By Kevin Oji
Ebonyi State is once again bleeding and the fingerprints of impunity point unmistakably in the direction of those who operate the levers of power in the state. What played out recently at Ikwuato, Idembia in Ezza South Local Government Area was not a spontaneous breakdown of law and order, it was the predictable harvest by a governor who has spent the better part of his tenure sowing intolerance and now finds himself desperate to reap political survival by any means necessary.
Nigeria’s history is littered with the wreckage of governors and political office holders who, sensing the ground shifting beneath them, chose the path of coercion over persuasion. Governor Francis Nwifuru appears determined to write himself into what can be aptly described as an inglorious chapter. Rather than campaign on a record he can defend, he is increasingly content to let violence do the talking on his behalf and Ebonyi State is paying the price for his political insecurity.
Mr. Ifeanyi Nworie, an influential politician who had chosen to move from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), organised a rally to formally announce his defection. Ordinarily, this event should have been an unremarkable exercise of the constitutional right to freedom of association. Instead, over fifty thugs suspected to be loyal to the APC in Ebonyi State stormed the venue, a roadside village square and unleashed unbridled violence on law abiding citizens. Plastic chairs, canopies and vehicles were destroyed. At least ten PDP members sustained varying degrees of injuries. Even Journalists who had gone to cover the event were also attacked.
This orgy of violence is an assault not merely on the PDP or on Mr. Nworie, but on democracy itself in Ebonyi State. The rally was originally scheduled to be held at a modest roadside village square, hardly the setting of a grand political spectacle, but a legitimate gathering of law abiding citizens. The attackers did not wait to see whether the event would proceed peacefully. The moment they sighted anyone suspected of attending, violence erupted. Property was destroyed indiscriminately: chairs, canopies, tables and vehicles, were smashed and scattered as though the mere act of assembling to support a defector was itself a crime deserving of destruction.
That journalists were also targeted should worry every democrat in the state, regardless of party affiliation. A free press is not an appendage of any political party; it is the eyes and ears of the public. When journalists are attacked simply for showing up to record events as they unfold, the message being sent is unmistakable: even the truth is not welcome if it is inconvenient to those in power.
This attack did not happen in a vacuum. It is a direct and foreseeable consequence of Governor Francis Nwifuru’s own inflammatory rhetoric. At a rally to endorse President Bola Tinubu and himself for a second term, the governor threatened to “consume” opposition leaders in the state whom he accused of fomenting trouble. When a sitting governor speaks the language of unbridled violence and threat against political opponents, his followers perceive it as a green light, not a warning. What happened at Ikwuato, Idembia is that green light in action.
This is a pattern with Governor Nwifuru. He is a leader given to inflammatory conduct whenever he feels the ground shifting beneath his feet politically. For the avoidance of doubt, each of his outbursts exposes not strength, but the anxiety of a governor increasingly troubled by the prospect of rejection at the polls in 2027.
Leadership, if properly understood, is measured in the language of service, roads built, schools equipped, functional hospitals and jobs created. A governor who reaches first for threats and intimidation rather than measured engagement when confronted with political competition is a governor who has run out of legitimate arguments. It is far easier to threaten an opponent into silence than to out-perform him at the ballot box, and Governor Nwifuru’s conduct increasingly suggests a man who understands this trade-off all too well.
Having failed to deliver the basic dividends of democracy to the people of Ebonyi State, Governor Nwifuru has resorted to manufacturing scapegoats and conspiracy theories in a desperate bid for cheap public sympathy ahead of next year’s governorship election. It is far easier to cast the opposition as violent troublemakers than to answer the simple question every Ebonyi citizen deserves an answer to: what exactly has this administration achieved in more than three years in office?
Instead of political blackmail, unfounded allegations and threats to unleash state resources against opponents, the governor should be devoting his energy to explaining his record in office. There is a great deal to explain. In spite of the praises of his spin doctors, Nwifuru’s score card reads like a parchment of corruption and scroll of iniquities
At the inception of his administration, a staggering N24 billion was reportedly expended on renovating the Ebonyi State airport. More than two years later, the airport remains commercially unviable, unable to attract meaningful economic activity or deliver any tangible benefit to the people who footed the bill. For a state with no shortage of pressing needs, that is not a minor accounting footnote, it is a monument of misplaced priorities that deserves far more scrutiny than it has received. The undisclosed beneficiaries of the administration’s much-publicised overseas scholarship programme remain a mystery. Who are the. beneficiaries? On what criteria were they selected? Are they the children of the politically connected, or genuinely indigent students with nowhere else to turn? The people of Ebonyi deserve transparency, not silence, on a programme funded with public money.
Basic education in the state continues to deteriorate under his watch. Dilapidated class rooms, poorly motivated teachers and declining learning outcomes tell a story that no amount of press-release optimism can embellish.
Billions of naira have been budgeted for the renovation of traditional rulers’ palaces at a time when the vast majority of Ebonyi people wallow in abject poverty and struggle for basic survival. There is nothing wrong with honouring traditional institutions, but when palace renovation competes favourably with classrooms and clinics for the state’s scarce resources, something has gone badly wrong with the government’s vision and sense of priority.
Taken together, these are not the marks of a government struggling with difficult trade-offs in a season of scarcity. They are the marks of a government that has lost sight of whom it is meant to serve. These are the questions that should occupy a governor seeking re-election, not the chasing of shadows, vilification of a defector’s rally, not the deployment of thugs against unarmed citizens and journalists.
Governor Nwifuru must be reminded that the 2027 governorship election is, at its core, a referendum on his stewardship of Ebonyi State. It will not be won through propaganda, thuggery, intimidation or blackmail. Elections are ultimately decided by the people, and no amount of manufactured violence against opposition figures can substitute for a genuine record of performance, a record this administration has conspicuously struggled to produce.
The attempt to muzzle the opposition, to make defection to a rival party a dangerous and bloody affair, is the conduct of a government that fears the ballot box more than it fears public condemnation. That fear is telling. A confident incumbent with a solid record does not need thugs to guard his political future; he lets his projects and his people’s testimonies speak for him. That Governor Nwifuru has chosen the opposite path speaks volumes about how he privately assesses his own chances in 2027.
Democracy in Ebonyi State cannot be allowed to become a contest of who can field the most thugs or issue the most chilling threats. Every citizen, whether APC, PDP, Labour Party or APGA, NDC has a constitutional right to associate freely, to attend political rallies, and to switch party loyalty without fear of bodily harm. A government that cannot guarantee this basic right has failed at one of the most fundamental obligations of governance: the protection of life and property.
President Bola Tinubu, the Nigeria Police Force and other security agencies cannot afford to look away. Governor Nwifuru must be called to order before his inordinate ambition plunges Ebonyi State into deeper chaos. Those behind the attack at Ikwuato Idembia and whoever sponsored them must be identified, arrested and prosecuted. Anything less will confirm the growing suspicion that political violence in Ebonyi State now enjoys official protection.
Ebonyi State does not need a governor who consumes his opponents. It needs one who can account for himself.