In modern warfare industry or convention, asymmetric guerrilla warfare can be summed up as “a situation where a group of militarily and militantly organized people, whether in urban or interior take up arms against a constituted authority, whether roguishly or saintly instituted; using all unconventional methods known to them including rape and other sexual violence, kidnapping, bombing and destruction of critical infrastructures, looting, torture and killing of civilians and the uniformed; with the aim of destabilizing or unseating the constituted authority or forcing on the polity its selfish ethno-religious dogma”. A typical example of “an asymmetric guerrilla warfare group” in present Nigeria is the Boko Haram insurgents in northern Nigeria. This method is applied in a situation where conventional means will be to the disadvantage of the antagonistic guerrilla group because of its small size and limited resources and space.

In civil politics, especially in opposition politics, the foregoing can be summed up as a group of highly intolerant people in a political party, using all unconventional methods known to them to propagate its quest to take over power. Deployment of these unconventional methods by such a group is usually propelled by desperation and dry thirst to occupy power “by fire by force” without following due processes or universal enfranchisement best practices including issue based and peaceful poll campaigns.

Such unconventional methods include militant and combative poll campaigns, manufacturing and spreading of dangerous rumours and falsehoods, destruction and defacing of its opponents’ bill boards and posters, hiring of paid agents for the purpose of promoting campaigns of calumny against dissent voices, general intolerance to dissenting voices, promotion of ethnocentrism using sectionalized media, planting of spies, booing and jeering crowds in its opponents’ camps, violent poll campaigns, resort to “perfect crimes” including killings from within oiled by outsider conspiracy with the sole aim of blaming them on its opponents and creating bad blood between its opponents and the poll voting and observing public, sponsorship of “media blackout” including “killing” the stories filed by local reporters that represent the views of its opponents or “balkanization and bastardization” of reporters’ stories or their bylines. A typical example of such political group with “asymmetric political guerrilla warfare tactics” in present Nigeria is the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Opposition politics in modern world has no business with “asymmetric political guerrilla warfare”. Rather, it is likened to “shadow cabinet or government” in other modern social climes such as the United Kingdom. Social loopholes and unpopular policies of the incumbents provide surest yardsticks for opposition parties to win popular elections by offering the public convincing theoretical solutions to such social problems to be practically implemented if popularly elected. In modern history, foreign policy blunders of both Democratic and Republican Parties in USA had cost them the loss of the White House seat of power during popular poll times.

The ill policies of the opponent of Mr. William Jefferson Clinton (Bill Clinton) in the State of Arkansas provided an opportunity for him to be ousted by Mr. Clinton as the governor in 1979. Mr. Clinton’s professorship in fixing such ill policies kept him in office through repeated popular polls till 1991.

A popular opposition political party in modern times is best described as “the best government in waiting better than the worst government in power”. This is because such a popular opposition political party researches and experiments on those infamous policies that makes the incumbent very unpopular needing it to be changed democratically. At the threshold of the ACN (APC) opposition political activism in Nigeria, it started well, winning the heart of millions of Nigerians. But few years later, just like the loss of corporate integrity of the Nigerian media soon after the anti-military struggle that ended in 1999; the ACN (APC) derailed and decayed steeply and became an ethno-jingoist political opposition, from where it transformed into “an asymmetric guerrilla political warfare group” of present time.

It is important to say that any elective public office in Nigeria including the Anambra governorship seat can be won by the APC, but certainly not through “asymmetric political guerrilla warfare”. Instead of taking over the entire Nigerian polity through popular polls with intimidating and popular alternatives in matters of topical social governance problems afflicting the country or any part thereof, the APC embarks on “coupist” journey, seducing and inducing the occupants of some elective executive and legislative seats of power in the country including those the party say came through the windows at the point of their electoral emergence. Some of these convert governors are celebrated crooks and brigands, who used immunities to ward themselves of being guests of cocooned homes or prisons with permanent toga of social ostracism.

In Anambra State, the party went and canonized “the primus inter pares” of Nigeria’s “professors of election rigging”; that is to say one Dr. Chris Ngige and crowned him as “Anambra’s best governor in waiting” since 2007. After the party’s humiliation in the all popular Ondo State governorship poll of 2012, the APC became more deadly instead of being more politically professorial. This time around, it has become more mean by going for the jugulars of the modern world’s “living social saints and untouchables” (human rights activists) by massively deploying “crooked and conformist rights activists and media writers” to rest them in “pieces” or oust them out of social equation.

The common expectation of an average reasonable person from the APC in Nigeria or any part thereof including Anambra State, is to tell and show them how and why the present government of Anambra State has failed in public governance indices or parameters, warranting its ousting through popular poll. Till date, the reverse is the case, adding to growing evidence of “worst to come if elected or declared”. With the way things are going, assuming the APC wins or it is declared; its governorship candidate will take over Awka Government House without waiting to be sworn in or allowing the incumbent to exhaust his tenure by the mid day of March 17, 2013. And if the incumbent responds in the like manner, then the state will go up in flames.

Just the other day, we read on the online media a statement credited to the APC, Anambra State chapter with a caption: “Peter Obi Uses Intersociety Again To Cover Uke Adoration Stampede”. Before then, the same APC chapter had issued a statement with a title: “How Peter Obi Procured Intersociety To Cover Obiano’s Double Registration”. Days later, one of our trusted friends, Mr. Okechukwu Nwanguma, acting either within his self calculations or external inducement, announced to the world-reading public his artistry in character assassination with our Board Chairman and Organization as his sole target. In all these, we acted maturely by concentrating on “putting the records straight” and refusing to be provoked or respond in a like manner including opening up on any of our attackers.

English Language professors usually say: “Liars use passive voice and truth tellers use active voice”. Till date, none of our attackers including the Lagos and Anambra APC chapters has laid before the teeming reading public any counter irrefutable facts to rubbish all our public positions, ranging from the Ezu River massacre to Obiano’s alleged double voter registration; and from the Uke stampede to other spurious accusations so leveled. In the Ezu River saga, the APC and its hirelings never saw anything wrong in the Senate Committee’s watery report that killed it and set free SARS murderers, but they saw something wrong in our in-depth and seminal report. Perhaps, Governor Peter Obi also “offered bribes” to Dr. Chris Ngige and his senatorial colleagues to be extricated in the spurious report.

In Obiano’s case, the destructive falsehood, propelled by the APC was put to rest by our incontrovertible investigation grounded in the provisions of the Electoral Act of 2010 (section 13 (1) (2)( 3) (4)). A High Court sitting in Otuocha, Anambra State, had few days ago affirmed our position by ruling that Obiano did not involve in double voter registration. Obiano’s failed accusers wanted to turn our laws upside-down by punishing him solely on “actus rea” (alleged discovery of two data of his in Lagos and Anambra) without finding out further why the two data exist (mens reus). The doctrine of “hear the other side” was thrown into the wind by the APC and its sectionalized media. It becomes “normal practice” when they level spurious allegations and becomes “partisan” when investigated and exposed.

In the Uke Adoration Stampede tragedy, where a stampede orchestrated by politically-motivated intervening forces killed about 28 innocent persons, the APC’s artistry in falsehood and dangerous rumours became negatively professorial when it magisterially inferred that “Peter Obi killed the victims”. Incontrovertible eyewitness accounts including that of the Chairman of the Anambra Branch of the CLO, Comrade Aloysius Emeka Attah, have since corroborated ours and that of the Onitsha Catholic Archbishop. Anambra CLO and Intersociety have at least ten adoration devotees who attended the fatal session. Comrade Attah’s account is grounded in evidential law as “account of a reasonable person”. Professionally, he is a political scientist, a student of master’s degree and a practising journalist with the Sun newspapers. He is also a devoted Catholic faithful who usually sits in front of holy altar before the beginning of every mass service. Totality of these makes his account nationally and universally acceptable and legally admissible.

Not even a public statement and lucid explanation offered by His Lordship, the Catholic Archbishop of Onitsha, Archbishop Val Okeke, could dissuade the APC and its propaganda managers including Mr. Joe Igbokwe of its Lagos chapter from drawing the wrath of God and his angel warriors by accusing the Presiding Priest of the Uke Adoration Prayer Ministry, Reverend Father Emmanuel Obimma (Ebube Mmuo Nso) of “taking bribes from Governor Peter Obi to maintain silence”; and insisting that “Peter Obi killed the victims”. For the fact that the Catholic Church is highly ordered and is not a mushroom megaphone ministry without hierarchy, is not enough for the likes of Mr. Joe Igbokwe, who has chosen to lie against the Holy Spirit in the name of playing “politics”.

The APC, which recently drew a battle-line against Igbo gods and goddesses, is yet to finish it, yet it has now entered into a more consuming one by challenging the Almighty God and His heavenly Angels and other Holy Spirits to a fight over the true state of event at the Uke Adoration Ground.

Finally, in the immortal words of His Royal Majesty, the Obi of Onitsha, Igwe Alfred Nnaemeka Achebe: “Onye Merua Ala, Ala Achubiya Oso” (he who chooses to desecrate the holy land, runs without ceasing or without anybody chasing him)! Our Armpits Are Still Not Hairy!!

•Umeagbalasi (emekaumeagbalasi@yahoo.co.uk) is Chairman of the Board of Intersociety while Ijeoma (justuchei@gmail.com) is Head, Publicity Desk, of the organisation. •Photo shows Anambra APC governorship candidate, Dr. Chris Ngige.

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