Why we “attack” Udengene: a very long story (editorial)

Since Sunday, we’ve been able to efficiently dramatize what the taste of revenge looks like. It was a successful campaign against the very grandmaster of mischief. And, frankly, I enjoyed every bit of this sweetened period.

The story started six years ago, in 2020. It was at the height of Comr Udengene’s influence in Oduma ward 2 politics. He was a legislative aid to former Senator Ike Ekweremadu, and was able to overshadow Hon Chidi Ekwe, Hon Able Chukwu, late Joe Merit and others.

I got form to run for councillorship under the All Progressives Congress (APC). Enugu was a PDP-state then. Despite our people’s deep hatred for APC, I was generally accepted and a lot of people polled resources together to support me. Influential people made calls on my behalf and volunteered in several ways for my success. In fact, I was the preferred candidate for Amagu and Amokwe communities. The remaining two villages that make up ward 2 were divided, anyway. Ameke had bought into me, but then communal clash ensued between them and my Amagu brothers over a contentious piece of land. My opponent, the serving councillor Hon Marble Onwukwe, was from Obeagu. But opinions showed that I could win at least 49 percent of Obeagu votes.

I was expecting rigging in the elections. Its the trademark of PDP politics in Aninri. But I wasn’t expecting Comr Udengene, my own brother, to play the cruel roles he played and nearly set me up for death.

By February 22, the election day, I’ve got death threats more than once. Udengene and one of my own uncle whom I regarded as a father had been selling lies to the villages in Oduma ward 2 that I was the chief cause of the communal crisis between Amagu and Ameke communities on January 27, 2020.

In that war, people were killed and properties worth millions of naira destroyed or stolen. Then, the Local Government came, demolished the land and sealed it. So, by the time we were going to the polls, Orie market was the hottest issue in Oduma ward 2.

Udengene turned it against me. On the elections day, he took the electoral materials away from the known PDP rigging venues, went to Sen Ike Ekweremadu’s residence at Mpu and rigged me out. I want to believe he was not the only one; there were others. But he was the only one of them who was my brother and friend. Then he returned to our village and derided me. He said that if I had consulted him before running for the position that he wouldn’t have being so cruel. In other words, he worked against me simply to prove that he was bigger.

But he didn’t know that I had the power of pen, and animal guts. So, with them, I fought him, former Speaker, former PG and my uncle. It was a spectacular success, and Prince Okugo Nwanjoku was at its helm too. As it got hot, Hon Abel Chukwu promised me a compensation of ₦3 million, but Udengene made sure I didn’t get it.

He leveraged on his influence with Ekweremadu and incited Amagu women against me. But again, I survived. Or better still, I thrived.

All his antics to bring me down fell off against my own determined aggression. So I can safely say that Udengene made me popular in 2020 when I was not very much known. He also solidified my place as an undisputed political rising star from Amagu. His wickedness actually announced me.

Udengene is not a good leader; he is a bad one. I would’ve kept quiet and not expose his ills. But I needed to remind him that there’s no gain in breaking a bridge you might someday have to cross. We’re brothers, and if he starts seeing me as one then I, too, will consider him as one.

Call it boasting if you wish, but Jude Ogbonna is more powerful that you know – and its because I have my pen! As I write this, lying besides me is a dangerously worded petition I had intended to submit this afternoon to the Ministry of Chieftaincy Matters and Rural Development against Udengene and some of his “boys” and “ogas”. It is a spectacular petition, design solely to put whosoever it’s against to flight irrespective of his status.

But a major call came from a man I can never dispute his words. I’m dropping my pen. What I want to tell the government are true, and they happened. Another person, not me, can tell the stories.

All the reports we made since Sunday are true, but it would have been unnecessary to say them in the public if Udengene didn’t deliberately hurt me severally in the past.

They said he has ambition for 2027. If that’s true, I’m most likely to support him. And I’ll support him without hypocrisy, if I ever choose to. FOR NOW there’ll be calm! And if you’re reading this, Udengene, I wish you luck dear brother.