He wields the olive in his hand. He prods it forward to friends and extends it to foes. He naturally casts about himself this tranquil aura, charisma and poise. He wears a smiling countenance and even in what may appear as dire circumstances, he would always keep this calmness and good presence of mind signalled by his many chuckles and dimples. He is averse to chaos, violence and altercation. He sticks to the olive as bees would to honeycomb. That is Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State.
Ugwuanyi’s administrative policy founded on peace and security is in the public domain and has also received international awareness and awards. Ugwuanyi is the olive branch deep-rooted in ideology. He seems to follow the biblical injection: be at peace with all men, as we read in Romans 12: 18 and Hebrews 12:14. Ugwuanyi is is highly cerebral, painstakingly methodical and immaculately meticulous in his dealings.He is deliberate about the achievement of peace. He set out to achieve peace and security in Enugu State as the bedrock of any meaningful progress and development. On the solid foundation of peace, he has continued to deliver the dividends of good governance to the people of Enugu State.
Those who are given to surface layers, those lacking in depth, politicians who do not look well before they leap often mistake Governor Ugwuanyi’s peaceful disposition to all men for a sign of weakness untill they are hoofed and hasped in their attempt to upset the ample’s course.
politicians there are who are carried away by the geniality of the white lion so much that they had thought to snatch from the king of the jungle that it held in-between the jaws. They forgot that the grasscutter also bites with the same teeth with which it smiles. They heat up the polity and create the impression they could ride their selfish ambition on the olive branch. They have yet to learn from what became of those who previously had taken a journey on the route to indiscretion, who soon disembarked and got humbled.
Those who in the present dispensation chose to drive against the traffic constitute a greater chunk of the culprits. They appear to have taken Ugwuanyi’s extension of the olive to them as a bolster for their overambitious attempt to truncate the zoning of the governorship seat, which has been the precedent in Enugu State. Besides the recruitment of some media goons to continually attack the Ugwuanyi administration, these political men and their few supporters who have no political capital anywhere recently resorted to incredible false claims that Governor Ugwuanyi had agreed to hand over to their principal. They are deceived by Governor Ugwuanyi’s natural disposition to make friendly overtures to everyone. Ugwuanyi may hold the olive branch but the root is deep in ideological commitment. Ugwuanyi knows the in and out of the game and so plays it with equanimity. Even when the wind carries bleak messages and a fleeting shadow passes over the hazy brows; even if the infuriated face of an invading warrior should suddenly pierce through the political walls, Governor Ugwuanyi remains unruffled. He has long solved the political arithmetics and balanced out the equation of zoning and shall soon smite the flea and display a palm of blood.
Governor Ugwuanyi may be a man of peace but he is also deep-rooted in ideology and sticks to it tenaciously. Ugwuanyi is many things to many persons. He is like the elephant described by many hunters. Some had felt Ugwuanyi was going to decamp to APC seeing his attitude of peace extended to the APC and other opposition parties in the state. It even came to the pitch when almost all the political parties in the state adopted him as their consensus candidate for the governorship election. Yet Ugwuanyi has remained with the PDP. Even when some of his brother governors ported to APC, the ruling party at the centre seeking political favour from the power that be, Ugwuanyi stayed put in the PDP. This is a sign of ideological commitment which is rare with Nigerian politicians who always move to the perceived comfort zone. Ugwuanyi is a product of zoning. He is an apostle of justice, equity and fairplay. He recently demonstrated this when the zoning committee he chaired for the PDP against egregious labyrinth of political scheming, intrigues and horse-trading swam out of the waters and zoned the chairmanship of the party to the North the implication of which is that based on the tradition of the PDP where the chairman comes from one zone, the other zone( this time South) would take the presidential ticket of the party.
Ugwuanyi is a study in political tranquility. Even those who had begun the game before him have seen for themselves Ugwuanyi is the unbeatable master on the chess board and have become wiser to have followed him in their own interest, in the spirit of the saying – if you cannot beat them, join them. Some have yet to come to terms with this reality and have made spirited attempts to outwit him only for them to discover to their shock, they had yet to scratch the surface of the shell. While Governor Ugwuanyi has set precedents of exceptional leadership abilities in Enugu State, it is about time he harkened to the call of Nigerians to deliver them from the present one long night of inept leadership. It is a call akin to that of the biblical Moses; a call to salvage Nigeria from the red dragon and the daily blood bath occasioned by terrible security situation which has hindered peace, progress and development. Let the olive branch extend to Abuja and its tap-root deep down the presidential villa. Iseeee!
Bibian Anekwe News added; “Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to high sight, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of personality to it’s normal limitations.”
Written by
By Reuben Onyishi. (Ugoachataberu)
