Amidst widespread dissatisfaction with ‎the administration of Rochas Okorocha in Imo State, Senator Ifeanyi Ararume is doing his best to make sure that the All Progressives Congress on whose platform the governor was elected into office is not deserted  by the electorate, Iyobosa Uwugiaren writes
Three times he narrowly lost the opportunity of becoming the governor of Imo State. But Senator Godwin Ifeanyi Ararume who represented Okigwe Senatorial District in the Senate — between 1999 and 2007, has remained the main issue in the political conversation in Imo State politics.
As the 2019 general election steadily draws near his big house in Isiebu, Umuduru in Isiala Mbano Local Government Area of Imo State, has become a centre for different political consultations and discourse in the past weeks, in what some political strategists described as ‘’desperate political script’’ being cooked to rescue the Imo State chapter of the All Peoples Congress (APC) from the ‘’destructive and unhelpful’’ political activities of Governor Rochas Okorocha.
To be sure, those following the unfolding political activities in the state said the recent unveiling of Ararume Fan Club, which has swelled the political activities in the state, is part of the script.
Indeed, a chieftain of APC, Tony Eze, said that the recent unveiling of the club in two local government councils: Ikeduru and Isaiala Mbano, which was attended by thousands of APC’s supporters, attested to how Ararume, has become the rally point to reposition the smashed image of the party in the state.
‘’Ararume Fan Club was initiated and formed to sensitize men and women, including the youths to support APC in the state and our governorship hopeful come 2019’’, Eze stated while welcoming people to the inauguration ceremony recently.
THISDAY had reported that the national secretariat of APC is troubled about the unfolding political events in Imo State, the only state the ruling party controls in the south-east geo-political zone.
The Okorocha-led APC Imo State government has been in the ‘’bad news’’ in the past few months: the anger that has greeted the government’s failure to pay workers’ salaries/pension for over a year; the forceful demolition of the popular Eke Ukwu Market and the violent eviction of traders that led to the death of innocent people; the ban of tricycle riders; the demolition of many ‘’illegal’’ buildings; the recent erection of the statue of controversial President Jacob Zuma of South Africa in Owerri, the Imo State capital, and other insidious, unpopular political activities in the state.
All these, couple with the obvious lack of good governance in the state, analysts said, had hindered a strategic plan by the APC to use the state to market the party to the south-east’s electorate in the 2019 general election. The popular belief among the party’s leaders in the state is that until recently, when Araraume rejuvenated the APC’s structures in wards, local and state levels, the party was almost dead in Imo State: there was huge lull in the party with virtually all the party executives in the state side-lined and rendered useless.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who was the governor’s guest recently made allusion to the apparent impishness of Okorocha, when he told him that apart from his immediate family, virtually everybody in the state, including members of his cabinet were not happy with him. However, many APC’s followers beleive Araraume is said to be working very hard to save APC in the state.
Some monitors of Imo State’s politics said this explained the huge, excited crowd that attended the unveiling of Ararume Fan Club in the two local government areas recently.
Although the event was put together by Ararume’s political fans, it attracted many traditional rulers, different religious faith groups, market men/women, students, civil servants and APC leaders; they were there in large numbers.
The presence of different masquerade groups, Ogene cultural music groups and local musicians, charged the event and made the ceremony very lively — with hundreds of men and women dancing, stamping their legs on the ground as if they were being haunted by evil spirit. But they were; they were excited by the unveiling of a club that will promote the political aspiration of one of their own whom they said had lived his life of promoting humanity and attending to the needs of the people, especially the poor on a daily basis.
‘’The unveiling of Ararume Fan Club was another landmark history recorded in the course of building and promoting a stronger and formidable APC, which Ifeanyi Araraume has not relented in committing his time, strength and resources in the past two years’’, a social media activist, Mr. Awurum Darlington told THISDAY.
‘’It was another day of passionate situation as the association of Imo State Tricycle Riders Association that was recently banned from operation in the state capital territory by the state government amidst tears and regret, pledged its support for APC by identifying and subsequently registering with Senator Ararume Fan Club.’’
Darlington added that Ararume winning strategy was predicated on his humanity, kindness and accommodating spirit, saying like a big tree, Araraume provides enough shades for all Imolites: children, men, woman, the aged, the physical challenged, the rich and the poor.
One of the leaders of the fan club, Mr. Obi South said that in the present ‘’precarious and hopeless economic situation’’, created by the present Imo State government, Ararume’s character has become the selling points for new defined Imo APC.
‘’Imolites are confessing at various news stands visited that they are very sorry to have been misled these years about the man called Senator Ifeanyi Godwin Ararume’’, Obi stated.
Pledging their support for Ararume, the traditional rulers and the Association of Tricycle Operators Imo State, promised to spread the good news of APC and Ararume to the people.
‘’As you can see, many good people of Imo State, different groups from different sectors of Imo spectrum and of various shades of opinion are emptying their structures and pledging their loyalty to Ararume, an interesting politician of Imo stock’’, Chinedu Ifeanyi, a graduate and tricycle rider told THISDAY in Owerri.
Similarly, the Disable Association of Nigeria, Ikeduru Chapter, that received hundreds of wheelchairs from Ararume at the occasion, vowed to identify with the Imo and APC aspiration for 2019 general election. The excited APC chieftain, Ararume promised the physically challenged that he would import and deliver more sets of wheelchairs and crutches to change their already warned ones.
Araraume, who currently represents the south-east geo-political zone in the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) as national commissioner, also promised to tackle unemployment through his newly constructed factories in Owerri.
As Governor Roachas Okorocha’s fumbling continues to trouble APC’s scheming in south-east, not many APC supporters disagree that if people still talk about APC today, it is because Ararume took a bold step last December to revive the party. Before then, the party members were said to have withdrawn to their fate — feeling used and abandoned by the APC government in the state.
To be sure, a key and active player in the ruling party’s affairs in the state and immediate past Commissioner of Information and Culture, Dr. Vitalise Ajumbe, told THISDAY recently that saved for the crisis that enveloped the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of late, many of the APC members wanted to join the opposition party.
‘’As I speak with you, if you know those who are in APC, sample their opinion and you will find out that those supporting Araraume — from the party hierarchy, are about 70 per cent’’, Ajumbe added.
He attributed the huge support Ararume is receiving from APC members in the state to his ‘’financial support to the party, his goodwill, integrity and sound management’’ of human resources.
Like many people in the state, the immediate past Director-General, Consumer Protection Council, Imo State and chieftain of APC, Chief Kingsley Ufere, is also not happy with Okorocha’s management of the state and the party.
‘’Many people believe that Roachas has not done well in the past two years; and that his inability to perform might work against APC in the next election, unless a credible person is put forward as the candidate of the party. I agree with them’’, the APC chieftain from Ideato North Local Government Areas stated.
‘’I was former Director-General, Consumer Protection Council, Imo State. I am talking as an insider. And I left the government, because I felt he was not doing well.’’
The President-General of Olu-Okigwe, a socio-cultural group in Imo state, High Chief Chiedozie Anyanwu, also accused the governor of running the state like a his ‘’private business.’’
‘’The governor’s so-called projects are self-serving; they are not people-oriented projects. He has abandoned everybody, including the party members who helped to bring him to power. He is running the state with his entire family.
‘’His brother-in-law is the chief-of-staff; his sister is the deputy-chief-of staff, the deputy governor used to be his general manager in his private business.’’
Anyanwu accused the governor of destroying APC in the state with his ‘’anti-people’’ programmes and policies. And like some leaders of APC in Imo State, Anyanwu praised Ararume for ‘’rescuing’’ the party in the state.
‘’But for Araraume, whom many members now see as their guardian angel, APC was almost dead in our state because of Okorocha’s anti-people programmes’’, he stated.
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Pledging their support for Ararume, the traditional rulers and the Association of Tricycle Operators Imo State, promised to spread the good news of APC and Araraume to the people.
