“A Man Who Sacrificed a Senate Seat for Jim Nwobodo Does Not Need Lessons on Honour, Zoning, or Political Trust”
— by Dr. Robert Ngwu
What is most amusing about Onoh’s intervention is the deliberate attempt to posture as an “independent analyst” while acting as one of the loudest political defenders and beneficiaries of the current Enugu State Government. Intellectual honesty ordinarily demands full disclosure of such relationships before preaching morality to others.
Beyond that, his argument unintentionally reveals more about his own worldview than about Chief Uche Geoffrey Nnaji.
According to Onoh’s logic, no politician can be trusted, no promise can be believed, and integrity in public life is impossible. I completely disagree.
Chief Uche Geoffrey Nnaji has already demonstrated a level of sacrifice and political integrity that remains almost unprecedented in Nigerian politics.
In 1999, Nwakaibie won election overwhelmingly to represent Enugu East Senatorial Zone. While awaiting inauguration and swearing-in as Senator-elect, an opportunity emerged to support Chief Jim Ifeanyichukwu Nwobodo for the position of Senate President. What did Nnaji do? He voluntarily relinquished his own hard-earned mandate and stepped aside for an elder statesman without coercion, litigation, rebellion, or bargaining.
Let that sink in carefully.
A Senator-elect, already awaiting inauguration, surrendered the seat purely out of respect, party stability, and collective interest. Nigeria’s political history has hardly witnessed such a sacrifice at that level.
That singular act is why history today remembers Chief Jim Nwobodo as Senator Jim Nwobodo.
So when a man with that record gives his word publicly, reasonable people take it seriously.
The tragedy is that people like Onoh judge others through the lens of their own political environment where power is treated as a lifelong entitlement and promises are viewed merely as campaign slogans.
You also boasted about being “ten times richer” than Nwakaibie. Congratulations. Nobody disputes that your late father, Chief C.C. Onoh — the legendary Ananefungwu 1 and champion of the Wawa cause — built enormous wealth and influence. His legacy is respected across Enugu State.
But one cannot help wondering what the great Ananefungwu himself would say today seeing one of his own defending policies that have made life increasingly unbearable for ordinary people.
Enugu has become one of the most expensive states to live in Nigeria according to multiple economic indicators. Yet salaries remain stagnant. Teachers remain underpaid. Civil servants are struggling. Small businesses are suffocating under rising taxation and harsh economic conditions.
Meanwhile, the state is projected to control close to ₦2 trillion in cumulative revenues within a relatively short period.
The late C.C. Onoh was known for courage, bluntness, and scrutiny of public finance. A man of that temperament would probably have arrived with ledgers, audit files, calculators, revenue sheets, expenditure schedules, and red-ink markers demanding explanations line by line for how enormous inflows are translating into worsening hardship for the ordinary citizen.
That is the real debate Enugu people should be having — not manufactured outrage over a voluntary one-term pledge made in the spirit of equity, zoning stability, and political trust.
The irony is that those attacking Nnaji for promising to leave after four years are the same people who constantly preach zoning and fairness whenever it suits their political interests.
You cannot praise zoning in the morning and condemn a man for respecting it in the evening.
Enugu people are wiser than that.
