KWENU! Our culture, our future

X-raying the unfolding drama at the WIC Convention

ACHO ORABUCHI

Dallas, Texas

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Reeling from a killer hurricane, “Katrina” in New Orleans and some parts of Mississippi and Alabama, World Igbo Congress Convention kicked off somberly on September 1, 2005 at Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles, California. Much of the convention activities were on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Interestingly, no sooner had most people arrived at the convention than the drama that lasted throughout the conference ensued. Though the devastation of “Katrina” in New Orleans with the horror graphic images widely covered on the broadcast and cable television stations were in everyone’s mind, coupled with the absence of some notable Igbo from the devastated regions to the convention, the attendees gathered courage to reflect and discuss perennial Igbo problems in Nigeria.

In any case, the killer “Katrina” was not the only thing in the minds of the organizers and members of the WIC board. An attempted lawsuit by a group of Igbo lawyers for an unsubstantiated motive, rattled WIC on the eve of the convention. They were so flustered that they went to court on Friday morning without any documented summon to appear in court. As they rushed to court with a claim, whether bogus or not, they came back to the site of the convention only with speculations. On further investigations, the purported lawsuit was non-suited before members of WIC board and House of Delegates trooped to the court. No official of WIC or agent was ever served with process. The information passed on to the conventioneers that a group of Igbo lawyers took WIC to court was false and disingenuous.

On Friday night, Mr. Peter Obi was introduced as Anambra State Governor-elect. That introduction did not sit well with the supporters of Governor Chris Ngige in the audience, especially the Deputy Speaker of Anambra State House of Assembly, Dr. Ozo Ughamadu, who took the liberty to set the record straight. He said that Dr. Ngige is still the governor of Anambra State; Anambra does not have a governor-elect.

The error that received mild reactions on Friday night invited pandemonium when World Igbo Congress Chairman, Dr. Kalu Kalu Diogu introduced Mr. Peter Obi on Saturday night as the Anambra State governor-elect. It took the correction of matter by the Prof. Joe Irukwu to calm people down. Prof. Irukwu stated that Anambra State has a sitting governor. He went further to say that the two people involved, Ngige and Obi, are our two sons. Until all legal options are exhausted, Ngige is still the governor.

Prof. Irukwu also lost his cool when a revered elder in our American community, Chief Chike Momah respectfully tried to alert him that those at the back were not hearing him. To my greatest surprise, Chief Momah had not finished asking him to put his mouth close to the microphone when Prof Joe Irukwu, the President-General of Ohaneze, told Chief Momah in full public glare to “shut up” and “sit down”. Boy, my jaw dropped. I did not know that Prof. Irukwu was that temperamental.

Traditionally, or I should say, by an established precedent, no one wins WIC chairmanship with a simple majority of the votes. To win the chairmanship, you must garner, at least, 51% of the votes. Since its history, garnering 51% of the votes to win had been part of WIC’s law by precedent, but not this time. The longstanding precedent was abruptly abdicated. It was never a happenstance that the age-old 51% was trashed; the intent was for a “coalition”, as they call themselves, to gain advantage. That was not all, the accolade the flawed process, which was used to subvert this precedent received was, in fact, disappointing to well-meaning Igbo. The process would churn the stomach of any other democrats for one obvious reason. People, the board members, who were not there were counted as having voted. In most cases one board member voted for the other. Each affiliate has two votes. It was announced that 12 affiliates were in favor of abrogating the 51% rule while 9 affiliates were against changing the rule in the middle of the game.

Prior to the Board meeting that trashed the tradition, the roll call during the meeting of House of Delegates revealed that some affiliates padded the list of HOD members to gain additional two votes. Each delegate is required to pay $150.00 to WIC and there was a deadline to do so. It was apparent that some affiliates turned in names of people that did not pay the $150.00 and they still received two additional votes. No wonder some affiliates refused to make their list public before the convention even when members demanded it.

The drama that began at the onset never ceased. Anambra unity behind Ichie Chibuzo Onwuchekwe’s candidacy was unprecedented. One good thing about this unexpected unity was that it showed that Anambra people were capable of uniting for a common cause. There was a clamor for the WIC chairmanship of Anambra descent. It was trumpeted at the Anambra Caucus Meeting on Sunday before the election. Anonymous source said that during the caucus meeting, there was a call for Anambra people to bring the WIC Chairmanship back to Anambra by supporting Ichie Chibuzo Onwuchekwe. Those voting board members and House of Delegates from Anambra were asked to vote for Ichie Chibuzo Onwuchekwe, who is also from Anambra.

Frowning at this call, Isi-Ichie Benneth Okpala wrote, “At the last unfortunate election fever for WIC board chairmanship, the political air stunk with all the “nwafo” this, “nwafo” that, clichés. May all the plain “nwafo” Igbos stand up and condemn myopic sectional politics in the World Igbo Congress!”

“I have a problem with State caucuses at WIC conferences where they concentrate on brewing the divisive forces of segregation of Ndi-Igbo,” Mr. Okpala continued.

Facing a possible annihilation on the ballot based on the Anambra united front and stronger coalition, Joe Nze Eto and Dr. Chuka Obiesie, both from Imo State, tried to strike a last minute deal whereby one of them would drop, campaign, and vote for the other with the accompanying supporters. The potential for a deal was saddled with selfish wrinkles from the onset. As a result, what would have given Obiesie or Eto a fighting chance was never consummated. As you may have known, the rest was history.

Disturbingly, the level of chagrin exhibited at the convention was unprecedented. People were tense and consumed by the impending election to the level that no other thing mattered. At a point I wondered if this was only election, ordinary for that matter. I wondered again if I was not seeing others—the actors—held to their chest. I uttered in my mind—we shall see! Though the election dragged through the Sunday night, yet it was over and nothing extraordinary happened.

The new chairman, Ichie Chibuzor Onwuchekwe, a native of Aguata-Orumba in Anambra State, not only has an unenviable task of repairing the bridges burnt during the campaign, especially the division created at the Anambra Caucus Meeting, but also has a scary job of dealing with the credibility problem posed by some elected officials. It is incumbent upon Ichie Onwuchekwe to fish out people in his executive that would tarnish the image of his administration in particular and that of WIC in general and deal with them transparently. That would be the first step of restoring credibility to the pummeled organization.

Obviously, there is much more to be done to repair WIC and the new chairman has to move swiftly. More commentaries and analyses on WIC Convention would come shortly.