BY COLLINS OPUROZOR
There are moments in politics that demand your full attention. Yesterday’s APC senatorial screening for the 2027 elections, featuring Governor Hope Uzodimma, was one of them. When Professor Nentawe Yilwatda, National Chairman of the party, looked Uzodimma in the eye and said, “We have no reason to ask you questions, because you are the answer to the questions,” something shifted in the room. No grilling. No skepticism. Just truth, spoken plainly. A man’s record had walked in before him, and that record was enough.
This is rare. Politics in our clime is incurably combustible, maybe also belligerent. Professor Claude Ake had described it as “crude mechanics of opposing forces driven by the calculus of power.” Professor Jonah Onuoha simply dismissed our politics as similar to what touts do at the motor parks. Ruthless. Fearless. Shameless. People with long years in the arena of power, it is assumed, can never be innocent or clean. So, they are questioned, pressured, and picked apart, and often one scandal or the other surfaces. Ahiazuwa! But Uzodimma was asked to take a bow and leave. Think about that. His deeds had already made his case. His years of service had already submitted his application. When a man lives right, his reputation becomes his testimony. That is the standard Uzodimma has set, and it challenges every person who holds public office today.
Those who remember his first stint in the Senate between 2011 and 2019 do not speak of it lightly. They speak of it with warmth. Imo West (Orlu Zone) felt his presence. Thousands were pulled from the grip of poverty through genuine empowerment. Not token gestures. Not cheap politics. Real intervention in real lives. Leaders were honoured with dignity, not humiliated with half measures. That era left a mark on the zone that time has not erased.
He then went on to govern Imo State, and he has governed it with his whole chest. Infrastructure rose. Order returned. The state found its footing again after years of turbulence. Group after group within Imo West is now stepping forward, not because they were paid to, but because they remember. They are calling on other aspirants to stand down. That kind of organic support cannot be manufactured. It is earned, slowly, through sacrifice and results.
His return to the Senate is not a step backward. It is a full circle. A man who built something, left, built something bigger, and now returns to consolidate the gains. The 11th Senate will be shaped by the voices within it. Strong voices. Experienced voices. Uzodimma carries both. He understands the executive. He knows the legislature. That combination is powerful. Imo West will not just have a senator. It will have a strategist sitting at the table.
The lesson here is timeless. Power is a tool. Use it well and it speaks for you long after you have left the room. Uzodimma did not need to campaign in that screening room. His life campaigned for him. That is the bar. That is the challenge to every leader watching. Serve genuinely. Empower honestly. Build deliberately. Because one day, the room will go quiet, and only your record will speak. Make sure it says something worth hearing, not just Ahiazuwa!!!!
