03/03/2023
UCHE ONYEAGOCHA INCAPABLE OF MANAGING ELECTORAL DEFEAT
■ROUNDLY REJECTED BY HIS PEOPLE, MAKES NAUSEATING VOLTE-FACE
We read with dismay a press release from the rejected senatorial candidate of the dying People's Democratic Party (PDP) for Imo East, Uche Onyeagocha, where he laboured in vain to divert attention from the excruciating rejection he suffered at the senatorial election on Saturday, February 25, 2023. Judging by the way he talked, fought everyone and called himself "Manu Oha" - meaning the People's Man, one thought he would have won his election just with a snap of fingers, but all was a fluke. It is rather shocking that after suffering rejection from his people for the fourth time, his comeback strategy was to assume the position of the spokesperson for the Labour Party and malign Governor Hope Uzodimma by accusing him of votes swap. This spurious allegation is nothing but Onyeagocha trademark.
Those who said that the leopard never changes its spots made no mistakes. One can't change one's essential nature. The truism of this time-tested statement is found even in the Holy Bible, where the Prophet Jeremiah in chapter 13:23 posited: "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil."
Some people are just used to doing evil. No matter how hard they try, they end up doing evil and derive pleasure in doing so. People like that are plenty in our clime. They preach evil, hate, division, violence, treachery, and calamity. They are not peace-loving but are rather driven by their inordinate ambition.
One of such people we have in Imo is Uche Onyeagocha. Onyeagocha's story with evil and treachery is legendary, and we will not bother ourselves repeating the story well known to the people. It is rather embarrassing that he is not bothered about the total rejection of his party across the Southeast but is bothered about another party's affairs, attempting to remove the speck in another person's eye but ignores the log in his own eye.
Onyeagocha's attempts to force himself as the spokesperson for Owerri Zone have been roundly rejected by the people. In 2003, when his people tried him with the House of Representatives position for Owerri Federal Constituency under APGA, he botched it. They punished him when he ran for the office of the governor in 2007. In 2011, he tried to go to the Senate, but his people rejected him once more. In 2019, he tried once more to deceive his people to become governor under APGA, but he was rejected and couldn't come close to the APGA guber ticket. Just on Saturday, February 25, 2023, his people rejected him for the upteenth time as their senator.
It appears Onyeagucha didn't get the import of the Saturday's rejection by the nine LGAs of Imo East. He is trying another trick, which is to now transform himself into a busy body, speaking for the Labour Party. But what he does not know is that he has become a sore loser. Unable to manage his excruciating loss, he is forcing himself to be the spokesperson of the Labour Party, thinking that the best way to start is accusing Governor Hope Uzodimma of manipulating the senatorial election in Imo East, which he lost. He wants to bully everyone else and blames everyone else but himself for his record-breaking rejection by the people of Imo East who know him better than he knows himself.
Onyeagocha was a candidate of the PDP for the just concluded senatorial election in Imo East. The Labour Party also fielded a candidate for the same election, and he happens to be the same man Onyeagocha pushed out of the PDP to grab the party's senatorial ticket. He had vowed to humiliate the man, but as fate would have it, defeat came down hard and crushed him instead.
It is not difficult to identify Onyeagocha as a pathological, incorrigible and serial liar. If Governor Hope Uzodimma was swapping Labour Party's results to the APC, why did he not do so for the senatorial election and the House of Representatives election, which held same time and same place? Or, was Onyeagocha saying that the governor did not need to win those elections?
By his claims, Onyeagocha has admitted his clumsy outing at the just concluded Imo East senatorial election. Otherwise, why did he not talk about his own results? What happened to them? Is he ashamed of his results that he chose to gloss over them? What does he have to tell Imo PDP that invested their hopes and aspirations in him? Excuses! Hope this, Hope that!
Onyeagocha is exhibiting traits of a pathetic electoral failure. He pretends to love his people and gives them fake smiles, but they know him. They know that he is self-seeking and divisive. When Onyeagocha stabbed Okorocha in the back, he thought his people would receive him, but they turned their back on him. When in 2020, he hounded Okorocha and family, thinking he would be in the good books of the people, they alienated themselves from him.
Onyeagocha's problem is not Governor Hope Uzodimma. His problem is that he has not been able to read the room. He finds it difficult to accept his reality, which is that he has been roundly rejected by his people. This is the truth he cannot stomach, and we will continue to tell him, nevertheless.
By his loss last Saturday, Onyeagocha has perpetually lost the mandate to speak for his people. Anything to the contrary will amount to usurpation of authority.
Collins Ughalaa KSC, Special Adviser to Governor Hope Uzodimma on Public Communication.
March 3, 2023.
