By: Kelechi Uzomah, 08064075316
The ancient philosopher Aristotle reminded us that equity is the correction of law where the law is defective. In Imo State, however, equity has been turned upside down: the defect is now being dressed up as the law, and those who seek to correct it are being branded enemies of the state. That is the uncomfortable truth that former Governor Dr. Ikedi Ohakim confronted last weekend at the 2026 Synod of the Anglican Diocese of Isi-Mbano, held at St. Paul’s Church, Umuduru, Isiala Mbano. His address, “The Imo Charter of Equity: Anatomy of a Broken Covenant, the Moral Wound and a Framework for Restorative Justice,” was not a political speech. It was a moral audit of a covenant betrayed—and a warning that the current clamour for 2027 equity is built on sand.
The history is neither complicated nor contested. In 1999, Imo leaders reached an understanding: power would rotate among the three senatorial zones, beginning with Orlu. Chief Achike Udenwa served two full terms, eight years, and in 2007 the turn passed to Okigwe. Dr. Ikedi Ohakim was elected on that understanding. The covenant was simple and elegant: each zone would enjoy a full eight-year window, not merely a single term. That is what equity meant in Imo—not a one-term experiment, but a guaranteed season of governance.
Then came 2011. Okigwe’s eight-year window was violently truncated. Ohakim was hounded out of office after only four years, and power was returned to Orlu—not through the ballot, but through a political conspiracy that Owerri leaders enthusiastically joined, believing they had struck a deal for 2015. That deal collapsed, and Orlu has held power for most of the years since. The covenant of 1999 was not amended; it was broken. And a broken covenant cannot be quietly forgotten while its beneficiaries demand a new one.
This is the crux of Ohakim’s message. The “recent Imo Charter of Equity,” the document attributed to the Imo Council of Elders and touted as the basis for ceding power to Owerri in 2027, is fundamentally illegitimate because it was constructed atop the rubble of the 1999 covenant without repairing the rubble. Ohakim questioned the document’s legitimacy, noting that it lacked adequate stakeholder consultation, historical context, and broad-based consensus. “Our current document does not yet meet the threshold of consensual validation to enjoy binding force,” he declared. You cannot impose a new equity framework on a wounded people while the wound remains open. As Ohakim put it with characteristic clarity: “We destroyed the bridge, and now we are arguing about how to cross the river”.
The former governor’s proposal is as simple as it is just: Okigwe should be allowed to complete its truncated eight-year entitlement by producing the governor for one more term—four years—in 2027. After that, power can rotate peacefully to Owerri. This is not a plea for Ohakim’s personal return. He explicitly stated that he did not come to the Synod “to reclaim a crown” but “to beg for healing, for myself, for Okigwe, and for Imo as a whole”. It is a plea for restorative justice. Four years to wipe the tears of a zone whose son was humiliated and denied his constitutional due. Four years to restore the moral balance before asking Owerri to take its turn.
Those who dismiss this argument as mere political manoeuvring are either ignorant of history or wilfully complicit in the original injustice. The recent charter’s designation of Owerri as the next beneficiary after Governor Hope Uzodimma ignores the unresolved Okigwe grievance entirely. It rewards the zone that colluded in the 2011 truncation, and it punishes the zone that was truncated. That is not equity; it is a continuation of the injustice by other means. Ohakim’s warning is stark: “Logically, we cannot build equity on iniquity. We cannot preach peace while we bury justice”. Any talk of 2027 equity that does not first reckon with the broken equity of 2011 is not equity at all. It is a smokescreen. And anyone promoting such a framework without recourse to the broken covenant is not a friend of Imo State—he is an enemy of the peace and justice that Imo desperately needs.
This is not to say that Owerri has no legitimate claim to the governorship. The rotation principle ultimately points to Owerri, and Ohakim acknowledges this. But the sequencing matters. If Owerri takes power in 2027 without Okigwe completing its truncated tenure, the imbalance will be permanently entrenched: Orlu will have had its full eight years (and more), Owerri will have its turn, and Okigwe will remain the only zone in Imo’s Fourth Republic that was denied its full entitlement. That is a recipe for eternal grievance—a wound that will poison every future rotation. The 2023 charter, built on such a foundation, will collapse under the weight of its own injustice.
The Synod venue was not accidental. The Church is the conscience of society, and Ohakim came to the Church to appeal not to politicians’ calculators but to their consciences. His message is a call to moral repair before political rearrangement. Imo State has a choice in 2027: it can double down on the broken covenant, pretend that 2011 never happened, and hand power to Owerri on a flawed document that will satisfy no one. Or it can choose the harder, nobler path: acknowledge the wound, allow Okigwe to complete its truncated term, and then proceed to Owerri with a clean conscience and a credible charter that all three zones can accept.
The late Chinua Achebe warned that a man who brings home ant-infested faggots should not complain when lizards begin to visit him. Imo’s political class brought home the ant-infested faggot of the 2011 truncation. Now the lizards of 2027 are visiting. Until the broken equity is repaired, every new charter will remain a source of division rather than stability. That is the uncomfortable, unavoidable truth. And those who refuse to hear it are not friends of Imo. They are its enemies.
