By Ikechukwu Amaechi

THIS is to notify the general public that this may be my last acts as a human as my house in Umukegwu Akokwa is under heavy attack currently. As I pen this, all the cars in my house have been set ablaze and there is heavy shooting for the past 25 mins.

Painfully, as I speak to you, I saw them kill my father’s younger brother, Uncle Dan. I pray and call for urgent help from anybody who can help. The attackers are shooting at every one in the house and this is an urgent cry for help.”

These were the heart-piercing words of Ikenga Ugochinyere, spokesman of the Conference of United Political Parties, CUPP, on Saturday, January 14 when gunmen waged a ferocious war on his country home. It was, to borrow a military parlance, a scorched earth operation.

He survived but his uncle, Dan, and two others were gruesomely murdered. Thirty-two vehicles, most of them for campaigns, were burnt; buildings were levelled with explosives. The destruction beggars belief. Ugochinyere, who was apparently at home when the attackers arrived, sent out the above SOS message, backed with several videos and photographs, 25 minutes into the assault.

The video clips were like a horror film. Watching them was blood-curdling. Obviously, those who launched the attack came to kill and not to take prisoners and they had a field day without the Nigerian state lifting a finger. That was the second time he would be attacked in less than one month.

On December 23, 2022, his convoy was also attacked in Imo. In all these, the security agencies have been, at best, lukewarm in their reaction. That is worrisome. Ikenga Ugochinyere is not only the spokesman of the opposition, he is also a House of Representatives candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, for Ideato Federal Constituency in the 2023 polls and a critic of the Governor Hope Uzodimma-led All Progressives Congress, APC, administration in Imo State. 

Going by his antecedents as an opposition figure, he deserves protection by the Nigerian State knowing the temperament of Nigerian political leaders in positions of authority. For instance, on September 14, 2022, the CUPP raised alarm that some forces were adulterating the voters’ register of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC; secretly initiated a court case to compel INEC to stop the use of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, and pressuring the INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, to drop his hard stance on compulsory use of the BVAS or get sacked. 

Addressing a press conference in Abuja, Ikenga Ugochinyere said the CUPP discovered that a suit had been filed at the Owerri Federal High Court on August 24, 2022 and pointedly accused Uzodimma of being behind it.

“The intelligence CUPP intercepted, which has led to the discovery of the suit filed seeking to nullify the BVAS and exposure of the massive compromise in the voters register cannot now be wrong that the third leg of the plot is to sack the National Chairman through a suspension as the plotters know they cannot get the required numbers from the National Assembly for an outright sack,” Ugochinyere said. These accusations, no doubt, riled the Imo State government to no end and he was declared a persona non grata. 

Coincidentally, the bloody attack on his country home took place on the third anniversary of the January 14, 2020 Supreme Court judgement that sacked the PDP-led administration of Emeka Ihedioha, former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, and handed victory to Uzodimma, the APC candidate who came a distant fourth in the election. So, the PDP cried foul, calling it “an attempt by the usurpers of our mandate to intimidate and silence Imo PDP”.   

“That Ikenga Imo Ugochinyere stands out in pro-democracy struggles in Nigeria is one thing these undemocratic elements in Imo State cannot tolerate. It is, therefore, telling that the forces of darkness in Imo chose to mark the third anniversary of their January 14, 2020 imposition through blood and fire, and by their failed plot to eliminate Ikenga Ugochinyere, one of democracy’s strongest defenders.

This is obviously not the Imo of our dreams,” the opposition party lamented. Expectedly, the Uzodimma government fired back. Short of saying that Ikenga Ugochinyere, who they called a demented mind and attention seeker, stage-managed the burning of his own property just to attract attention to himself and call the Uzodimma government a bad name, the Imo State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Declan Emelumba, said the CUPP spokesman was the architect of his own ordeal. 

“A man who is at loggerhead with his party national chairman, a man who is working with anti-democratic forces to cancel the upcoming elections and a man at loggerhead with some of his kinsmen should know when nemesis is after him and stop crying wolf.

His ordeal is certainly not from Imo State Government,” the Commissioner said and wondered why the PDP that said nothing when the country home of Governor Uzodimma was attacked, is now complaining when one of their own has suffered the same fate. Of course, there have been high profile killings in Imo in the last three years and arson has become the weapon of political assault.

Imo State has become an exemplar of the “wild wild west” of the 1960s where “operation wetie” reigned supreme. Countless homes, including that of late Professor George Obiozor, former President of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, have been torched. The former governor of the State, Chief Ikedi Ohakim, and two of his children escaped death by the whiskers on January 2, when gunmen attacked his convoy killing four of his police aides.

But one fact which has emerged from the attack on Ikenga Ugochinyere’s country home is that these atrocities are not committed by the much-maligned Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB. What is going on in Imo State is a fratricidal war waged by determined political gangs.

Imo has become the Hobbesian state of nature – violence of all against all. In this war of attrition, there are the non-state actors, the so-called unknown gunmen, faceless and amorphous; then there are the quasi-state actors – Ebube Agu – a militia group set up by Uzodimma to fight real and perceived enemies, and of course, the state actors – police, DSS, military, etc.

All of them are involved in this unconscionable shedding of innocent blood. In this jungle called Imo State, anyone could be killed for any reason whatsoever. The only crime you will commit to be a victim is to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. And you know what? That wrong place could even be bedroom. That is why it is so frightening and why so many Imolites are keeping away from the State that used to be Nigeria’s hospitality hub. 

And it will only get worse. Those who have been worsted now, bid their time waiting for the opportune time to settle scores believing in Don Vito Corleone’s quip in Mario Puzo’s classic bestseller, The Godfather that: “Revenge is a dish best served cold.” Truth be told, government is complicit in the ongoing mayhem in Imo State. Governor Uzodimma needs to be separated from his equally determined adversaries in this dance of death. It is high time the elders of Alaigbo stepped into the arena, otherwise Armageddon beckons.