By Dr. Malachy Chuma Ochie,
Let’s call this what it is: a tired, lazy, and intellectually dishonest distraction. The claim that Governor Peter Mbah is “from Ezza” is not a serious political argument; it is a last-ditch ethnic dog whistle deployed by an opposition that has clearly run out of ideas, facts, and vision.
First, origin is not performance. Barack Obama had Kenyan ancestry and became one of the most consequential presidents in American history. Leadership is judged by competence, results, vision, and impact, not by the geography of great-grandparents.
Any political tendency still campaigning on “where is he from?” in 2026 is confessing its own bankruptcy.
Second, no one, absolutely no one, has produced credible evidence to support this Ezza narrative. Not a court judgment. Not a verifiable genealogical record. Not a sworn affidavit that has survived scrutiny.
What we have instead are WhatsApp forwards, bar-room gossip, and recycled propaganda. In serious societies, allegations without proof are noise, not arguments.
Third, and this is the part the peddlers of this narrative hate, Peter Mbah is a full-born Owo man, a son of the soil in every legal, cultural, and social sense of that term.
He was born, raised, socialized, and politically formed within Enugu State. His identity is not self-declared on social media; it is anchored in lived reality, family lineage, and community recognition. You do not erase that with cheap insinuations.
Fourth, the narrative collapses under its own hypocrisy. We are all migrants. Igbo history itself is a history of movement, settlement, inter-marriage, and integration. If ancestry-hunting were applied consistently, half of those shouting loudest today would fail their own purity test.
Ethnic absolutism is not only ignorant; it is anti-Igbo, anti-history, and anti-modernity.
What this Ezza story really reveals is fear; fear of performance politics.
Since Peter Mbah came into office, the conversation has shifted to infrastructure, investment, urban renewal, fiscal discipline, and measurable outcomes.
For an opposition incapable of matching ideas with ideas, the fallback option is always identity politics. When you cannot contest roads, schools, security architecture, and economic reforms, you contest surnames and villages.
Let it be said plainly: This narrative is petty, unserious, and exhausted. It insults the intelligence of Ndi Enugu and reduces politics to gossip. Enugu people are far more discerning than that. They know that what matters is not where a leader’s ancestors passed through, but where his policies are taking the state.
If the opposition has something meaningful to offer, let them bring it.
If not, they should stop embarrassing themselves with this lousy, evidence-free, and obsolete rhetoric.
