By Ogbonnaya Kalu, JP

I often tell people that democracy does not always select the best. Democracy allows people to choose whomever they want. In most cases, people choose those they think will deliver to them what they want. Unfortunately, the things people want are often defined and determined by the majority of the stakeholders and elites of
the society.

Today in Nigeria, the elites are the ones crumbling the country and not
the farmers in the villages and definitely not the artisans and traders in their various markets. Thus, anyone perceived by these gatekeepers as a likely threat to their selfish and inordinate machinations is likely to receive truncating and audacious resistance by a conglomerate of the gatekeepers that are only united by their inglorious insatiable belly-motivated actions often wrapped in deceptive charming public verbose.

High Chief Ikechi Emenike has been a victim of these gate keepers in
Abia State. Permit me to say in passing that many others have suffered similar fate in the hands of these gate keepers.
Ikechi Emenike is not a man known for frivolities. He is very rich. He sits in the Board of many companies. He is highly placed in the ruling All Progressives Party (APC). Intriguingly, he has never used these economic and political powers to oppress and intimidate people and has equally not deployed them to manipulate elections in Abia.

He has refused to play dirty, a rare quality among Nigerian politicians. He has never been linked to any form of thuggery or political violence even when it is obvious that he can recruit the powers at the top to unleash mayhem on Abia people, as many of his contemporary politicians do. He has always submitted himself humbly to fairness and issue based politics.

His style of politics is the type that Nigeria desperately needs. It is obvious that he does not want to impose himself on Abia people. He wants to be elected through a transparent and fair process. Unfortunately, the Nigerian system, lubricated by the belly-motivated political gate keepers in Abia, finds such system unbearable because it will put an end to their decades of impunity
and looting of the people’s common wealth. Ikechi believed in a new Abia, where intelligence, creativity, and competence are prominent and adored. Thus, he chose
to live by example. For the gate keepers, therefore, Ikechi must be stopped by all
means.

Interestingly, the greatest number of these gate keepers hold the emblem of APC as members of the Party, but are PDP in heart. I can testify of this because I travelled
down to Abia to exercise my civic responsibility during the just concluded National and State Elections. While Ikechi was busy soliciting for votes across the state in a very peaceful and civilized manner, so many of his party men and women, who hold
very high political appointments at the national level were busy romancing other
political parties and some were even putting obstacles to their party’s victory, brazenly working to undermine the efforts of the High Chief.

The conspiracy of these elites against him was apparent and glaring. I approached one of the highly placed
members of APC in the state, who currently holds a top Federal Board appointment, and asked him why they were not very supportive to High Chief. His answer shocked
me. He said that a Senator told them that if Ikechi wins, they will not be “allowed to partake in the state money”. He went further to say that they want “Abuja to believe that he is not strong in Abia.”

According to him, this is the only way to whittle down his powers in Abuja. I furthered the inquiry and the responses were similar. I returned to Lagos, knowing exactly why my state, the God’s own state, has remained one of the less developed in the country despite her enormous human and economic
potentials.

To my fellow Abians, let us pray Alex Otti does not follow the footsteps of those who have been on the neck of Abia. This is if he wins the barrages of court
cases that may likely greet his announcement as the winner of the just concluded election. Till then, Ikechi remains the Gold that Abia is yet to mine. As the saying
goes, “a prophet is not always honoured in his homeland”. May Nigeria never miss people like him.

Kalu, wrote from Lagos State, Nigeria.