were “killers”.
Femi, in an article titled, “Governor Umahi’s Thesis”, stated that while other leaders of the South East called those who burn down police stations, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) offices, and other federal assets in the South East, and kill scores of policemen, “unknown gunmen”, Dave Umahi was bold enough to address them not in any borrowed garb.
According to Femi, when asked who he thought were responsible for the brigandages in the South East, Gov. Umahi was deadpan: “We are the ones killing ourselves, not foreigners. We have to tell ourselves the truth, if we want the problem solved.”
Femi further told us that Umahi, while disassociating himself from Biafra agitation, declared: “I want a Biafra of equity and justice, not one of killing policemen and burning of INEC offices”.
In other words, Umahi had concluded that those who burn down police stations and INEC offices, those who kill policemen in the South East, were those agitating for Biafra. This is unfortunate.
But Umahi was later to contradict himself when he asserted that “killing is not the character and culture of our people. It is sheer criminality”. He however told agitators in the South East to give the leadership of the region their demands, “and we will address them within six months”. Beautiful.
But if, according to Dave Umahi, those agitating for Biafra were responsible for the burning down of police stations, INEC and other offices, and killing of policemen in the South East, we would like him to tell us those who were responsible for arson and killings in other parts of the country like in Benue, Plateau, Delta, Ondo, and many other parts of the country. Are all these also Biafra agitators?
Gov Dave Umahi’s assertion obviously contradicts the position of Gov Hope Uzodinma of Imo State, who last week also told us that over 70 percent of the 400 people arrested in Imo State and being prosecuted for attacking the state, did not come from the South East.
No doubt, we will align more with Hope Uzodinma, who asserted that most of the people causing mayhem in the South East were foreigners, rather than the spurious claims and wild allegations of Dave Umahi that “we are the ones killing ourselves”.
Since Umahi had stated that 99 percent of those killed by “unknown gunmen” were from the South East, one then wonders what the Biafra agitators would gain by killing their own people.
Furthermore, Hope Uzodinma’s claim that over 70 percent of the 400 people arrested were foreigners, is verifiable since all necessary profiles, such as names and places of origin of the attackers, must have been carried out, while Dave Umahi did not tell us how he generated his own data by concluding that it was Biafra agitators that carried all the attacks.
So, for Dave Umahi, in his morbid ambition to be Vice President, (of course he knows that President will be far-fetched), it is easy to disparage his own people, and call them “killers.” His belief was that it would be sweet-sounding to the ears of those he thought would make him Vice President. That was why he chose Aso Rock as venue for the press conference, and got Buhari’s spokesperson to anchor the programme. We congratulate him.
A nation neither forgets, nor forgives any of its traitors. After doing some little research, we came up with names of some big betrayals in world history.
We have names like Alfred Redl, an Austrian military officer who, during the World War I, sold sensitive information about the Austrian army to Czarist Russia. He exposed multiple Austrian agents to the Russians, and fed wrong information to his own people about the opponent’s military strength.
These contributed to the killings of more than 500,000 Austrians. Redl committed suicide shortly after the Austrian secret service found out that he was working as a spy for the Russians.
These was also Wang Jingwei in pre-communist China. When China was under the threat of Japanese invasion, the Japanese told Jingwei to make a “puppet” government in Nanking in return for conceding Nanking. Jingwei agreed, and in a radio address, he announced the concession.
Just a year before the Japanese surrender, Jingwei died and was buried in Nanking. The Chinese ultimately regained control of Nanking when the war ended. They destroyed Jingwei’s tomb and burnt his remains for betraying them.
Again, during the World War II, Harold ‘Paul’ Cole, was the deputy commander of Scotland Yard. He disclosed secret information to the Nazis about the French resistance escape lines, which he himself had helped to create. He also gave information about the locations of French resistance leaders to the Axis alliance. His betrayal resulted in the deaths of at least 150 people. The French police killed Cole in 1946.
Of course, we are all familiar with the case between Marcus Junius Brutus and Julius Caesar, a Roman general, whose life came to an end when Marcus Junius Brutus, his own nephew, plotted to assassinate him.
The Romans were not happy with Caeser and that was when Brutus joined the Roman Senate. Brutus, along with a few other Senators attacked Caesar and murdered him. Caesar’s last words were, “Et tu, Brutus? “Even you, Brutus”?
We sincerely pray that Dave Nweze Umahi will not be like any of these people.
Dr. Dons Eze, KSJI
