Ugwuanyi: Regis Onyishi, His Sponsors And Motley Of Fallacies
By Charly Onah
Trending on social media platforms recently was a sponsored, fabricated, compromised, tendentious and mendacious article titled “Enugu State, Nsukka, Ugwuanyi deserve better” written with one pen name Regis Onyishi, who claimed to be a researcher and communication policy analyst.
Hmmm, how can a researcher and communication analyst, who knows his onion peddle lies and falsehoods against a sitting governor in the name of constructive criticism and critical writing, even when the facts and statistics about Enugu and its governance since creation are obvious and glaring? Is such a researcher not more of a political jobber and hatchet man than a researcher of repute as he claimed?
This is what the person who used Regis Onyishi as psuedo name to cover his true identity and wrote sponsored article against Ugwuanyi is.
The so-called Onyishi’s failure to be specific, factual as evidenced in the allegations against Ugwuanyi in the article showed that he was hired to do a yeoman job for Ugwuanyi’s conspirators.
In the said article, the self-acclaimed researcher, Onyishi, after the initial grammatical gyrations, rigmarole and circumlocutions to hoodwinked some gullible and vulnerable social media fans of his true mission, later showed who were his sponsors and their motives in the conclusion of the write-up.
These sponsors of Onyishi are not spirits, they are human beings from Enugu North Senatorial zone. They are no other persons than some National Assembly members from Enugu North Senatorial zone, who having been holding secret and nocturnal meetings against Ugwuanyi and his government in Abuja alongside some of their colleagues that are desperate of altering the traditional and implied zoning of governorship seat in the state in 2023 for selfish interest.
These NASS members from Enugu North Senatorial zone, who were able to pick the PDP tickets through Ugwuanyi’s benevolence and support had selfishly commenced grand conspiracy against Ugwuanyi government early ahead of 2023 for obvious reasons.
These reasons are; they want to remain relevance by all means, they are envious and scared of Ugwuanyi’s performance in office, massive support his government is enjoying among the people, his growing political profile ahead of 2023. They are afraid of their political future and career in 2023, having completely disconnected with the masses they are supposed to be representing at the National Assembly. They are drowning already and wouldn’t want to go down alone. That is why they want to drag Ugwuanyi down by all means, having the erroneous belief that Ugwuanyi is the obstacle against thier 2023 political ambitions.
How? These men cried, wept, postrated and even knelt down to beg Ugwuanyi for support in 2019. Some of them desperately went as far as going outside the state to ask some close friends of Ugwuanyi to intervene on their behalf. Ugwuanyi supported them politically and financially, considering the fact that majority of them were bankrupt in 2019 and were living from hand to mouth.
They know that there is no way Ugwuanyi’s plea or intervention will save them from the people’s grudges in 2023, hence they have commenced in earnest grand conspiracy against Ugwuanyi and his government. They are trying to hijack all the leadership of every group in their areas, including the President-Generals of autonomous communities and others. They are recruiting criminals, e-urchins and floating all kinds of amorphous groups, using Nsukka emancipation and development as a decoy to delude people. They are known and their antics are in the public domain, even when they pretend otherwise.
These are old bridgades bereft of ideas and modern leadership. They are desperate, crude, petty, devisive, diabolic, unforgiving and ritualistic. We know them and their antecedents. They neither have respect for the office of the governor nor see Ugwuanyi as their leader. That is why they are always dismissive of Ugwuanyi and have never spoken good of him in private and public places.
They often pretended to be working with Ugwuanyi, but not working for him, his government and Ndi Nsukka. They are working for themselves, despite the fact that they won election in 2019 on Ugwuanyi’s popularity and acceptance.
The likes of invisible Regis Onyishi, Celestine Okanya, Ezugwu Okike and others are their recruits and social media warriors. They are on their payrolls. There are many more of them from Enugu North Senatorial zone, who have been engaged by some of the NASS members from Nsukka to be attacking Ugwuanyi and his government on social media regularly. I know all these things and know these NASS members too well.
One of the sponsors of Regis is angling to run with a senator from Enugu West zone as his running mate in 2023 governorship election.
Another one from Igbo-Eze South, who has been in National Assembly for almost 20 years now with nothing to show for it wants to contest for the Enugu North Senatorial seat in 2023. He is scared and feels that Ugwuanyi may be pressured to contest for the Enugu North senatorial seat in 2023 and that will affect his chance, hence he recruited Onyishi to write that it is the turn of Igbo-Eze South and Nsukka local government areas to produce senator for Enugu North in 2023.
They are perfecting plans to defect to APC, knowing that they have no relevance in the PDP again, having failed to represent their people well. They are trying to cause disaffection in PDP in the state, before jumping into APC, banking on using federal might in 2023 to actualize their ambitions.
Now back to the lies and fallacies peddled against Ugwuanyi’s personality and his government by Regis Onyishi in his sponsored and watery article, one should not be surprised because desperadoes can do anything to seek relevance. They are shameless, lack conscience and decorum.
Comparing Ugwuanyi’s administration with the previous ones is like comparing light and darkness. This is considering the circumstances and daunting challenges that confronted Ugwuanyi on assumption of office which was unprecedented in the history of democratic governance in the state.
It is factual that when Ugwuanyi assumed office in 2015, the country’s economy went into recession due to sudden crash in the price of crude oil. It was a trying period like never before. Governance hung on the balance and state governments struggled to stay afloat.
Ugwuanyi showed capacity by his prudent management of the state financial resources. He cleared backlog of inherited salaries of workers in 14 out of 17 council areas in the state.
He pays workers promptly and regularly since 2015 till date. He embarked on massive infrastructural development projects across the nooks and crannies of the state. They are all staring everyone at the face in the state.
These infrastructural projects were done and are ongoing in the zone and constituencies of these NASS members from Enugu North Senatorial zone who are yet to attract or carry out ordinary constituency empowerment scheme or projects.
That a section of the numerous roads constructed by Ugwuanyi’s administration fell does not mean that his government is doing substandard roads. This is why retention clause is an international practice in road contracts. There is no place that road does not fail in the world and there is nothing wrong in routine maintenance of roads. What is even the percentage of roads built by Ugwuanyi that has collapsed since 2015? Ugwuanyi inherited roads dotted with potholes and he has consistently reconstructed and resurfaced them without making news out of it.
Unlike his predecessors, Ugwuanyi has used political power as a tool to unite the people than a sword to divide them. He has not only preached peace, he has pursued and upheld peace in the state. That is why today Enugu is very peaceful and one of the safest states in the country.
Ugwuanyi has identified youthful potentials and appointed them into his government. They are numerous and adding value to his government. All the political appointees in the state are not complaining as they are doing thier work without interference from the Governor or anyone.
Ugwuanyi is not a leader that usurps the powers, responsibilities and roles of his appointees and subordinates. He runs a transparent and accountable government devoid of profligacy and wastage. He ensures that the right things are done and there is no apologies for anyone who expects that a financial guru like Governor Ugwuanyi should not enforce probity and accountability in the system.
This has been confirmed by several independent economic and financial reports and ratings by national and international organisations, including the recent Economic Confidential Intelligence reports which rated Enugu among the six economic viable states in the country for the second time since 2015, when many state governments in Nigeria have been grappling with financial constraints and challenges to stay afloat.
No scores of projects were being announced by Ugwuanyi’s administration on regular basis and forgotten or abandoned as alleged by Onyishi in his article. Contracts are fully provided for before being awarded in Enugu state and contractors are paid as soon as they generate certificates. This method has completely eliminated contract variations, a system used in the past to defraud the state government.
For the mere fact that Onyishi in his hatchet writing could not name any project initiated and abandoned by Ugwuanyi’s government is enough for Nigerians to know that Onyishi was on a vendetta mission on behalf of his paymasters.
If Onyishi is truly a researcher as he claimed, he would have enumerated the projects initiated and abandoned or forgotten by Ugwuanyi’s administration.
Ugwuanyi, since assuming office does not embark on white elephant or bubuyaya projects to gain cheap popularity. His government prioritises project needs before embarking on it. Ugwuanyi’s government is the first in the state since 1999 to take massive infrastructural development to rural areas that are only remembered during elections.
On the choice of the incumbent local government chairmen in the state, Ugwuanyi ensured that all the 17 local government stakeholders in the state were actively involved in the discussion and processes that enthroned their chairmen. This didn’t go down well with some of these NASS members who have positioned their stooges to be made chairmen of local governments. That is why majority of the Enugu North NASS members are not in good terms with their local government chairmen today. They don’t invite them or the governor in any of their political functions or activities in the state. What a wrong way to appreciate one’s goodness.
On the allegation by Onyishi that each local government council reportedly return 40 or 30 million naira monthly to Lion Building every month is pure fallacy from pit of hell.
How did Onyishi arrive at this beer parlour rumour without stating how much is each local government’s monthly allocation, Internally Generated Revenue and expenditures. Or is he saying that local governments in Enugu don’t pay salaries, execute projects and attend to their other financial obligations under the law?
Under which law or authority is the local government returning such money to Lion Buliding? If Onyishi and his paymasters have such vital information, why not approach anti-graft agencies before it becomes too late? It is obvious Onyishi just engaged in tales by moonlight to drive home his satanic agenda of dragging Ugwuanyi and his government to the mud by all means.
It is on note that since 2015, Ugwuanyi assumed office, there hasn’t been any financial scandal in his government. His bipartisan relationship with other political parties is phenomenal and emulative. That is how it should be. Politics shouldn’t be about fighting and creating crisis. The overall interest of Ndi Enugu supersedes every other interest. That is the best way to go for peace to reign. That does not take away the fact that Ugwuanyi is an ardent, staunch and loyal PDP leader and member. Besides, Ugwuanyi is not violent, petty and vindictive like them.
It is unfair for Onyishi and his paymasters to allege or accuse Ugwuanyi of being behind the barrage of attacks and criticisms against the underperforming NASS members from Enugu North Senatorial zone.
Is Onyishi saying that all the people of Enugu North are tied to Ugwuanyi’s apron string? If that is the case, then the Enugu North NASS members should be ashamed of themselves for having nothing to show for the support they got from their constituents during elections.
On the zoning of the Enugu North Senatorial seat, it is baffling where Onyishi got such fake information that there was zoning of Enugu North Senatorial seat and that it is the turn of Igbo-Eze South and Nsukka Federal constituency to produce Senator in 2023.
This was where Onyishi unmasked the real sponsor of his article in the person of a medical doctor from Igbo-Eze South, a known ritualist and member House of Representatives, who is already scheming to contest for the senatorial seat in 2023. The article is hand of Esau and voice of Jacob. Both Esau and Jacob are known in this case.
Ugwuanyi, we all know cannot be distracted or derailed by this kind of sponsored campaign of calumny against his government and person by a known failed politician, who is struggling for relevance at a wrong time and place.
While nobody in Ugwuanyi’s government or Ugwuanyi himself is talking about 2023, having been busy and obsessed with the provision of good governance and battling Covid-19 pandemic in the state for good of all, these bunch of Abuja-based desperate and failed National Assembly members from Enugu North zone are already plotting for 2023 elections that are still far.
This shows how insensitive and uncaring they are or could be. That was why they held back in Abuja and nobody saw them or their palliatives in their constituencies at the peak of the total lockdown occasioned by the global pandemic. Few of them who pretentiously and unwillingly returned, brought some peanuts to share as palliatives, were mocked and caused by their people for not showing concern and politicising the pandemic.
With this, one needs no prophet to know that the only interest of these NASS members is to hold unto political power perpetually, feather their nests, oppress and impoverish their constituents.
Ugwuanyi is quite different from these characters. This is why he has been tirelessly working to curtail and contain the spread of the virus, provides palliatives to the people, re-open the state economy, schools and sustains the sensitisation and awareness campaign on precautionary measures and spread of Covid-19 virus in the state.
To Ugwuanyi, what is of paramount importance is working for the welfare of the people and good governance in the state and not the distraction called 2023, which many of those who are fanning the embers of discord over it is not sure of who will be alive to witness or participate in it when the time comes.
Onyishi and his paymasters should be reminded that Nigerians, especially people of Enugu State cannot be distracted or deceived by his self-serving and sponsored article of campaign of calumny against a performing governor like Ugwuanyi just because of 2023 politics and selfish agenda of his paymasters.
Charly Onah wrote from Opi, Nsukka Enugu State.
