By Emmanuel Ogbonnaya
An Exclusive Interview with Dr. Ugorji O. Ugorji as 2027 looms.
How does an undeclared governorship aspirant with little money and without a state-wide structure approach the pursuit of power, especially in the political behemoth known as the All Progressives Congress (APC)? Dr. Ugorji Okechukwu Ugorji, the pioneer commissioner for Homeland Security in Imo State says you do it “by political gumption, gorilla tactics, and a whole lot of ‘Hail Marys.'”
That answer just about describes a poet laureate’s foray into the murky and treacherous waters of succession politics in Imo State. In this exclusive interview, this reporter peers into the mindset and consciousness of a strategic and yet prayerful political maverick.
ACCOUNTABILITY
Among the class of commissioners who served Governor Hope Uzodimma during his first term, Ugorji stuck out his neck for accountability. He turned what others saw as a perfunctory appraisal for their respective ministries into a statement of eloquence in accountability and excellence in public policy advocacy in a government many see as opaque.
The result was a twelve-page glossy, full colour rendition of the efforts of the novel Ministry of Homeland Security to wage peace in Imo State. The ministry’s self-appraisal, replete with photographic evidence of work done, solidified the new ministry’s continuing existence, according to sources in the Office of the Secretary to the Government of Imo State, where the appraisals were submitted.
Yet Ugorji says he was always conscious of not standing out too much. The nail that sticks out often gets the hammer—sometimes from all angles. “But sitting and warming seats has never been my thing,” he told this reporter. “My attitude at the ministry was that if we get results for Ndi Imo by sticking out, I will gladly take the hammer when it comes,” he added.
A Head of Department for Administration and Finance who worked under him in the ministry said that “the commissioner meticulously planned his work and then worked his plan with discipline and focus, showing up for work every day before career civil servants.” Ugorji did not just submit written reports to the governor; he presented weekly security video briefings for a very busy governor.
MORAL CLARITY
When the Federal Minister for Science and Technology, Chief Nnaji, became entangled in a university certificate scandal, Dr. Ugorji, after carefully analyzing the information in the public domain, called on his fellow APC chieftain and his fellow Igbo man to resign from his exalted office. It was a rarely seen call in Nigerian politics that spoke to what Ugorji considers the burden of moral clarity in leadership.
Two days after Ugorji’s call in the national media, Nnaji resigned from President Tinubu’s cabinet. Ugorji followed the development up by commending Nnaji for doing the right thing so quickly.
However, Ugorji says he is constantly reminded of the lesson President Muhamadu Buhari learnt in three failed attempts to become an elected president of Nigeria. “In a multi-religious and multi-ethnic ecosystem, it is very difficult to get political power with just a puritan crew and a puritan agenda,” he offered. “Sometimes, in fact quite often, it is a zero-sum, take-no-prisoners, dog-eat-cat terrain out there, populated by the good, the bad, and the very ugly, including what Governor Fayose once referred to as ‘spirits.’ You’ve got to do the Surugede dance in order to have a chance at succeeding,” he added. According to Ugorji, one must be accommodating of differences in values and opinions and nuances in character and conduct, provided that one’s own centre of gravity is anchored in uprightness.”
Ugorji said the re-election of Donald Trump by Americans as President of the US in 2024 has made him (Ugorji) a changed man. “I no longer judge Nigerian politicians harshly. And I have become flexible in my understanding of what democracy is,” Ugorji revealed.
A PATRIARCH IN PURSUIT OF PARITY FOR WOMEN
In May of 2025, Dr. Ugorji was installed as the Regent of Lorji Nwekeukwu Autonomous Community in Aboh Mbaise Local Government Area of Imo State. It is an interim position as head of the Eze-in-Council left behind by his traditional ruler father, the late HRH Eze Stephen Nwabueze Ugorji, Orji Ukwu 1 of Lorji Nwekeukwu Autonomous Community. The venerated traditional ruler was buried on May 22, 2025, in an elaborate historic funeral that combined Catholic Church rites with dignified Igbo cultural rites.
Yet the patriarch, who has benefitted handsomely from the patriarchy, is a celebrated advocate for the inclusion of and respect for women in the workplace and in society at large. On December 18, 2025, the OFO Educational Foundation, founded and headed by Ugorji, brought the Aba Women’s Revolt of 1929 to life in Owerri. At the conference chaired by Nigeria’s first female Minister of Education, Professor Chinwe Obaji, scholars, activists, policy makers, students, and market women converged at Rockview Hotel’s Sam Mbakwe Hall to remember and celebrate the heroics of the women who challenged and changed the British colonial government in Nigeria.
The conference ended with what the organizers called “The Owerri Declaration of 2025.” In it, the organizers called for 50/50 representation between men and women in elected and appointed positions in Nigeria. It was a call, not for pity, but one rooted in the ancient Igbo gender-balancing concept of governance that provided equilibrium in Igbo societies.
So, here is Ugorji, educated to a terminal degree in some of the finest institutions in America but studiously grounded in the wisdom of the ancients—wisdom that he says we have strayed from to the detriment of our collective well-being.
CHOOSING HIS BATTLES
Dr. Ugorji does not go by the title “prince” or “crown prince.” This, again, is rooted in his understanding of his Igbo heritage. “Every Igbo son is a prince. And every Igbo daughter is a princess. So it is redundant to refer to any Igbo as prince or princess. We all come from the source. And the source is innately regal.”
As Regent of his community, there is almost nothing that stops Dr. Ugorji from succeeding his father as the traditional ruler, or at least attempting to do so. He is qualified by every measure, and he is an APC stalwart with 3R compliance medals. Even where there is a constitution mandating “rotation” of a traditional crown, some sons have been known to defy those constitutions and grab the crown.
Not Dr. Ugorji. He has declared that he will not succeed his father. He is a man that has gone through a lot of pains and expense to uphold the legacy of his father, including the legacy of a struggle to entrench equitable rotation of the crown at Lorji. He said that he will bring to the governance table the same tenacity in protecting what he refers to as “Uzodimma’s legacy of superlative virtuosity.”
In doing so, Ugorji is choosing his battles carefully. He says that the potential life-changing impacts a governor can have on the people make it more worthwhile to engage in that struggle. “Those who know me know that I am contented, like my late father. I am not materialistic, and I have no interest in the accumulation of anything, except books. So, for me, I just want an opportunity to make a difference,” he said.
How about the dangers involved in the pursuit to succeed Uzodimma? Ugorji takes a long, pregnant pause. He quotes Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison. “The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice.” Asked to explain or expatiate, he quotes the Nobel Peace Laureate, Martin Luther King, Jr. “If there is nothing worth dying for, there is nothing worth living for.”
According to the man from the “Mbaise Nation,” whose better-known traditional title is Odoziobodo Mbaise, longevity is desirable. However, he added, “How a man lives is more important than how long he lives.”
