By Ezeh Emmanuel Ezeh, PhD
“A politician may build a machinery of power, but cannot claim ownership of a people. That is the distinction at the heart of my concern about David Umahi’s political ambitions in Ebonyi and their implications for Alaigbo.”
Umahi it appears ultimately wants to build a Tinubu-style political legacy in Alaigbo. His approach mirrors the rhetorics that helped Bola Tinubu consolidate power in Lagos, rhetorics that often defined insiders and outsiders and transformed political loyalty into a dominant governing culture. Yet, unlike Tinubu’s model, Umahi’s project appears even more insidious in its implications for Alaigbo.
Tinubu built a broad pyramid of interests: pseudo-intellectual defenders, religious entrepreneurs, political operatives, grassroots mobilisers and street enforcers, all bound together by a common stake in the system. Whatever one may think of that model, it was expansive enough to accommodate diverse interests and competing ambitions. Umahi’s political architecture on the other hand is far less inclusive. It is narrower, more insular and more dependent on personal loyalty than broad coalition-building
But enduring political influence is not the same as enduring public service. The true measure of leadership is what citizens can achieve because a leader held office, not how many offices remain within that leader’s circle after he leaves.
My concern is deeper than succession politics. It is the prospect of political ambition weakening the bonds that have sustained our people across generations.
I read Umahi’s recent outbursts towards Ndi Anambra in that light. What troubles me is the suggestion that political disagreement should become estrangement between communities; that people joined by commerce, marriage, mentorship and shared history should begin to regard one another as outsiders.
Politicians quarrel. Alliances change. Power passes from one person to another. None of these should require us to turn brothers into strangers.
Alaigbo cannot be reduced to any politician’s sphere of influence. Its strength has been built through the daily work of traders, teachers, apprentices, entrepreneurs, families and communities. These relationships cross state boundaries because our shared life has always been larger than the administrative lines drawn around it.
For me, this is personal.
I attended primary school in Onitsha and secondary school and university in Enugu. I married from Imo. My business life has taken me through Anambra, Aba, Enugu and Imo. Across these places, I have found opportunity, friendship, mentorship and belonging.
As states were created and identities were administratively reassigned, I moved from being described as Onye Anambra to Onye Enugu and eventually Onye Ebonyi. The labels changed. The relationships that shaped me did not.
I remain proudly Onye Igbo.
That identity does not diminish my attachment to Ebonyi or my citizenship of Nigeria. It gives both a deeper foundation. I can love my state without resenting another. I can defend the interests of Ndi Ebonyi without denying the people who helped us find our feet.
When I walk through Mgbuka Obosi, Eke Awka, Onitsha Main Market or Nkwo Nnewi, I see more than trading centres. I see places where Ebonyi sons and daughters found opportunities that changed the direction of their lives.
I see apprentices who became employers, young people who acquired skills, and families who built a future through enterprise. For many, those markets offered a route out of hardship and into dignity.
These connections are not abstractions. They have names, homes and histories.
The Dike family of Oranto Village helped give me the foundation upon which I stand. To this day, a room remains reserved for me in Engr Timothy Dike’s family home in Oranto village Ukpo. Mrs Chinwe Dike, whom I regard as a mother, still buys me Christmas gifts as though I were a child. Whenever she returns to Nigeria, her presence draws us together again.
That is family.
I spent years around Chief Arthur Eze’s annual Ofala festivities in Ukpo. I know Ozo Igbo Ndu’s home better than I know parts of my ancestral village in Izzi.
Dr Benjack Nwankwo has been more than a professional mentor; he has treated me as a father would a son. I regard Arthur Nwankwo’s family as my own. Chief Akachukwu Nwankpo of Okija helped shape the entrepreneurial vision that guides my life. I know the villages of Agulu, Mr Peter Obi’s hometown, almost as well as I know my own community.
These people are pillars in the story of my becoming. They are Ndi Anambra.
How could I hear rhetoric that diminishes them and pretend it has nothing to do with me? What would my silence say about the love, encouragement and generosity I have received?
No political speech can erase that history. No ambition can cancel decades of friendship, sacrifice and shared survival.
Ironically, the state in which I have repeatedly struggled to establish meaningful business roots is my own, Ebonyi.
I do not attribute that difficulty to a lack of opportunity or enterprise among our people. My concern, drawn from my experience, is a political environment in which access can seem too dependent on loyalty, proximity to power and patronage.
That is the culture I challenge.
An Ebonyi entrepreneur should be able to succeed through competence and hard work. An independent mind should be able to contribute without first demonstrating allegiance to a political patron. Public institutions should serve citizens fairly, including those who disagree with the people in office.
These are basic expectations of democratic government.
The comparison with Tinubu’s Lagos therefore raises a question more important than whether Umahi can build a dynasty: what would such a dynasty deliver for ordinary Ebonyians?
Would it expand opportunity? Would it strengthen institutions? Would it allow competing ideas and independent enterprise to flourish? Or would it make access to public life increasingly dependent on belonging to the right political circle?
A political legacy deserves respect when it leaves citizens more capable and institutions more accountable. Buildings and monuments may form part of that legacy, but they cannot substitute for livelihoods, fair access or freedom of thought.
The same principle applies to relations within Alaigbo. No leader serves Ndi Ebonyi by encouraging resentment towards communities with whom we share so much. We can debate political choices vigorously while preserving the relationships that have sustained our families and businesses.
Our shared identity does not demand political uniformity. Ndi Anambra, Ndi Ebonyi and every other part of Alaigbo will continue to hold different views and support different candidates. That is democracy. Those differences should never become a test of who belongs.
Let Umahi pursue his political vision. Let citizens examine it, question it and decide whether it serves them. But neither Ebonyi nor the wider Igbo family should be treated as territory to be possessed.
Ebonyi is not a personal estate. Public office is a responsibility entrusted by citizens. Our identity is not a gift bestowed by those who govern us.
My support for Peter Obi rests on my belief that he offers a more inclusive political aspiration for Alaigbo and Nigeria. Others are entitled to disagree. What none of us should accept is a political culture that mistakes dominance for leadership or personal loyalty for public duty.
Long before today’s officeholders arrived, our people were building lives together. Long after their ambitions have passed into history, those relationships will remain.
Some of us carry that history within us. We have lived it, been shaped by it and been sustained by it.
A politician may influence who holds office. He cannot inherit our memories, own our gratitude or sever the bonds that make us a people.
For as long as I live, I will remain proudly Ebonyi, proudly Nigerian and proudly Onye Igbo. And I will choose the unity of our people over the ambitions of any political dynasty.
Dr Ezeh Emmanuel Ezeh, an Oxford-trained entrepreneur and public affairs commentator, is the Labour Party candidate for Abakaliki/Izzi Federal Constituency. He is a former Deputy President of the South East Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (SECCIMA) and currently serves as President of the Ebonyi Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (EBCCIMA). He wrote this piece from Onitsha, Anambra State.