By Onyendilefu Godwin Chibuike
I am not surprised by what is currently happening around the emergence of Chief Eric Opah in the political space in Abia. I am convinced that more is yet to be heard and seen. Experienced political practitioners say it is what happens when a man untainted by the past lands in the scene.
We have seen heightened excitement. We have seen renewed interest from people who were previously lethargic.
But there will also be those who will respond with fear, deception and jealousy, and, in extreme cases, may resort to desperate measures to protect their political interests.
There will be more exposure of things that were previously kept secret. Old agreements may collapse, while fresh alignments and realignments take shape.
That is how a comet heralds the emergence of a new dawn. That is what happens at the end of a pregnancy. The birth pangs that wrack the woman are painful, but they are necessary to bring forth a new life.
Perhaps that is where Abia’s politics currently stands.
And this is where Eric Opah could become the unexpected variable.
Politics is rarely as predictable as those who have occupied the centre of the stage imagine. Sometimes, the person dismissed as an outsider gradually becomes the person everyone must reckon with. Sometimes, a candidacy that initially appears to be merely another entry into a crowded political field begins to gather momentum in ways that established calculations did not anticipate.
Chief Eric Opah may yet prove to be that kind of political surprise.
Whether he ultimately becomes the shock of the next election is for the people of Abia to decide. But one thing is already becoming clear: his emergence has disturbed some assumptions, awakened huge interests and forced political actors to rethink their calculations.
And perhaps the real shock has not even begun.
The political comet has appeared. What it illuminates and what it exposes may be the more interesting story.
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