Dave Umahi, the Minister of Works, will never change. He is ill-tempered and intolerant. Contraries have no place in his worldview. He sees life only from one prism. This explains why he is always at daggers drawn with those who perceive reality differently. Much more than this, Umahi is a quisling in every sense of the word. I have had cause to describe him in this manner in the past. The man radiates self-hate at every turn. His flagellum gets turned on once an opportunity presents itself for him to sell his Igbo brethren to those who do not wish them well. Now, the unrealistic Lagos-Calabar coastal highway has become an Igbo problem, and we owe this curious turn of events to Umahi.
Peter Obi, the most potent voice in Nigeria today crying in the wilderness, spoke against the project. His position was that the coastal highway was a misplaced priority and should be jettisoned in favour of numerous abandoned road projects across the country begging for attention. For saying this, Umahi said Obi was inciting the people of the South East against the Federal Government. One is constrained to ask: how? Was Obi addressing south easterners when he spoke? Does Obi speak for the south east? How did Umahi narrow down a statement meant for the generality of Nigerians to the south east? This is curious indeed.
It should be noted that before Obi stepped into this subject matter, a number of Nigerians had interjected on it with resounding disapproval. One of them was Atiku Abubakar, Nigeria’s former Vice President. If Obi spoke for the south east as Umahi would have Nigerians believe, who did Atiku speak for? Why did Umahi not accuse Atiku of inciting the north against the Federal Government? What Umahi has done amounts to selective vilification. Umahi takes sardonic delight in anything that is directed against his Igbo kinsmen. By so doing, he hates himself consciously or unconsciously. This makes him a split personality.
By his action and loose statements, Umahi has singled out the south east, his own people, for vilification over the coastal highway project. He is inciting the people of the South West and South-South against the South East by giving the impression that the zone (south east) is against the project. Do we have a South East position on this subject matter? Certainly none. But Umahi wants to force one on them. This is mischief directed at oneself. Umahi’s problem is that he lacks a broad outlook. He is given to little-mindedness, the type that has shrunk his thinking into believing that he can deploy the highway project as an instrument of blackmail. He is blackmailing the south east for no good reason. This makes him a classical quisling whose stock in trade is to sell his people to the enemy. Umahi has severally been caught in the web of this ignoble disposition. He has come round again to exhibit it.
But who is this Umahi in the context of the Nigerian federation? He is a miserable federalist, one of those pathetic pretenders that claim to love Nigeria even at their own peril. Given the unenviable state of the Igbo nation in the Nigerian federation, Umahi feels that his best and easy route to relevance is to stigmatise his Igbo people. He wants to be seen to be running away from his people so that he will be loved by those who want the Igbo to be put out. He exhibited much of this while he was in the saddle as governor of Ebonyi State. Now, he has found accommodation in Bola Tinubu. He is comfortable in his new enclave. It is a place where phobia for the Igbo is both a way of life and a state policy. The Tinubu administration has a surfeit of anti-Igbo manifestos. Umahi is happy to be recruited to supply the missiles for the annihilation of his people.
Beyond all this, Umahi has a Peter Obi problem. He pines away in bitterness whenever Obi hugs the national limelight. When, in 2019, Obi emerged as the vice presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party with Atiku as the flag bearer, Umahi’s adrenalin boiled over. He was choked with bitterness. He fretted to no end over it. Then again, when in 2023 Obi took Nigeria by storm in his presidential campaigns, Umahi, like Chukwuma Soludo, was green with envy. Obi’s political ascendancy gives Umahi goose pimples. That explains the tainted colouration he has imposed on Obi’s interventions on the coastal highway project.
But Umahi will be doing himself a world of good if he slows down on his antagonism towards a man whose only sin is that he dared to aspire to a higher height. If Umahi thinks that he has what Obi has, he should step out and join the fray. If he does that, he will discover, if he does not already know that, that he is Lilliputian when placed side by side with Obi. Umahi must be told in clear terms that ill-temper and blackmail will take him nowhere. The truth about the senseless coastal highway must be told. Just a fortnight ago, I took a clear-eyed look at the project and doubted its deliverability. I had stated in part as follows:
“The project is ill-timed. Those behind it must have overlooked all the life and death challenges that Nigerians are facing at moment. Food inflation has jumped above 40 percent. The result is that the average Nigerian family is just managing to eke out a living. This is not to talk of the general cost of living in the country. There is pain and agony everywhere in Nigeria. A responsible and responsive government will take more than a passing interest in this state of affairs. Instead, it will take concrete and decisive steps to reverse the ugly trend. This has not been done. So, why rush into a project that will not, in any way, address the existential threat that the people are facing at moment? What is easy to see here is that there is a devious plot behind the idea. It does appear that the ultimate objective is to pull the wool over our eyes and divert our attention from the real intent of the self-serving initiative. Only those with the gift of circumspection will see through the elaborate charade. The project is far from being real.”
Umahi, for all I care, can bark as much as he wants over the coastal highway. That will not deter anybody from saying it as it is. Nigerians must be made fully aware of the facts of the matter. I can bet Umahi and his ilk that posterity will judge them harshly over this unrealisable project.
