Kenneth Okonkwo: Unmasking True Identity Of A Double-Faced Politician

Nollywood actor-turned-politician, Mr Kenneth Okonkwo, has been in the headlines of recent for casting aspersions on Nigeria’s South East region in a seeming attempt to rouse President Muhammadu Buhari to notice his recent campaigns for the president’s re-election in 2019.

While it is completely acceptable for anyone to decide whoever they want to support to be president in an election, such persons must do so with all sense of dignity and integrity. One should not because of greed or selfishness sell out his/her own people just to score cheap points and gain political relevance.

Advertisement

Such appears to be the case of Mr Okonkwo, an Enugu-born actor, lawyer, and politician, who perhaps thinks by trampling on others, he could rapidly rise in the pyramid of Nigerian politics. The actor may have chosen the path of backstabbing former associates to accomplish his political goals even if this approach may in turn haunt him.

The actor’s recent conduct brings to mind a saying by popular Nigerian novelist, Professor Chinua Achebe, who in a book titled “The Education of a British-Protected Child: Essays” said “We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own. The Igbo, always practical, put it concretely in their proverb: Onye ji onye n’ani ji onwe ya” meaning “He who will hold another down in the mud must stay in the mud to keep him down”.

Okonkwo recently invited the wrath of Nigerians who saw it as an affront when he reportedly said, “If the South East shall support any other person [asides President Buhari] for the Presidency, they [the Igbo] are going to spend the next eight years in the wilderness.”

Okonkwo had explained that he supports Buhari’s re-election in 2019 because “he is committed to good governance and as an ambassador of good governance you can’t get a better president than President Buhari.” But the actor came under heavy criticisms by political observers who knocked him for holding the unpopular opinion, and for specifically vilifying his erstwhile political party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), where he had failed to clinch the party’s House of Representatives primary election ticket for the Nsukka/Igbo Eze South federal constituency in 2014.

Advertisement

Okonkwo had consequently resigned his membership of the PDP after losing the ticket to Vitta Abah, who is a former state chairman of the party. So, it didn’t come as a surprise that years after losing the primary election ticket and resigning his membership of the PDP, Mr Okonkwo has resorted to launching a campaign of calumny against the party in an apparent bid to get President Buhari’s support for his new ambition to become Governor of Enugu State under the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

This is a man, who out of his quest for cheap fame, had reportedly filed a lawsuit against President Buhari in 2016 for allegedly failing to appoint one of his 36 ministers from the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. In the lawsuit file number FHC/ABJ/CS/34/16/ which he filed before the Federal High Court in Abuja, Mr Okonkwo reportedly claimed that it was “unconstitutional and discriminatory” for the president to not appoint at least one of his ministers from the FCT.

He had claimed in an interview at the time that the president’s action “led to tensions in the FCT as the indigenes are becoming restive” adding that “all efforts to get the president to appoint an indigene of the FCT failed, hence the need for this suit to compel the President to do the needful and avert a possible breakdown of law and order with catastrophic consequences in the FCT.”

For this same man to now turn around to express passionate admiration for the president leaves nothing to the imagination that the bound-to-lose governorship aspirant is nothing but a double-faced politician who out of gluttony for power and fame doesn’t mind sacrificing the interest of his people and the entire South East.

In his customary practice of betrayal and pursuit of cheap attention, Okonkwo had last week said of his erstwhile political party: “You know the truth, the worst of Buhari in 8 years will be better than the best of PDP in 16 years.

Advertisement

“The PDP had 16 years with oil prices very high in-between yet they left us without light, without water, without roads, without security, without paying even salaries, indeed without anything.”

In trying to defend his ostracised political views after being bashed by Nigerians, the actor went on to say, “I support Buhari and pray for him. I sincerely don’t care what people like those empty men who make ignorant videos have to say. I don’t want to be a Governor under a corrupt President. At least I can say that the person of Buhari is not corrupt.”

The above assertion goes further to portray Mr Okonkwo’s true character as the politician had previously failed to clinch a political office under the PDP regime which he is now trying to depict as corrupt. In apparently trying to seek political favours, the actor had reportedly described immediate past President Goodluck Jonathan of the PDP as “the God-send messiah” whom had been sent by God to rescue the nation.

So, for any discerning mind, Mr Okonkwo is undoubtedly the kind of politician who would literally worship you when you are in a position of power, but would turn around to spite you when he thinks you may no longer be of any assistance to him. Nigerians have seen him malign the Goodluck Jonathan-led PDP government and he is now showering praises on President Buhari just as he previously did to the former president. President Buhari must be wary of people like Okonkwo because there is an African proverb that says “a cat may go to a monastery, but she still remains a cat”. Aspiring political office holders like Okonkwo will be willing to betray years of friendship just to get a little bit of the spotlight. He will most likely sing the same songs he is currently singing to Buhari to the next president and may make a u-turn to disparage him after he leaves office.

Olu wrote from Abuja

_
Disclaimer: This article is entirely the opinion of the writer and does not represent the views of The Whistler.

Leave a comment

Advertisement