By Reuben Onyishi (Ugoachataberu)
One of the assets of the Ugwuanyi administration in Enugu State is Governor Ugwuanyi’s power handling strategies and skills. The governorship seat is a powerful one. It is an Olympian height of sorts imbued with much authority and power capable of paradoxically rendering its occupier uselessly tyrannical. Ugwuanyi himself had in many fora recognized this but has mindfully wielded the toga of power with much care and circumspection. It is easy to obtrusively miscarry power. Power is miscarried when it is exercised against the people. Many dinosaurs have ridden on the back of the people by taking decisions that adversely affect them.
One of the attributes of the Almighty God is His deliberate hesitations with the use of power. God is omnipotent; all power belongs to Him and He can exercise His power unquestionably, yet He applies restraints to it. His decisions are final and no one can ask him questions. Yet God applies restraints to His power in His dealings with us, his creations. He gave us freewill and right of decisions even as it concerns His worship. That was why Joshua asked the children of Israel to choose whom they would serve, for he and his family would serve God.
The Almighty God has a large heart. He created the sun and the moon and they shine for both the just and the unjust. He is a kind God full of mercies and compassion. His gifts are without repentance and He does not reward us after our many unrighteous deeds. He loves us and demonstrated it in His sacrifice of His only Son for our redemption. He made everything and there was nothing made that was not made by him. Even the power he gave to Lucifer who rebelled against Him, He did not take back. God is exhaustive in his patience.He is not in haste to destroy anyone. He prefers mercy to judgment and gives us the opportunity to amend our ways.
A good leader is he who like God Almighty applies restraints in his legitimate exercise of power and authority. That perhaps is why the saying goes: they are fit to rule who wear the crown reluctantly. Rt. Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi has this attribute. Ugwuanyi is a kind, humble, patient and loving and compassionate leader. His Excellency is so mindful of the use of power vested on him that everyday he turns to the moral side of power. Achebe writes in his text _Anthills of Savannah_ that the goddess of Idemili seeing through the eyes of the sun the way the moral nature of power and authority is violated, comes down with a loincloth of peace and modesty which it ties around power’s rude waste that the moral nature of power and authority be restored. for power gallops nakedly along its corridors.
The moral nature of power lies in its application to the benefits of the led, when it eschews selfishness, vindictiveness, vendetta, oppression, corruption, dictatorship, evil manipulation, extortion, arrogant hubris, insecurity, crisis and all manner of vices.
Peace and security are a sure sign of righteousness on the throne. Ugwuanyi since 2015 when he was sworn in as the governor of Enugu State has maintained peace and security in the state. Peace did not come to the state as leaves to a tree. It was a deliberate act of Ugwuanyi’s leadership and power handling skills. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Power has the intoxicating ability to render its handlers mad. Power has ruined many a man. It ruined Napoleon Bonaparte; it ruined Adolphus Hitler. Did it not also ruin Idi Amin of Uganda and Abacha of Nigeria, to mention no more? Its strength of intoxication is so strong that men who from afar pointed to its poor handling and tyrannical outcome, when engaged with power became worse than those they had criticised. Power handling is a skill. It takes humility, urbanity and relationship savvy skills to clothe power in the fine fripperies of peace as Ugwuanyi has done in Enugu State.
Ugwuanyi’s approach to power is natural. He does not struggle to bear in his hands the sceptre of righteous restraint. We have had occasions to wonder why he would not unleash his power in response to certain provocative actions and utterances filled with unprovoked venoms and vituperation of some of his subjects, in the name of playing politics. Ugwuanyi when you thought he had been impugned and harangued to a sore point would chuckle and let it be. It takes a large heart and uncommon power handling abilities to overlook such sore provocative nudge and move on.
One other semblance of commendable power handling skills that Ugwuanyi has and which has benefitted the people of the state largely is his sense of altruism. Altruism is a level attained when one is able to rise above the idiocy of selfishness, clannishness and nepotism. The beast of self is often tied to the hearts of them who lack the gift of power handling. Man naturally thinks self. It takes good education and exposure to untie the animal in human heart. It is at this point that man begins to think others. We have seen persons who rose to the throne only to corner the common purse to exclusive use for self and their own people, leaving others with nothing. They concentrate the developmental resources to their place and would do nothing for others which would not benefit them.
Such is the situation with our country presently where the federal character as enshrined in the constitution is deliberately violated with impunity. Here in Enugu State, Ugwuanyi has equitably distributed the deliverables across the three zones that make up the state. It takes living above the mesh to do away with the idiocy of self. Those who allowed power to derail them have unknowingly made themselves nothing and so have no place in the chronicles of good leadership. Ugwuanyi has indelibly written his name with a golden pen in the tablet of human consciousness and the great memory. It takes adeptness at power handling to raise the pen above the cancellation of inordinate application of naked power.
Ugwuanyi’s disposition with power is something that cannot be ignored anywhere in the world. The former minister of Aviation, Dr. Femi Fani Kayode, the other day recognized Ugwuanyi’s ability to wield power to the benefit of the people and so recommended that now that it was the turn of the Southeast to produce the next president of Nigeria, Ugwuanyi should be considered. Flesh and blood did not reveal this to Fani Kayode, Ugwuanyi’s power handling skills did. This is in his understanding of the onerous task of effective power handling finesse which Ugwuanyi has proven to possess to the extent of national recognition. So, it was natural to ask that Ugwuanyi be considered that he might replicate the magic wand at the national level, especially at this point when the nation is cowering at the brink of insecurity and balkanization. Ugwuanyi has the viscous touch that can peacefully bind the nation of Nigeria together in diversity. He has the power handling skills and a nation as sick as Nigeria should seek Ugwuanyi’s surgeon’s scalpel that has the sharpness for cutting through the malignant growth of leadership failure and poor power handling skills ailing the country.
Ugwuanyi’s power handling skills have stabilized the economy of Enugu State and have engendered peace and security. Ugwuanyi is a friend to all. Even those who made themselves foes have become friends as they cannot resist Ugwuanyi’s bravura in power handling, his aura and the olive he constantly extends to all. Little wonder Enugu State enjoys stability in all facets of its being under Ugwuanyi’s watch.
