Group Urges Zoning Campaigners to Stop Causing Tensions in Ebonyi

Emmanuel Ugwu-Nwogo

The people of Ebonyi State have been urged to ignore selfish politicians stoking tensions across the state over the issue of power rotation and the zone to produce the next governor in 2023.

This call was made by a political pressure group, the Ebonyi for Good Governance, in a statement signed by its Coordinator, Mr. Kelvin Oji, saying that it was gravely concerned at the rate the peaceful coexistence among the people of Ebonyi was being hacked at because of zoning issue.

According to the group, the fixation of some politicians with the issue of zoning of governorship position was already “raising the political tension in the state” hence the need to tone down the issue and stop stoking the tension.

The group suggested that at this point in the history of Ebonyi State, the focus of political discourse ahead of 2023 should be on the character of those angling to mount the saddle of leadership and not the part of the state those persons came from.

The EGG insisted that the most productive political discussion “now in the state should be whether we elect again, a character in the mould of the current governor or do we gun for a paradigm shift in style of governance and methods of relationship.”

It lamented that some politicians have chosen to embark on a voyage of chasing shadows as “desperate political forces appear to be diverting attention, stoking the fire of zoning instead of focusing on the best to govern the state.”

The group argued that what could have been a concrete zoning arrangement was never allowed to take a firm root in 1999 at the onset of the present democratic dispensation, adding that the absence of a charter of equity was exploited by political opportunists.

The group acknowledged that the idea of zoning the governorship seat was conceived by the founding fathers of the state on the basis of fairness, equity and justice but the noble idea was left hanging with no binding document.

“Empirical evidence clearly establishes that the issue of zoning in Ebonyi State is never conclusive,” the EGG said, adding that if there was a ratified ‘Charter of Equity’ the document “would have been the Holy Grail owned by every citizen of the state and should have been a guide for political affirmation and interest.”

The group explained that prior to the creation of Ebonyi State, the unwritten understanding between Abakaliki and Afikpo political blocs that make up the state was that the part where the state capital was located should not produce the first governor.

However, it regretted that Senator Sam Egwu scuttled this political agreement for his own selfishness when he connived with the military and was foisted on Ebonyi as the first governor in 1999 when the Afikpo bloc was the appropriate area to have produced the governor in line with the agreement.

“This wonderful arrangement, though not signed, would have established a political stability in the state if followed by same politicians who are now distorting records,” the group noted, adding that successive governors after Egwu were not products of zoning.

It, therefore, stated that Egwu “is not morally qualified” to be championing zoning of governorship seat now in Ebonyi (because) “he had such golden opportunity to put things right in the past but he failed because of pecuniary interest.”