Let’s get this straight from the beginning. The man I write about is Julius ‘the genius’ Agwu. The same Julius Agwu you have probably attended his Crack Ya Ribs comedy shows or seen his comedy VCDs, which sell for as cheap as N100. You can even get the VCD for N70 at Alaba International Market on the outskirts of Lagos.
Some years back, Julius Agwu was one of the many graduates of Theatre Arts trying to find their feet. He had always had a funny side and comedy came easy to him. Many who underwent the one-year National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme with him in Katsina, including my elder sister, said he cracked their ribs at the orientation camp.
I understand that when he was still struggling, he squatted with ace actor Segun ‘Oju’ Arinze in his flat somewhere in Lagos. From Arinze’s home, he tried his hands on some comedy and theatre stuffs. With time, comedy paid off and his story changed from that of grass to grace.
After conquering the comedy world, it is time to move on. And what else is there to move on to other than politics? It took a lot of begging from his people for Agwu to finally take the bait. They pleaded and pleaded and sent delegations upon delegations before he deemed it right to join the crowded race for Rivers governor. The knee caps of some of the women involved in the begging almost peeled on the floor of his mansion before he decided to serve his people and help continue the legacy of his brother, Rotimi Amaechi.
The message on Agwu’s poster on the social media simply reads: “Our moment of change. Julius Agwu for governor. Rivers 2015.”
You may never see the poster on the streets of Port Harcourt, where for four years he was a university student. Chances are that you won’t see it also on the streets of Buguma or Finima. The world has gone digital and ‘the genius’ is taking advantage of this. There are so many platforms on the social media that it will soon become needless wasting money on billboards and posters and all those stuffs politicians do. ‘The genius’ is set to put that to test using the social media.
Forget his height; it has nothing to do with being a governor. Pay less attention to his financial capacity to run for such an exalted office; he will disarm the people with his jokes and he will have their votes free of charge. For security reasons, he is not revealing the identities of his financial backers.
Agwu has no political party. My mind tells me he wants to run as an independent candidate. Don’t tell me the constitution does not allow it. What a genius will see sitting down, a fool will not see even with the aid of binoculars. What does he need a political party for anyway? Political parties are sources of headache, which ‘the genius’ can do without. Better still, he can run as a quasi-independent candidate by using a less popular platform like the Social Democratic Party (SDP), which had a dismal outing in the Osun governorship race by scoring a little over 400 votes. He stands no chance in the big parties in his state.
In Rivers, there are two dominant parties: the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which already have power centres, which ‘the genius’ cannot break into. In the APC, Agwu stands no chance of clinching the party’s ticket. The race is between two serving members of the National Assembly. And to add salt to injury, he will also find a bottleneck in his kinsman, Governor Rotimi Amaechi who has vowed that nobody from his area will succeed him. Like Amaechi, Agwu is Ikwerre. Amaechi, by next May 29, would have been governor for about eight years. On this basis, he says he will not support any Ikwerre person to be governor.
The PDP, whose ticket he could have sought, is a mad house. At the last count, there are some 20 men who have shown interest in being its governorship torchbearer. But the man who seems in control is Minister of State for Education Nyesom Wike. He helped install the Felix Obuah-led executive council, which has not hidden where its loyalty lies. The others are not leaving anything to chance. Last weekend, some of them announced a breakfast meeting with the sole agenda of ‘cutting Wike to size’. The Wike camp last weekend too, through an advertorial, condemned the breakfast meeting. So, with this sort of fire in PDP, Agwu needs a new order.
He also does not need the brouhaha associated with which part of the state has the right to produce the governor after Amaechi. In over 15 years, the upland part of the state has been in charge. The riverine people, who are basically Ijaw, say it is their time. The Ogoni are also angling for the position. They say as the majority in Rivers Southeast the seat should be conceded to them. The riverine people have said this will amount to still keeping power in the upland part, which has had it since 1999. And they are screaming injustice.
This is my advice to Agwu. First, he needs to rebrand by presenting himself simply as the third force and severing every ethnic tie. He should sell himself as the Rivers candidate. His manifesto should also show the power of comedy in disarming the Federal Government to give the state its dues. Federal roads in the state need attention. Agwu’s manifesto should promise that he has got the skills to get the Presidency to fix these roads and other infrastructure pronto. The manifesto should also show that never again will Rivers be cheated of its rights. In fact, he can promise to get back the oil wells taken from the state through his comic skills.
With Agwu as governor, the state will also be saving a lot of money. Never again will the state spend any kobo on any Master of Ceremonies (MC). Governor Agwu will play this role. All he needs do is to dash from the high table to the microphone stand as the need arises. The era of the state wasting money on stand-up comedians will also be gone. Agwu will also dish out comedy free of charge at government functions. And in case the state decides to go into film-making, Agwu’s’ training as a theatre artist will come into play. He will act, produce and direct at no cost to the state. He will also be able to get his colleagues to work on the production at a reduced rate. Since he can also sing, there will be no need to pay for the soundtrack. He will simply head for the studio and produce the soundtrack.
And if you think this whole Agwu-for-Rivers-governor stuff is a joke, the 41-year-old Choba indigene, in an interview on his ambition, said: “Ever since that story broke, I have been receiving calls and getting text messages from people. Even on social media, people have been telling me to just stick with comedy. They think it’s just another joke from me but it’s not. I mean to contest in 2015. I am above 40, to be precise I am 41 and I doubt if those who go for governorship have two heads. I think it’s high time youths realised they need to be part of the change that they so much desire and that’s exactly what I am doing.”
What more is there to say? All hail His Excellency Julius ‘the genius’ Agwu, the next governor of Rivers State.
