Uche Ekwunife: How not to be a Female Politician

By Gozie Odinukwe

Honourable Uche Ekwunife comes across as one woman who wears controversy like a jewel around her neck. One thing to be said about the legislator representing Anaocha/Dunukofia/Njikoka in the lower chamber of the legislative house is that so far, she has worn her controversies well.  Another thing however is that Ekwunife has wilfully set herself up as a most unlikely role model for any Nigerian girl who desires a public life. There’s something poetic here though.

 Looking at Ekwunife’s career odyssey so far, it is doubtful whether the Igboukwu, Anambra State born lawmaker ever had a role model or anyone she wanted to be like when she carved out career path for herself in politics.    This is because with Ekwunife’s conduct since she began a career in public life, respected members of society are now won’t to snigger at the prefix “honourable” which our lawmakers covet.

Nevertheless, there is something infinitely fascinating about Uche Ekwunife. With a BSc in Business Education from the University of Calabar in 2001, it is obvious that Ekwunife has had nothing short of meteoric rise to prominence in a state that has produced some of the brightest minds in Africa. Unfortunately, Ekwunife’s rise hasn’t been without some whispering campaign. And with her recent bold decision to set her political nest on fire, the whispers about Ekwunife’s reprehensible brand of politics and general attitude to life have grown in volume and resonance.  

For many observers of Uche Ekwunife’s recent legal action against APGA and Chief Willie Obiano which made headlines on Monday November 25, 2013, another hideous chapter has just been opened in the Igboukwu-born lawmaker’s increasingly scandalous career. What makes Ekwunife’s recent legal gambit curious is that a few weeks to the campaign, the lawmaker was widely reported to have collapsed her political structure, a “nebulous” contraption if ever there was one, and emptied her support base into Willie Obiano’s camp in return for what insiders described as a mouth-watering “political handshake,” to make up for her electoral loss. Close observers claim that this rapprochement was sealed with Mrs. Ekwunife’s grand appearance in Aguleri when the Obianos recently marked their Wedding Anniversary where she personally held the knife along with the couple and broke the anniversary cake. This is a privilege often reserved for trusted friends or highly esteemed guests. But it is one which has been repeatedly violated by some buccaneering Nigerian politicians who play squash with a friend in the evening and gleefully inherit his widow at daybreak.  

Ekwunife’s attitude here reminds us of Chuba Okadigbo’s famous dinner with former President Obasanjo where the former had erroneously imagined that he was safe after watching his wife dance with the later at night only to have the carpet swept from under his feet before sunrise the next day. People who know Ekwunife are not surprised that she should become the most visible inheritor of this political leprosy. They point at her profile as proof that she did not come into this inheritance by chance.

In fact, Ekwunife owes her so called meteoric political rise to brutal scheming and mindless conquest of other politicians who have unwittingly provided the ladder for her climb. The lawmaker deserves our applause though for her meticulous planning and cold execution of designs after designs that were instrumental to her rapid rise. Family friends say that once Uche makes up her mind on anything, she is willing to sacrifice loyalties and bonds, no matter how strong, to achieve her objective. For instance, while embarking on a full time political career, she was reported to have bluntly told her husband, Larry, that he should consider their marriage “technically suspended” for the moment to enable her get to her political destination. It was a disingenuous move that gave her the elbowroom to wade through Nigeria’s extremely immoral political muddle where loyalty is fluid and where the night perpetually hides with a knife.

Little wonder therefore that Mrs Ekwunife is widely believed to have begun her political career as a glamorous mistress of an erstwhile governor who to whom she was an account officer while in the employ of Standard Trust Bank. Her illicit dalliance with the Bible-wielding governor was the stuff of folktales in Awka and environs and cast a thick cloud on the governor’s pretensions of piety. Folks in Ihiala hold her accountable for the painful fall of their illustrious son whose tenure as a governor skittered from one inglorious edge to another until it ended in a whimper. Fortunately, while the sun set on the governor’s career, it rose with a certain stridency on Ekwunife’s budding political career. She made bold entry into politics as daring woman who was prepared to pay the price for a life in the glare of the public. Not long after, she started attracting attention from celebrity politicians who courted her friendship because of her striking beauty and disarming social skills.

Her first shot at the gubernatorial seat of Anambra State was financed by an extremely rich Idemili-born lawmaker who was alleged to be her “friend” at the time. The story of their friendship was common knowledge all over Anambra where her public image loomed like the statue of a Buddha over the entire landscape. But hers was a race against the wind as she lost out in the race but gained the requisite experience that eventually launched her into the legislative orbit. Her journey into the National Assembly was not without whispers though. Ekwunife was reported to have ingratiated herself into the good graces of the electoral commissioner in charge of Enugu and Anambra states at the time and had sunk her famous claws into the man. By the time she was done, the electoral commissioner had lost his post and lost relevance in society.

The growing belief in Anambra is that having whetted her beak on the carcasses of some fledgling political careers, the Igboukwu born political matriarch has grown a ravenous appetite that puts her in a league by herself. They point at her rumoured dalliances with former President Obasanjo as proof that she has finally stepped up to the heavyweight category. This is because, in Nigeria’s political firmament, any woman who is rumoured to have secured a soft spot in the heart of the Ota chicken farmer is believed to have finally mounted the lofty political high-horse.

A confirmation of Ekwunife’s growth as a political wheeler dealer also came with the on-going legal rift between her and APGA and Chief Willie Obiano. The loudest buzz in Anambra is that she worked her charms on a certain billionaire and power monger, from Dunukofia who sealed a pact worth half a billion naira to create credibility problems for Chief Obiano’s imminent victory at the coming supplementary poll by resurrecting a long dead issue. The obvious curiosity that has made many people attribute the Airline chieftain’s willingness to part with such a huge sum of money lies in the fact that the spurious charges of multiple registration levelled against Obiano are not only preposterous but have actually been thrown out by a competent court of law. On Tuesday, November 5, 2013, the High Court of Anambra State sitting in Otuocha had quashed suit N0 OT/140/2013 brought to it by one Chuma Tony Oli challenging the eligibility of Chief Obiano for the November 16, 2013 gubernatorial elections in Anambra State for allegedly possessing multiple voters’ cards. The judgement made headlines in print, electronic and online media, lending credence to the belief that the Dunukofia born billionaire must have been working under a spell to have signed away half a billion naira to enable Ekwunife resurrect such a dead case.   

What has continued to baffle Ndi Anambra is the ease with which Uche Ekwunife switches loyalties, like a monkey swinging from on branch of a tree to another in Anambra’s thick political forest. Many people in Awka recall how the lawmaker had declared her support for Chief Obiano at the APGA rally in Onitsha and followed it up with serious open campaigning for the Aguleri high chief’s victory at the polls. Her sudden volte face which hints on flaming greed has pitched her against the people who were once willing to forgive the dirty smoke that trail her. Now, the beer parlour talk in Nkwo Nnewi revolves around her sextape which Ikenna Ezenekwe of Ukpaka Reports was once arrested for blackmailing her with. The word on the street of Anambra is that the Honourable lawmaker representing Dunukofia/Njikoka/Anaocha can do anything for money. And that is hardly something pleasant to say about any self-respecting Nigerian woman even if she comes with all the sensuous charm and elan of an Uche Ekwunife.