2027: Owerri Zone (UN)United And The Emekuku Cabal

 

By Onyearugbulem Onyeikegbulem

What is happening in Owerri Zone today is not a crisis. It is an implosion foretold. And it was foretold precisely because the project was built on ego, not equity; on titles, not unity.

How can a zone that claims to be marginalized build its emancipation around five parallel warlords? Today we have Imo Harmony Project (IHP), Owerri Zone Political Leadership Forum (OZOPOLF), Owerri Zone Leaders of Thought, and now the latest fraudulent mutation — Owerri Zone United. Five groups, one ambition, zero coherence.

But the deeper disease is not the number of groups. It is the infantile supremacy battle of their leaders. We now have an entire comic lexicon of self-awarded titles: "Apex Leader" of Owerri Zone, "Operational Leader" of Owerri Zone, "Political Ambassador" of Owerri Zone, "Ekwedasieke" of Owerri Zone. This is not leadership. This is chieftaincy of emptiness. And it is why Governor Hope Uzodimma had to publicly scold them to go home and put their house in order.

THE COURTESY CALL THEATRE

The rivalry stopped being whispered in March 2025. The IHP, dominated by the Emekuku axis, wrote to Government House unilaterally seeking audience. Governor Uzodimma, to his credit, rejected it — because he knew it did not represent Owerri Zone.

He ordered them to go and gather others. When they returned on March 10, 2025, IHP hijacked the microphone. Capt. Emmanuel Ihenacho spoke. Dr. Kema Chikwe spoke. Another IHP fellow spoke. Chief Charls Amadi — Chalvon — leader of OZOPOLF, did not utter a word.

Five months later, on August 20, 2025, the revenge mission happened. This time Chalvon did all the talking, invited Chief Henry Njoku to give vote of thanks and attempted to close the meeting. The Governor had to intervene to allow Ihenacho to speak. Anyone with eyes saw it: This was not unity. It was two cartels fighting for who will be the gatekeeper to Uzodimma.

A few days later, OZOPOLF announced a new child: Owerri Zone Leaders of Thought. Same people, same address — Amadi's residence. Same Secretary-General, Barr. Kingsley Ononuju, who signs for both groups. Then suddenly, another transmutation: Owerri Zone United. An "umbrella body" whose umbrella only covers one house in Owerri. Secretary changed from Ononuju to Shah Azu Okorie — but Ononuju remains Publicity Secretary. The Secretary of IHP, Shah Okorie, is now Secretary of the rival umbrella that IHP leader Ihenacho has never attended.

This is not unity. It is political money laundering. The rebranding of a single Amadi-led faction to create an illusion of consensus.

When that faction traveled to Okigwe on August 14, 2026 to "solicit support", Okigwe leaders looked at each other in confusion. No single man from Mbaise. No one from Ngor-Okpala. A delegation of Owerri that excluded Owerri. It was rightly called a fiasco.

Then the final mask fell: Owerri Zone United declared APC as the SOLE vehicle for producing the next governor. IHP rejected it immediately — and rightly so. The original idea was a non-partisan Owerri agenda across party lines. The APC-or-nothing declaration has now been denounced across the zone. The chickens have come home to roost.

THE LOGICAL PARADOX: THE EMEKUKU CABAL

And here is the radical truth no one wants to say loudly: In both factions — the provocateur and the resistor — the ghost at the centre is the dreaded EMEKUKU CABAL.

Let us be logical. Who dominates the leadership of IHP? The Emekuku axis. Who dominates the list of governorship aspirants from Owerri for the November 2027 off-season election? The same Emekuku axis.

Their logic is crude and consistent: It must be us, or nothing. If Chalvon's APC formula succeeds, the Emekuku production line will be relegated. Therefore, the project must be aborted. It is sabotage as strategy.

This is not new. This is their political DNA.

In 2011, when the same cabal realized it could not produce governor directly, what did it do? It donated Owerri's slot to Orlu. Martin Agbaso, a leading face of the cabal, invited Rochas Okorocha — an Orlu man — to take the APGA ticket he controlled. With that ticket, Okorocha became governor under controversial circumstances.

The cabal — including a highly revered Catholic clergy — extracted a promise that Okorocha would hand over to them in 2015. He not only reneged, he humiliated and sacked his deputy from their fold. The cabal that facilitated the deployment of the military to "supervise" the May 6, 2011 supplementary election that birthed Okorocha was left in the cold.

Today, Orlu mocks Owerri with brutal logic: Even if Uzodimma does eight years, Orlu has only done 16 years, not 24 — because the eight years of Okorocha was an Owerri donation to Orlu that Orlu never begged for. Sarcastic, but morally devastating.

Go further back. Who masterminded the split of Imo PDP into Onongono and Abuja groups when PDP was emperor from 1999-2019? The same cabal. And what did it do while in power? It grabbed everything in Owerri Zone. Two ministers. An Ambassador. Special Adviser. Every juicy post.

The philosophy is simple: Owerri Zone is Emekuku, and Emekuku is Owerri Zone.

Today the rest of Owerri Zone is even willing to make a historic sacrifice — to cede 2028-2032 to Okigwe to complete its eight years and finally lay the ghost of equity to rest. This is statesmanship. But the cabal says NO DICE. For them, equity means "Emekuku equity."

Pundits are clear. Owerri Zone has three options:

Option One: Abandon zoning and allow competence from any zone. Dead on arrival. Owerri cannot decide for Okigwe and Orlu.

Option Two: The radical, logical, win-win path. Allow Okigwe to take 2027-2031 to complete its cycle. Use those four years to purge Owerri politics of the old warlords, build genuine unity among a younger generation through real consultation with Okigwe and Orlu, not through bankrupt proclamations, endorsements and backroom arrangements at a single residence in Owerri.

Option Three: Continue this circus and produce an Owerri stooge — a governor geographically from Owerri but politically a third term for Orlu. As our own sons warned: "After waiting for decades for equity, surely our ambition cannot be to replace an Orlu governor with an Owerri-born proxy?" This option is dangerous and suicidal.

Option Two makes Owerri the moral capital of Imo. It turns us from perpetual complainants to sacrificial architects of Imo harmony. And it guarantees that in 2031, Owerri takes over unchallenged, with the full moral weight of the state behind it.

A FINAL WORD TO GOVERNOR UZODIMMA

Your Excellency, the APC exclusivity that Chalvon's group is selling is a trap for you. The APC you lead is strong enough to win 2027 without this divisive formula. The entire Imo people, not just APC members, are witnesses to your performance.

If this formula can cause this much acrimony within Owerri Zone alone, imagine the poison it will inject into Imo State.

Your predecessors, Achike Udenwa and Rochas Okorocha, tried party-based succession. They failed, and those same choristers abandoned them. The refusal of Owerri leaders to heed your simple advice to be united on one page is already a letdown. It is time to look beyond the Emekuku Cabal and the Chalvon circus.

Owerri Zone does not need more groups. It needs truth. And the truth is that until the Emekuku grab-grab mentality is defeated, Owerri will remain (un)united — and the governorship will remain a mirage.

Barrister Onyeikegbulem Writes From Avuvu in Ikeduru L.G.A