Imo Guber poll: Odds favour PDP’s Ihedioha

As the nation heads to the poll to elect the next set of governors and state’s House of Assembly members, many interesting developments are expected from some quarters whose political trajectory has been sort of bewildering to many political watchers in the country.

One of the states that promise to be very interesting in this election is Imo State and that is for many reasons.

Imo remains the only states in the South East being ruled today by the All Progressives Congress (APC), the ruling party at the center, making it one of the two states in the South East and South South under APC control, the other being Edo State.

That Imo State is one of the two states in the country whose governor is supporting a canmdidate of another party while they are running for Senate on the platform of the APC, the other state being Ogun State in the South West.

It should also be noted that the outcome of the governorship elections in Imo State since 1999 was determined by a rough mix of some six factors, comprising of – the voters and the votes that counted, Orlu hegemony versus the moral burden of zoning, candidate likability, Imo elite conspiracies or preferences, the bias of electoral institutions, and political party branding/spread.

In this 2019 election, it is these same factors, either in partial combination or in isolation, that will again determine who, amongst the following, wins: Emeka Ihedioha, Ikedi Ohakim, Hope Uzodimma, Ifeanyi Ararume, and Uche Nwosu will emerge victorious at the poll.

According to an informed analyst, in 1999 and 2003, the three predominant factors that determined the governorship election were: zoning, elite preference, and some noticeable bias of the electoral institutions.

So, it is interesting to note that the year 2003 (sixteen years ago) was the last time the PDP won the governorship election in Imo State. It lost it in 2007, 2011 and 2015.

Going by their antecedents and current realities, each of the five front runners enumerated above possesses a relative advantage of some or all of the foregoing six factors, albeit to varying lesser and greater degrees.

What this portends is that the likely margin of votes separating one from the other is going to be narrower than any other time in history but a clear winner will still emerge at the first ballot.

Emeka Ihedioha
Though Ihedioha is likely to lose some votes to the old (and disaffected) PDP guards still allied to Ohakim and Uzodima and to a less extent, Ararume, he is believed to have a better chance this time than he had in 2015 when he polled about 320k votes.

Ihedioha’s strongest strength lies in the elite support he still enjoys and the zoning factor and his experience and grassroots appeal should not also be discountenanced.

Uche Nwosu
The hope of Uche Nwosu to tap into Rochas’ political base in this election will be one of his major undoing, as the best he is expected to poll from this base is minus-plus one-third of what Rochas has polled in 2015, making further allowances for the votes that were said to have been manipulated.

Uche is also hoping to leverage on the remnants of the institutional capital left to the politically wounded Rochas.

The Orlu factor will work in the opposite for Uche just as the most obvious – being Rochas’ inlaw has become an albatross. His party – the Action Alliance has no voter base anywhere.

It was a briefcase party before he came into play and breathed some life into it but nothing seems to have been done to organize the party away from the double-edged sword of core APC apparatchiks that are in lock-step with Uzodimma.

Hope Uzodimma
Sen. Hope Uzodimma, can be described as the man who slayed Rochas, taking the APC ticket from him. He will likely prune away some votes from the disenchanted ranks of the Ihedioha/PDP combine.

He’s counting more on candidate hype, voter/grassroots appeal, but unbeknown to him some of these factors are more likely to work in opposites to 1999 and 2011.

Better yet, the greatest obstacles to Uzodimma are that he is running against veteran opponents, a bitter and wealthy incumbent governor and his family, and Owerri/Okigwe zones that have come to see him as the post-boy for Orlu hegemony.

Ikedi Ohakim

Ohakim is likely to retain some portion of the votes he polled in 2011 because his appeal as an ex-governor remains somewhat strong. Even as some of his votes are vulnerable to Ararume (same zone factor), it counts for him that he has beaten Ararume twice (in 2007 and 2011).

Ifeanyi Ararume
Ifeanyi Ararume is likely to maintain just about minus-plus what he had polled in 2011. Recall also that he had run twice and lost twice, and each time with two political parties (PDP and ACN) that have more spread than the parties whose candidates had defeated him.

In this 2019, his current party (APGA) is still possessed of some appeal (based on the well-worn Nkea Bu Nke Anyi), but he also has to contend with wary Imo elites and those he badly bruised in APGA on his way to the top.