Fact Check: Edeoga’s 31 years of active politicking versus Mbah’s 3 months in office
By Engr. Ogbuke Frederick
When Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party had said on January 12, 2023, during a campaign visit in Enugu that Ndi Enugu should avoid casting their votes for career politicians (people who have nothing else doing aside from politics), but should vote massively for technocrats (politicians who have well established themselves in other fields, especially private sector), that statement struck me like a thunderbolt because I know that his party’s governorship candidate in the 2023 Enugu election, Chijioke Edeoga has little or no single record of private sector experience, rather he is a man who sees politics as his major and only lucrative business.
Peter Obi shocked Obidients on the day of his visit because his advice to go for a technocrat pointed the way of Enugu PDP governorship candidate, Peter Mbah who is a well-known technocrat that has distinguished himself in the private sector. Obi’s statement came a few months after President Muhammadu Buhari commissioned the Pinnacle Oil and Gas facility, founded by Peter Mbah, and is adjudged to be the highest downstream oil facility in West Africa owned by a single individual.
To worsen the matter on the side of Enugu Labour Party stakeholders, Obi crowned his statement by refusing to raise the hand of Chijioke Edeoga as a way of validating him as his party’s flagbearer as he did to other governorship candidates of LP in other states, in fact, like a plague, Edeoga was avoided despite all pressures and all manner of lobbying techniques by top officials of the party, still, Obi maintained his ground and finally capped his speech by saying, “the struggle is not a struggle to enthrone incompetent career politicians, the struggle is a struggle to change Nigeria irrespective of one’s party affiliation. So, irrespective of party, anywhere you see technocrats vying for a public office, please vote for him because if he can manage his business resources, he will do well at managing your state resources”, Obi said. This got Chijioke Edeoga on his toes for the entire day, as he made a juncous movement off the campaign vicinity and later went on air to allege betrayal by Peter Obi.
Taking a little journey down to Edeoga’s political history, he was a former Chief Press Secretary to Okwesilieze Nwodo in 1992. He was later given a ticket to vie for the office of the Isi-Uzo local government council chairman in 1997, which he won and amassed a lot of wealth within the little time he spent in office. Later on, the then governor of Enugu State Jim Nwodo bought a ticket for him for the position of House of Representatives, but after four years in office without accounting for a single constituency project, his constituency fought against his return and he was replaced. It did not end there, his in-law Okwy Nwodo, as the then Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) national chairman, during the tenure of President Goodluck Ebele Johnathan lobbied ceaselessly and Edeoga was appointed Senior Special Assistant to the president on legislative matters. Edeoga used all federal employment quota allotted to him and sold out to friends and other political associates, an act that triggered anger in Isi-Uzo.
In 2015, his maternal cousin, the governor of Enugu State, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi appointed him a Commissioner for Local Government Matters where he perpetrated all manner of anachronism by using the state-owned magazine ‘Enugu LGA News Magazine’ as a conduit pipe to milk each of the 17 Local Government Chairmen in Enugu State, N1.5 million, amassing the total amount of N2.2 billion as reported by Saharareporters on March 3, 2023 (https://saharareporters.com/2023/03/03/alleged-n2billion-fraud-lawyers-petition-anti-graft-agency-efcc-probe-enugu-labour-party ). When the allegation first surfaced and came heavy on Edeoga, the peaceful governor of Enugu State, Ugwuanyi had to transfer him to the Ministry for Environment in 2019.
He assumed office as the Commissioner for Environment, and Enugu State witnessed a Kilimanjaro-height of refuse dumps all over the city. He was said to have auctioned all the waste evacuation trucks (ESWAMA TRUCKS) the former administration procured to facilitate the speedy removal of waste in Enugu State. This incompetence, and ineffectiveness occasioned by Edeoga’s corrupt fingers earned Enugu State the publication in Punch Newspaper, dated March 30, 2022, with the title “Enugu stinks, refuse dumps takes over streets, block drainages, residents fear epidemics.”
https://punchng.com/enugu-stinks-refuse-takes-over-streets-block-drainages-residents-fear-epidemics/
Obi’s iconic example of a technocrat, Peter Mbah barely two weeks after his inauguration evacuated the mountainous heaps of dirt in Enugu caused by the Labour Party guber candidate, Edeoga’s ineptitude and carefree attitude in the ministry of environment. Within two weeks in office as the Governor of Enugu State, Mbah has set the wheel in motion by fixing all the wrongs done in the ministry. Residents of Enugu State can now move through their streets without spitting on either side of the road due to the stench from heaps of dirt on the streets, as it was the culture during Edeoga’s days in the Ministry of Environment.
I was surprised to see the principal work that was not done in four years of Edeoga’s leadership as the Commissioner for Environment being done within two weeks. The ESWAMA, an agency under the Ministry of Environment today can now send out workers and their machines on a daily basis because resources have been provided, unlike the time of Chijioke Edeoga when the resources provided to aid the ESWAMA agency were swept under the carpet and used in buying plots of lands in Nsukka and Nsugbe in Anambra where he had built numerous hostels for renting.
Today, we could see the installation of solar lights and cameras in all dumping sites in the Enugu metropolis, courtesy of Mbah’s led administration.
All the illegal mining and other manners of environmental degradation going on in Enugu environment have equally been banned by Governor Peter Mbah. However, it has been alleged that Edeoga as a Commissioner for Environment has been getting a lion’s share of some of the illegal mining activities going on in the state. I would not doubt the authenticity of this information considering the fact that it is the duty of the Commissioner for Environment to know what is going on in the state and give reports to the government.
Recall Obi’s strong message on Arise News Television earlier this year, where he made a reference to Chijioke Edeoga’s boasting that he has been in politics for over 30 years and has garnered more political experience than Peter Obi. Obi in his wisdom had addressed Edeoga and some other politicians as having garnered 30 years of experience in looting and impoverishing the masses.
As if Edeoga knew that it was time to exit the ring, he, during an on-air programme on Ogene Ndigbo radio, said that he was no longer desperate to be the governor of the state, maintaining that should the tribunal fail to declare him the winner, he would leave politics for good, and go into large-scale agriculture in order to contribute his quota in growing the state’s economy.
In his words, ”Isi-Uzo has a fertile land and a big land mass, I have started clearing the lands I bought and will go into large-scale agriculture because there is more money in the field than politics. I mustn’t be the governor of Enugu State, I vied because people like Nnia Nwodo and other respected leaders also believe in my capacity.”
Yes, everything that has a beginning does have an end. Politicians like Chijioke Edeoga who already tasted power and still could not account for a single project delivered to his people should know that it is time to take a bow and go.
The take-home message from Edeoga’s interview is that he knows that he did not win the Enugu State governorship election, hence the loss of hope in his words, ”should tribunal fail to declare me a winner, I will go into agriculture….” Of course, realities must have begun to dawn on him that he may lose his case against Peter Mbah at the tribunal, knowing well that the tribunal will focus on facts, material evidence, and the law, not emotions and propaganda.
