By Jude Atupulazi
The Deputy Governorship Candidate of Young Progressives Party, YPP, in Anambra State, Mr Uzu Okagbue, has described as a pitiable spectacle, the conferment of a chieftaincy title on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu by an installed Chairman of the Anambra State Traditional Rulers Council when there is an eminent and respected personality like the Obi Of Onitsha who is the Chairman of the Southeast Traditional Rulers Council
It will be recalled that President Tinubu, during his working visit to Anambra State on May 8, was given the Chieftaincy title of Dike Si Mba by Anambra traditional rulers at Alex Ekwueme Square, Awka.
But Okagbue, weighing in on the development, accused the Anambra State Government of being driven by petty grudges and seeking to diminish the very cultural foundations it ought to defend and therefore betraying its own confusion and folly in the process.
His words, ‘How does Mr. President visit Anambra State, home to the venerable Obi of Onitsha, the undisputed primus of the South East traditional hierarchy, only to be crowned by the Governor’s installed state chairman of traditional rulers? In its desperate bid to score transient political points against a sacred institution, the current Anambra State Government, not only offends the dignity of tradition, but also parades its own embarrassing incoherence before the nation and the world.
‘Obi of Onitsha stands, and will remain, a towering emblem of cultural nobility and traditional esteem. No amount of political gas lighting from a rudderless system, which ought to uphold and honour spiritually constituted authorities as seen in more enlightened societies, can diminish his preeminence in South East’s Traditional Order.
‘Sadly, Nigeria, and, indeed, the watching world, are left to ponder what deep malaise afflicts the current administration in Anambra State, that it would so shamelessly mock the very traditions that dignify its existence.’
