By Ugorji O. Ugorji
After three years of working in Hopeville (Imo State), I got permission to attend a security conference and also see my family in the US. This is the longest I have stayed away from Obama Country since the age of 16 when I went there as a student.
I will always be grateful to America. She welcomed me in the 1980s. She natured me. She educated me. She also reverted the African in me and sharpened my Okoro-ness.
It was with pleasure that I arrived back in New Jersey on March 21, 2023. After texting Onwa Oyoko that I had landed at Newark Liberty International Airport, I joined family in a drive to Willingboro.
Naturally we took the New Jersey Turnpike. I was immediately re-awakened, for the first time in three years, to the consciousness that I was a Black man being driven in a car on a highway by my son, who is also Black. It was a journey with anxieties and feelings that Owerri had spared me for the past 36 months. Only those who have been part of the African American experience in the US would understand what I am talking about.
As Commissioner for Homeland Security in Imo State, Nigeria, I always think security. I have been here for about two weeks now. There has been six mass shootings and mass killings in different states of the US since I arrived. Altogether, there has been 132 mass shootings across America in the first three months of 2023, with multiple casualties each time. In many of these insecurity incidents, innocent children were murdered.
In the city of Chicago alone (state of Illinois) more people have died due to mass shootings (insecurity) in the first three months of this year than did in all of 2022 in Nigeria. Yet one does not see a directive from any quarters to avoid the US for security reasons.
In Imo State, Governor Hope Uzodimma has prioritized security and safety above all else. The result has been a relatively safe and peaceful state, even in the midst of vigorously contested national and state elections. The Easter period has been characterized by the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ across the state, with no significant incident of insecurity.
As the citizens of Imo State prepare to vote for a governor in November of 2023, the most politically sophisticated and enlightened electorate in Nigeria must choose to stick with a leader with firm and fair hands on the wheels of the ship of state. Thanks to the courageous and consequential efforts of Uzodimma, there is no where else in the world I feel as dignified and safe as a Black man, as I feel in Imo State.
When I served as a Board member of the World Igbo Congress in 2007, I advanced the Odoziobodo Principle. The principle is this: In the case of elections where an incumbent is seeking re-election, and where there is a term limit, it is in the best interest of the citizenry to re-elect the incumbent, provided that the ship of state is not significantly adrift.
In Imo State, the ship of state under Governor Uzodimma has sailed with excellence and seamlessly for over three years, in many cases against strong tides and headwinds. The captain has been focused and innovative. No matter what has been thrown at him, he has adapted, improvised and overcame in superlative fashions.
I am on my way back to Owerri. I look forward to the swearing-in of President-elect Bola Tinubu. And I look forward to working on the re-election of Governor Hope Uzodimma.
...Dr. Ugorji Okechukwu Ugorji, is the Imo State Commissioner for Homeland Security and Vigilante Affairs. He writes from New Jersey, on a working visit. NNL.
