By Uzoma Nwachukwu
It needs no exaggeration to say that the forth coming (2027) general elections promise to be the most exciting and keenly contested since the beginning of the current Forth Republic. Even though the optics revolves mostly around the presidential contest, there are clear signs that there will be very interesting moments and encounters at the subnational level.
Take a state like Imo. There (here), so much is already being said about the planned return of Governor Hope Uzodimma to the senate. But the thing that excites the people mostly is that Governor Uzodimma, if he wins the senatorial election (in his Imo West constituency) in January 2027, will have to relinquish the office of governor for him to be sworn in as a senator in early June, 2027. The implications of that – and which are many – are currently making the rounds in the state. The other topic of interest across the state is the plan by Senator Ifeanyi Araraume to similarly return to the senate. Senator Araraume has processed both the expression of interest and nomination forms to contest the forthcoming primary election in the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the Imo North (Okigwe zone) senate seat. Senator Araraume is planning to return to the senate twenty years after he served out his last term in 2007.
He has been elected twice by his people in Okigwe zone to the senate: 1999 to 2003 and 2003 to 2007. In 2007, he flew the flag of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the governorship election that saw his kinsman, Ikedi Ohakim, emerge as governor after a series of electoral disputes but which is not the concern of this essay.
After his failed bid to become governor in 2007, he again ran for that office in 2011 as a candidate of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria but that effort again proved abortive. He returned to the PDP and in the count down to the 2015 general elections, Senator Araraume ran for the governorship ticket of the party in December 2014 but was brazenly robbed of the ticket in favour of Emeka Ihedioha who eventually flew the party’s flag at the 2015 governorship election. Let’s digress a little to have a peep into what happened.
Chief Arararume was on top of the table as the votes were being counted at the Grass Hoppers stadium, Owerri, venue of the governorship primary election. But while counting the votes of Ihedioha who was trailing behind him, the then PDP state chairman, now a top functionary of the APC administration in the state (names withheld), jumped about four numbers to announce a figure that placed Ihedioha above Araraume by exactly that number. There was an uproar and in the midst of the cacophony, the party officials sent from Abuja to conduct the primary election announced that the figures will be reconciled the following day as it was getting too late, especially as electricity supply in the stadium was cut off.An unsuspecting Araraume, in his characteristic conciliatory manner, had no difficult with that but on getting to the hotel where the Abuja officials were lodged the following morning, he was told that the latter had checked out of the hotel by midnight; and that was how the guber primaries of the Imo PDP for the 2015 governorship election ended in favour of Ihedioha. Senator Araraume’s subsequent move to retrieve his stolen ticket was tagged anti party and he was purportedly expelled.
He later joined the APC and was part of the efforts to retrieve its Imo state wing from the gripa of the then governor, Rochas Okorocha, who had wanted to use it – the APC – to foist his son-in-law on the state as his successor. However, that process led to some internal skirmishes within the APC and in the midst of the unknown, Senator Araraume pitched camp with the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) on which platform he again ran for the office of the governor in the 2019 general elections, finishing in the third position behind Emeka Ihedioha – who again flew the flag of the PDP – and Uche Nwosu of the Action Alliance (AA). In 2020, Senator Arararume attempted to return to the senate by running for the Imo North senatorial bye-election on the platform of the APC but after a judicial rigmarole that got up to the Supreme Court, his main opponent, Frank Ibezim, was returned.
The paragraphs above may serve as an anecdote to the main discourse in this essay; as they would give the reader, especially if he or she is hearing about Senator Ifeanyi Araraume for the first time, an inkling into his political trajectory. The truth, however, is that even for those who have known him since he began his political career, the story of Godwin Ifeanyi Araraume is one that never ceases to excite. It is a story that both the teller and listener would never be bored about.
The story of politics in Nigeria is replete with players or actors who are constantly on the stage, but whom pundits most often tend to write off as “recycled” or “spent”. But not so for Senator Araraume. He is a recurring decimal in the Nigerian political terrain, no doubt, but rather than get bored with him, his numerous admirers across the country keep believing in him. Each set back he suffers draws more admirers to him. Each time he fails to hit his target, his teeming supporters and followers tend to get more fascinated about him, apparently in search of what makes this enigma called Ifeanyi G. Araraume tick.
Apart from personal charm and charisma, Senator Araraume is the most eloquent example of sporstmanship in politics, which is very much lacking in many of his contemporaries and the very bane of politics in this clime. Since the news of his entry into the 2027 electoral activities filtered in, not a few, not just in his native Okigwe zone, but across the entire state, have expressed the view that his involvement in the politicking of this season will bring back verve and enthusiasm into the system. For reasons that are not of material importance at this moment, politics in Imo state in the last six years or so has been generally drab and uneventful. Even though Senator Araraume belongs to the ruling APC, the state of affairs both in the administration of the state and party itself has been such that many political gladiators, even within the APC, decided to tread with caution. To be sure, Governor Hope Uzodimma has done quite well in the area of infrastructural developed, but the general nature of his administration forced many into a rather sidon-look posture.
Still, not many are privy to the fact that Senator Araraume is among those working assiduously behind the scene to ensure that the APC remains strong both at the national and subnational levels. Apart from his closeness to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Araraume’s calm nature and uncommon comportmt put him in a good stead to work quietly for the success of the party without getting involved in unnecessary controversies.
Senator Araraume is seeking to return to the national assembly at a very critical period in the political history of Nigeria. As earlier noted at the beginning of this essay, the 2027 general elections, given the nature of events preceding it, are bound to throw up issues that would recaliberate the dynamics of politics at both the national and subnational levels. A cursory look across the country would reveal that different sections are already beginning to take positions that would put them in a good stead to reap maximally both from the process and the new order that is likely to emerge. Hence, the general inclination to work towards throwing up some of their bests and most experienced.
Back home here in Imo state, the good people of Orlu zone – Imo West – may have already aligned themselves with this dynamics with their resolve to ensure the return of Governor Uzodimma to the senate. If Uzodimma scales through as is expected, it needs no emphasis to say that a combination of Senator Hope Uzodimma and Senator Ifeanyi Araraume will reposition Imo state, more than ever before, in the ever evolving thearter of Nigerian politics.
Senator Araraume will be bringing in a wealth of experience garnered over a period of close to forty years in active politics and which predates the current Fourth Republic. He served as state treasurer of the Liberal Convention (1988-1989); member, national finance committee of the National Republican Convention (NRC) from 1990 to 1993 and chairman of the party’s (NRC) presidential primaries for Kwara and Delta states.
At the senate into which he was elected in 1999, Senator Araraume held the position of Chairman, Senate Committee on Power and Steel Development; Chairman, Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debts; pioneer Vice Chairman, Senate Committee on the Niger Delta; Chairman, Southern Senators Forum; Chairman, South-East Caucus Committee on the creation of an additional state for the Southeast; Chairman, Senate committee on Public Hearing in the Southwest on Constitutional amendment; Vice Chairman, Senate Committee on governmental affairs; Vice Chairman, Southeast caucus on national assembly. Apart from holding these official positions, Senator Araraume made outstanding contributions while in the senate.
He contributed to the decision of the Constitutional Review Committee of the national assembly to include a recommendation urging the federal government to create an additional state for the Southeast and subsequently led a delegation of law makers to mobilize support for that objective. He facilitated the rehabilitation of the Okigwe Regional Water Scheme by the federal government. Apart from facilitating the construction and rehabilitation of several roads within Okigwe zone, Senator Arararume, as pioneer Vice Chairman of the Senate committee on Niger Delta, played a key role in the inclusion of Imo and Abia as NDDC states even though the two states were initially excluded in the bill establishing the agency.
It would, of course, be illusory to believe that Senator Araraume’s bid to return to the senate will be a walk in the park. He is confronted with big obstacles chief among which is Governor Uzodimma’s rummoured support for the incumbent, Senator Patrick Ndubueze. But it remains what it is: a rumour. |But even so, both the governor and Senator Ndubueze know that dealing with an Ifeanyi Araraume, Distinguished Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Ph.D, Agu Isiebu remains a Herculean task anytime , any day.
Nwachuchwu writes from Emekuku in the Owerri North Local Government Area of Imo state.
