Uzodimma Alone Cannot Determine the Next Governor of Imo State — Imo People Will Choose Their Next Governor From Anywhere in the State
By Chukwudi Ude
The recent statement by the Owerri Zone Awareness Coalition (OZAC) is yet another disturbing example of how some political groups continue to distort history, manipulate facts, and arrogate to themselves powers they do not possess in a desperate bid to manufacture political entitlement ahead of the 2027 governorship election.
Let it be stated clearly, emphatically, and without ambiguity: Governor Hope Uzodimma is not the owner of Imo State. He is not a monarch. He is not a political emperor. He is not the sole determinant of who becomes the next governor of Imo State. Under Nigeria’s constitutional democracy, the governor can support, endorse, promote, or campaign for any candidate of his choice, but the ultimate decision rests with the people of Imo State and not with OZAC, not with any self-appointed coalition, and certainly not with Governor Uzodimma alone.
The greatest fallacy in the OZAC statement is the assumption that the governorship of Imo State is already the exclusive property of Owerri Zone. This dangerous mindset seeks to reduce democracy to an ethnic allocation formula where competence, popularity, credibility, performance, acceptability, and electoral viability become secondary considerations. Imo State belongs to all Imolites—Owerri, Okigwe, and Orlu alike. Every qualified citizen from any part of the state has the constitutional right to contest for governor, and the people retain the sovereign authority to choose whoever they deem fit.
Even more astonishing is OZAC’s attempt to dictate not only that the governorship must go to Owerri Zone but also which federal constituency within Owerri Zone should produce the governor. This is political arrogance taken to absurd proportions. The coalition seeks to play the role of prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner in a contest that has not even formally begun.
The argument that Owerri Federal Constituency deserves the governorship because Mbaise produced Emeka Ihedioha and Mbaitoli/Ikeduru produced Evan Enwerem is intellectually dishonest and historically defective. By that logic, should Okigwe Zone not also insist on completing its interrupted tenure after Dr. Ikedi Ohakim’s administration was terminated after only one term? Should communities that have never occupied Douglas House not also begin to draw fresh entitlement maps? Once politics becomes an endless exercise in counting turns and sharing offices, merit, competence, vision, and electoral acceptability become casualties.
Even more troubling is OZAC’s attempt to erase the distinct political identity of Ngor Okpala. The suggestion that Ngor Okpala should forever be politically subsumed under another bloc merely because of federal constituency arrangements exposes the weakness of the coalition’s argument. Federal constituencies are administrative electoral constructs, not permanent political identities. Every local government and community in Imo State possesses the inalienable right to define and pursue its political aspirations.
What OZAC conveniently ignores is that the so-called Charter of Equity is neither a constitutional document nor a legally binding covenant. It remains a political understanding whose interpretation has changed repeatedly depending on who seeks power at any given moment. The same Charter that some now invoke was nowhere to be found when political interests dictated otherwise in previous elections. To suddenly elevate it to the status of divine law is hypocrisy of the highest order.
The truth is simple: no coalition, pressure group, governor, council of elders, political merchants, or self-appointed custodians of equity can impose a governor on Imo people in 2027.
The people of Imo State have become politically sophisticated. They understand the difference between genuine equity and political manipulation disguised as fairness. They understand the difference between justice and opportunism. They understand that governance is too important to be reduced to a mere geographical allocation exercise.
The 2027 governorship election will not be won through press statements, propaganda campaigns, zoning blackmail, or entitlement rhetoric. It will be won through political engagement, grassroots acceptance, leadership credentials, vision, competence, and the collective will of the electorate.
Those already drawing maps of succession and allocating Douglas House as though it were family inheritance should remember a simple democratic truth: power belongs to the people.
Not to Governor Hope Uzodimma.
Not to OZAC.
Not to any self-appointed political coalition.
Not to any charter interpreted for convenience.
The next governor of Imo State will emerge through the democratic choice of Imo people, and that governor can come from Owerri Zone, Okigwe Zone, Orlu Zone, or any community whose candidate earns the confidence, trust, and mandate of the electorate.
That is democracy.
That is constitutional governance.
And that is the only charter that truly matters.
