“Austin Agbahiwe is a leader…he has the right to take decisions.” Iwuaku Iwuchukwu.
4 min read
Last week, Chief Bede Igwebuike Ehirim, an Akalite based in South Africa and a member of NUPI gave UmuakaTimes an interview concerning the NUPI crisis. In the controversial interview, Chief Ehirim spoke on a wide range of issues about the leadership crisis of NUPI. In this week edition of Umuaka Times, Mazi Iwuaku Iwuchukwu, another high profile Akalite based in Angola addressed some issues raised by Chief Ehirim. By next week, the concluding part of this interview will be published. The Iwuaku interview was n a recorded voice message.
Excerpts:
The whole leadership crisis and NUPI issues started from our quest to secure Umuaka as a Local Government Council. Based on that, we went for autonomy. If you ask people,, they will tell you that Ugbele, Amiyi etc are no longer together. It is not so. The name Ugbele-Akah etc is like a baptismal name because these villages have existed for over 500 years ago as one. We were going for autonomy because we felt it was the way to develop Umuaka faster. The late Francis Oguike was the chairman of Lagos Branch of Umuaka Development Union then and he fought very well for the project.
Everything in this world has its own time. Our royal fathers do not want to think deep and find out a solution we need. Our royal fathers contributed 50 percent to the NUPI crisis. When someone came up with this accusation he presented it in favour of ndi eze. Let us assume the money is up to N50m. What is N50m? Is it why we should kill ourselves? It is a very shameful thing that where I base and do my business, if people ask me why are my people going to court, then I will tell them it is because of N50m? I am aware that my brother Eze Mmuo donated N20 something million for electricity project and God so kind, we got electricity via government and all of a sudden, they decided to spend the money for a school project. For me, I suggested that the money be spent to acquire vehicles for some boys to drive on hire purchase bases. School project needs a lot of planning and funding.
Dr Austin Agbahiwe is a leader and he has the right to take a decision for our community. The NUPI money is intact and we should have patience. So many ezes came from many backgrounds and ezeship is something sacred and highly respectful. It is the eze tussle that gave birth to NUPI crisis. I am very sure that we were not going for autonomy in order to change our ezes from one family to another; the reason was to secure a local government for Umuaka. Today I am not sure if that project is still ongoing.
This is just morning. When King Solomon died, Israel started to have their own problem which led to the popular Bible verse, “to your tent O Israel,” and Israel divided. Leadership brings problems always but when the problems come, you only need to use your wisdom to handle them. Let us use Umulolo Ugbele as a case study. The problem of Ugbele today originated from Umulolo. Our ezeship is from there and Ugbele told Umulolo to go and sit and discuss how Ugbele would move forward. Umulolo is the problem and not even Eze Akpaka. They gave the ezeship to Eze Akpaaka. And we are telling them not to give us crisis. So Umulolo should tell us the conditions used to give ezeship to Akpaka. If it is final, we have to take it so because it was what we agreed upon in Lagos.
The issue of rotational ezeship should be expunged completely from Umuaka. Nnewi, Abiriba, Umuaahia,, Asaba etc don’t have rotational ezeship. Where did we get rotational ezeship from? In Imo State today, there are three towns you hear always, and they are Umuaka Owerri Orlu. Our major crisis originated from ezeship and that was why someone alleged that Dr Agbahiwe was insulting ndi eze. How come? The money Eze Mmuo donated was for electricity project and we got the electricity from the government, and then the money is kept in a bank and the bank is paying interests on the money. I there anything wrong about that?
Concerning Leo Oforji, it appears that he has bought the idea of some of these guys who claim that Agbahiwe kept the money in his personal account. Never. The money is kept in NUPI account. Dr Agbahiwe as a leader can take decisions. I don’t know of any leader who does not take decisions to favour his subjects. We are always in a hurry and it appears that we have forgotten that a decision was taken that we should no longer chase anyone away from office through some allegations. I am not here to support any party but I am telling you how I see it. Let the NUPI crisis stop.
To be concluded next week.
Editor.
