In my post primary school, about 35 years ago, I cherished three beautiful poems written by three different prolific poets of those epoch making periods. 

One was Africa My Africa by David Diop, born of Senegalese father and a Cameroonian mother. The second poem that excited me was The Snake by D. H. Lawrence. The third was The Casualties, written by homeboy, John Peppe Ckark.

The first two were not Nigerians, so let us transact with our dear Niger Delta poetry giant, Clark and his Casualties.

In the poem, Clark was paying tribute to his fellow intellectual, literally soulmate and commanding poet, Chris Okigbo who was one of the earliest victims of the cruel but avoidable Nigeria, Biafra civil war.

A man of many parts, Clark acknowledged that the casualties in the murderous civil war and indeed other battles – both meaningful and meaningless – were not just the fatally fallen heroes. He rather correctly enumerated that even the bereaved families of those who were maliciously killed in battlefront, were also casualties of the war.

Other casualties as Clark rightly observed were those who suffered other war related absurdities like kwashiorkor., the sick and bedridden who couldn’t get proper medicare., disoriented family members who were disunited and displaced in the pursuit of safety and survival., those who were taken as Prisoners Of War (POW) as well those who lost parts of thier bodies to bullets and bombs.

There were also those who suffered death by instalment. All, according to poetry master and multiple award winning author, Clark were casualties of war, and he was absolutely correct.

You see, the 2023 general elections produced several casualties and they were in different shapes, sizes and forms. There were four major presidential candidates in that February 25, 2023 election. The APC candidate was declared winner to the chagrin of LP, NNPP and PDP candidates as well as their supporters who shouted blue murder.

Therefore, besides casualties like those who regrettably lost thier lives on election day, or were arrested allegedly in connection with one electoral crime or the other, the biggest casualties of February 25 were the presidential candidates of those other three major political parties.

There were also casualties on March 18 during the rescheduled governorship and state houses of assembly elections across the country. At least, Governor Okezie Ikpeazu who ridiculously served as the unofficial personal assistant to Governor Nyesom Wike, in the terribly conceived and wrongly executed G5 Governors, was a huge casualty as he failed to win a senatorial seat and equally lost the Umuahia Government House to Labour Party’s Dr Alex Otti. Expectedly, there were other March 18 casualties in the God’s Own State.

As it was in Abia, the brutal casualty wave equally hit the Coal City state of Enugu where Wike’s unofficial chief of staff in the same G5, Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi failed a senatorial election and “controversially” produced his successor. But his political patriarch, former governor, Dr Chimaraoke Nnamani, was not so lucky.

As a matter of fact, there were several casualties in the 2023 general elections across the federation.

And in Imo State, the casualty toll was equally high but laughable and democratically irritating for various imaginable reasons., one of such reasons being the obnoxious militarization of the polity on February 25 and March 18 by the serving state actors.

However, since February 25 and March 18, no other state in the country has dramatically and sensationally been practically visited with a new set of casualties as is being done in Imo.

Like Clark graphically captured it in his all time best and award winning poem, The Casualties, where he noted that the victims were not only those that died in the course of the war, but equally all that suffered any form of deprivation or pain, so also the Imo State 2023 election casualty list is studded with a new set of victims.

On Tuesday, March 28, the immediate past governor of Imo, His Excellency, Rt. Hon. Emeka Ihedioha, CON, KSC, delivered a political bomb that has numerically increased the 2023 casualty toll in the state. Ihedioha announced he had withdrawn from the PDP governorship primary election billed for April 14, 2023. The primary election is for PDP to pick its governorship candidate for the all important November 11, 2023 governorship election in the state.

With his withdrawal, the 2023 election casualty list has hit an all time record toll. The number of victims is now monumental, monstrous and colossal. Ihedioha’s withdrawal has sent shivers down the spines of his political opponents. They are jittery and cold as the uppercut came to them suddenly – they never expected it and they never saw it coming. In boxing, the blow that knocks you out is not the heavy jab you see, it is the blow you do not see.

All along, it has always been speculated that the national secretary of PDP, Distinguished Senator Samuel Anyanwu otherwise known as Samdaddy, has been working assiduously albeit surreptitiously with Governor Hope Uzodimma on how to stop Ihedioha and PDP from going through in the November 11 election. Of course, both the governor and Samdaddy’s media men as well as spin doctors have always denied this accusation, but the allegation still trends even among elite corners.

Thus, Ihedioha’s withdrawal has dealt a devastating blow to the alleged conspiracy between Uzodimma and Samdaddy tied on how to recklessly and publicly execute Ihedioha during the PDP governorship primary election.

The exciting factor here is, in view of Ihedioha’s applaudable and tactical withdrawal, and which will ultimately produce Samddady unopposed during the PDP governorship primary election, Governor Uzodimma will, for all intents and purposes, see Samddady as a fellow contestant in the battle of November 11. All the resources, particularly money, security and other logistics allegedly to flow from the governor to the PDP national secretary, are now issues of past. Like Ihedioha, Uzodimma will do a withdrawal.

On the side of Samdaddy, all his ideas to probably use the event to garner financial support from friends and political allies, especially his governor fraternities, are now in the shambles. They are shattered.

Therefore, all plots hitherto projected and rehearsed on the joint deal of how to stop Ihedioha during the umbrella party’s governorship election, will automatically be aimed on how to crucify Samddady on November 11, day of election proper. This is a new trajectory of the 2023 election casualties.

Again, there were many PDP leaders, elders and members who usually click glasses and had lunch with Ihedioha only to return to Samdaddy, wine and dine with him in the night. These were the double faced PDP fellows who eternally caused friction in the party. This set of party men and women had designed how to make fortune from both Ihedioha and Samddady during the PDP primary election in Imo. Ihedioha had punctured this illegitimate political merchandise. It will no longer fly.

This group of interlopers includes some officials of the party who Ihedioha, since 2003, had facilitated thier state or national appointments or elections or even the elevation of thier siblings/ wards to various elective positions or positions but who are currently joining hands with the former deputy speaker of the house of representatives’ traducers to put a clog in his wheel of political progress.

All of the above had planned and designed how, like the Jews on Jesus, to violently strip Ihedioha of his political garment, by dragging his ribs off so roughly and cruelly treat him with deep cut of sabotage, betrayal, backbiting and backstabbing. As fate would have it, these undignified party members with this disgusting tendencies, are now the latest casualties in town, the Imo PDP victims, while Ihedioha is the victor.

You can easily see this people standing aghast in public because their bait has crashed and thier hopes of milking both Samdaddy and Ihedioha have hit the rocks – they do not know what to do again. They are in-between the devil and the red blue sea – in political wilderness. This particular group, while the masses are hailing Ihedioha for a decision well taken, is castigating the erstwhile deputy speaker for “chickening out”.

Ihedioha has also provided Samdaddy and his group the opportunity to prove that, really, the Mbutu Mbaise born politician is the problem of Imo State PDP as they have always claimed. Their first assignment is the PDP governorship primary election and afterwards, the electioneering.

Finally, Ihedioha’s withdrawal from the Imo PDP governorship primary election has proved him to be a political mathematician, a patriotic party man and a politician with national and international historical background.

Nationally, remember vividly that to save Nigeria from imminent collapse, then military president, retired General Ibrahim Babangida, stepped aside for the country to survive. Ihedioha withdraw for Imo PDP to be stronger and better.

And internationally, recall that when Russia erected the Berlin Wall in August 1961 to stop or reduce the number of emigrants from East Berlin to West Germany, then President John F. Kennedy turned down pieces of advice to strike it down with force. He laid down procedures for use of diplomacy and negotiations. This is exactly what Ihedioha has done – using peaceful means to strengthen PDP’s internal democracy and cohesion rather than fighting to destroy the party he has invested so much in its growth and development. And he will surely reap its attendant reward.

Ori Martins