Politics2023: Can Ohuabunwa Break The Jinx?

2023: Can Ohuabunwa Break The Jinx?

BEVERLY HILLS, March 15, (THEWILL) – He chose a Holy Day to announce his aspiration to wade into the mucky waters of politics and run for the highest office in the land. However, Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa’s declaration on the last Sunday in January that he would join the 2023 presidential race has lifted more than eyebrows; it sent the heart of many a potential opponent into a frenetic frenzy of palpitations. Why would they feel so intimidated by a man coming from two constituencies that have often fallen by the wayside in the race for the country’s highest prize?

For one, unlike many gladiators in the arena, this contestant rides into the competition like a knight in the shining armour of industry and integrity. By all means a quality contender, Ohuabunwa virtually wears a saintly halo around his head, as his dossier exposes not a scintilla of blemish from his past. That apart, Ohuabunwa possesses formidable credentials. The President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) as well as chief executive of the multi-billion naira pharmacy giant, Neimeth, the man possesses strong tentacles in corporate Nigeria and beyond.

Somewhere he has been branded an accomplished Author, Newspaper Columnist, former Chairman of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), and former member of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) under President Goodluck Jonathan. Currently, he serves as a member of President Muhammadu Buhari’s Presidential Advisory Committee (PAC), a position likely to secure for Ohuabunwa a soft spot in the heart of the government of the day.

Glo

However, this will be the first time Ohuabunwa actively delves into party politics, having spent the adult phase of his 70 years on the sidelines. The renowned Pharmacist, who holds the national honour of the Order of the Federal Republic, OFR, is not a known sympathiser of any party and nothing so far indicates that he secretly registered as a card-carrying member of any.

Undoubtedly, this Igbo gentleman from Abia State exudes all the aura of a shining star from the East, yet the question must be asked: Does he possess the sagacity to navigate the labyrinth of partisan politics, outwit the potential ganging up of political Barracudas and survive the fangs that will inevitably lounge at him? He may have mastered the fine art of corporate politics. But have his boardroom skills equipped him with the requisite survival kits for the mucky waters of raw partisanship?

As a business guru giving politics a wholesome embrace, Ohuabunwa follows in the footsteps of other personalities from corporate Nigeria who leaped from the boardroom to the rostrum. Unfortunately, those adventures did not have a happy ending. Back in the Third Republic, industrial guru and Guinness Chairman, Chief Abel Ubeku, threw his hat into the ring and aspired to be Nigeria’s President. He had made a huge success in the brewing industry where he steered his company’s products and brands into dominance in the country’s beverages sector, so Ubeku clearly knew his onions. But his ambition never found the wings to fly. Until he died in March 2014, the Delta State-born gentleman never really made it into the heavyweight class in the country’s political ring. This is a ring that has slain timbers and calibres of industry.

Imagine the experience of Professor Pat Utomi, who also followed the nose-diving trajectory, despite forming his own political party, the African Democratic Congress, and becoming the Presidential Candidate of SDMP. The cerebral former Special Adviser to the Second Republic’s President Shehu Shagari and later Chief Executive of Volkswagen Nigeria lowered his eyesight from aspiring to the country’s presidency to becoming a state Governor under APC. Despite it all, politically speaking “ground no just level for the guy,” to put it in pidgin English.

Imagine too Chief Gamaliel Onosode alias “Mr. Integrity,” who wielded the Midas touch in things temporal and celestial as foremost Nigerian technocrat and administrator, whose successes spanned not just industrial empires but building from his living room in 1984 the Good News Baptist Church into a massive church with a congregation of over 2,000. But when death beckoned in 2015 at the age of 82, the former Chairman of Dunlop, Cadbury and several other high-profile organisations left with his political ambition amputated.

Shall we need to recount the obnoxious histories of such corporate geniuses as Ernest Shonekan, Bamanga Tukur and M.K.O. Abiola?

In fact, due to the failure of such businessmen, Nigerian politics appears to be the exclusive calling of retired military Generals, retired civil servants, teachers and academics.

For this very reason, the coming of Ohuabunwa has whipped up some excitement. Maybe he will break the jinx. Such a man who has made success of private enterprise could make a difference in public office. First he will likely have the backing of his peers in the corporate world. Secondly, his kinsmen, the Igbo, have been shopping for an untainted standard bearer that will brighten their chances of wresting power from the other regions in the South when the pendulum of power swings away from the North come 2023.

Ohuabunwa himself is leaving no stone unturned to help his chances. In furtherance of his dream, he has floated a political pressure group called, The New Nigeria Group. He is TNNG’s Convener. He will need all such props.

In the race for the presidency, Mazi comes into a field filled with formidable warhorses who already have a head start as they have political structures and networks built since this Republic dawned in 1999. Talk of former Nigeria’s Vice President Atiku Abubakar. Talk of former Abia State Governor Senator Orjih Uzoh Kalu. Talk of former Lagos State Governor Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Talk of the current Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. Talk of the current Kogi State’s Governor Yahaya Bello. Talk of Ekiti State’s Governor Kayode Fayemi. Talk of former Lagos State’s Governor and current Minister of Works and Housing Babatunde Fashola. Talk of former Anambra State’s Governor who was PDP Vice Presidential Candidate in 2019, Peter Obi. Talk of former Imo State’s Governor Senator Rochas Okorocha. Talk of the current Ebonyi State’s Governor David Umahi. And then consider former President Goodluck Jonathan.

None of these wannabes rates like a pushover.

But unlike many in that field of Barracudas and desperadoes, the Pharmacist approaches his ambition with a liberal psychology. For him, being President is not a do-or-die affair. He shows fastidiousness about power shifting to the South-East, a zone that has never enjoyed the privilege of posting an indigene as civilian President. Ohuabunwa posits that he stepped forward only to brighten the chances that his native Igbo race (only one of the three major tribes yet to occupy the seat) would clinch the presidency.

As he put it: “I am making myself available; it must not be me, but an Igbo of character. Ndigbo must present their best…. It is not about the South-East, it is about Nigeria. Every Nigerian who wants unity must support power shift. Igbo Presidency will stop Biafra agitation, which asks for equity, fairness and freedom. Even other agitations will stop. Igbo are for justice and equity. We are not coming with anger and recrimination, but with equity….”

More interesting, while making his declaration speech, Ohuabunwa raked from under the carpet matters that professional politicians prefer to view with a blind eye. He bemoaned how current administrators have continued to run Nigeria in an opaque manner. He took particular exception to the lopsided structuring of government institutions as presently constituted.

Such talk may sound grating to the ears of those benefiting from the status quo. It, however, paints Ohuabunwa in the picture of a man quite abreast of the country’s dominant issues, a man who would dare to head-butt those issues without any pretence to political correctness.

In the final analysis, this Igbo son rising from the East represents two primary constituencies, his ethnic stock and corporate Nigeria giants, who appear jinxed in the quest for the presidency. Will Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa finally break both jinxes?

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