Abia governorship race – Man proposes

Many times, we are faced with the news that reminds us of the saying, “life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.” Even the successes of our best-laid plans are hinged on assumptions of the future that we have little control over. From time to time, life happens, and we realise that those assumptions are merely educated guesses.

For the Abia State PDP chapter, the way life happened was that life stopped happening. The PDP’s governorship candidate in Abia, Professor Uchenna Ikonne passed away early on the morning of 25 January 2023 at the National Hospital, Abuja due to multiple cardiac arrests. He had been ill for a while and was recovering after getting treatment in the United Kingdom, but he suffered a relapse after he returned. The deceased, a former Vice-Chancellor of the Abia State University, Uturu, got the PDP ticket after winning the governorship primary election that was held at the Umuahia Township Stadium. It is unclear if he will be replaced by his running mate or the runner-up at the PDP primaries, Lucky Igbokwe, because per the Electoral Act as amended, the PDP in the state now has to conduct another primary.

The dark cloud cast by the sad death of Professor Ikonne does have a silver lining for the opposition in an Abia State that is quite dissatisfied with the performance of the outgoing governor, Okezie Ikpeazu. The 2023 Abia State gubernatorial election will happen on 11 March 2023, and the six weeks left will not be enough to sell a new candidate, so the PDP’s chances depend on how much the people trust the party itself, not the candidate. Abia State has a lot of challenges, and security is a crucial factor with the state being the homeland of Nnamdi Kanu, the founder of the separatist group, Independent People of Biafra (IPOB). Voter turnout is usually poor, although the emergence of a major Igbo presidential candidate will boost voting numbers, and the opposition in Abia will be hoping to take advantage of this to unseat the ruling PDP.

There are some decent contestants. First is the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) candidate, Gregory Ibe, the chancellor of Gregory University. Another is the APC candidate, Ikechi Emenike, who had his position affirmed by an Appeal Court ruling that validated the primary he emerged from over the outcome of a parallel primary election that had produced Uche Ogah as its winner. The most attractive name on the ballot, however, will be Alex Otti. The accomplished banker, economist and businessman who was a former Group Managing Director of Diamond Bank had previously contested on the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA)’s platform. He was even briefly the governor after an Appeal Court ruling declared him the winner of the 2015 governorship elections, and removed Okezie Ikpeazu of the Peoples Democratic Party as governor of Abia State. This was, however, short-lived as the Supreme Court later reversed the Court of Appeal’s judgement and Okezie Ikpeazu reclaimed the governorship position. Alex Otti is now the candidate of the red-hot Labour Party that’s been buoyed by the presidential campaign of Peter Obi, and while he was arguably the strongest candidate already, the unfortunate passing away of Professor Ikonne has most likely positioned him as the possible winner. If Alex Otti doesn’t get it done now, he might have noother chances.