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POLITICS

People &Politics:Obasanjo and Anambra State

By Ochereome Nnanna
Monday, December 15, 2003

IT IS unbelievable that up till now, some Nigerians have chosen not to have seen the hands of President Olusegun Obasanjo in the political turmoil in Anambra State. The facts have been boldly displayed for even the mentally challenged person to see. But some people, either for their selfish political reasons or simply because of their psychological mind lock on Igbo matters, have chosen not to take note.
The latest in the series of evdence a presidential signature behind the upheaval in Anambra State comes from a statement credited to Nze Ozichukwu, the National Vice Chairman of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) for the South East zone. Many national newspapers, including Vanguard and THISDAY, carried statements attributed to Ozichukwu, which goes thus: "He (Ngige) is lucky that we did not encounter him. If we had encountered him we would have picked him and delivered him to Mr. President..." (Vanguard version, Monday December 8, 2003). Apart from the sheer political illiteracy inherent in these words, the impression is given that the President has been yearning for the Anambra state Governor to be captured and brought to him. Ozichukwu should have gone ahead to tell us what Obasanjo would have done with Dr. Ngige. I call it political illiteracy because nowhere in the Constitution that guides the supposed game of democracy do we have a provision for the arrest of a serving governor, nor does the President’s powers and functions include the entertainment of an "arrested" governor as his "guest" in any form. For a highly placed party officer at the level of a national vice chairman to repeatedly mouth off such politically sacrilegious expletives only says one thing for the PDP: lawlessness has become an accepted way of its life.
The Party has perpetrated series of unbelievable felonies around the federation at large but specifically in Anambra State in the past one year. Before now, Anambra was sick with the political war between the erstwhile governor. Dr. Chinwoke Mbadinuju and a political upstart and speculator, Chief Emeka Offor. Offor was believed to be a masquerade dressed up by the Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar’s wing of the Presidency. In his struggle to survive Offor, Mbadinuju committed a number of excesses, which gave a second term seeking President Obasanjo a welcome alibi to replace Mbadinuju with his own crony. That was how the Dr. Chris Ngige story began. Mr. Chris Uba, who was merely just another figure in the former Emeka Offor political machine, was picked by the Obasanjo wing of the Presidency to "produce" the governmental machinery in Anambra State through the April, 2003 general elections.
Uba did not win the "contract" as a result of any known political track records. All that was known of him was that he was a bag carrier for Chief Arthur Eze, a man who was retained by the Abacha regime to play the role in Igbo land that Offor and Uba later were picked by the Obasanjo administration. However, the deeper aspect that qualified Uba for the contract to produce the governmental machinery in Anambra State was the fact that one of his elder brothers is married to a sister of Mrs. Stella Obasanjo, the President’s wife. The second was that, as Arthur Eze’s ex-boy, he had cornered some contracts in the state, which entitled him to automatic payments deductible from the Anambra share of the monthly allocation at source. Uba was a man who saw his funding of politicians as part of his "business investments". Therefore, his sponsorship of Dr. Ngige, among others occupying elective offices from the state at both local and national levels, was done in this light.
The Presidency gave Uba all the security men, policemen, power of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and funds he needed to ensure that all the names he compiled for elective offices in Anmbra State were certified as duly elected by the INEC. Some of these people did not even stand for election. All the Uba boys in the Senate and House of Representatives did not stand for election. Uba simply forwarded their names to INEC as election winners. So if the case in other states was that the ruling party rigged elections, the Anambra matter was in a world of its own.
The problem with Dr. Ngige only burst out because Uba listed impossible conditions under which Ngige would remain as "the Governor". In effect, Ngige was to sit in the government house and carry out the master’s instructions, which obviously would include the looting of the state’s treasury into private pockets in the name of reaping from a political investment.
SOME analysts have opined that the peo
ple of Anambra State would take the greater responsibility for what is happening in their state. According to this viewpoint, the crisis is simply due to the fact that there are ready sellers as well as buyers. Anambra is said to harbour the best and of the traits for which the Igbo are now currently known. For instance, if Obasanjo wants to promote nonentities into leaders in the state it is probably because (a) the materials to be used for that purpose are readily available. Abacha used Arthur Eze. Atiku used Offor. So what is peculiar about Obasanjo using Uba? And (b) when such people are raised to prominence they are not actively rejected by the generality of the populace. They hold sway until their sponsors in Aso Rock expires. Why else is Anambra the target of the "buyers"? Why not Abia, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo, where similar attempts by Abuja-backed political buccaneers met stiff resistance, especially by Governors Sam Egwu and Orji Kalu, who were able to rally their people behind them. Why do Anambra people only complain and do nothing else?
This is food for thought, even though it does not justify the abuse of office inherent the Presidency’s long standing campaign of destabilisation of Anambra State.
THE shootout between the Governor Ngige and Chris Uba groups at the recent congress of the South East wing of the PDP was a possible indicator that the two camps have now moved closer to the trenches. The Governor is bound to go back and beef up his security programme. Only a fool would leave his fate entirely at the hands of a police force and security agencies that are totally at the hands of the chief backer of an enemy. On the other hand, the Uba people are bound to see the stern "fire-for-fire" mood of the Governor’s camp as an invitation to call for more reinforcement of state agents for his self-appointed assignment to dethrone Ngige. The bottom line of it all could be an all out breakdown of order in Anambra State. Those who believe they stand to benefit from it will have no reason not to provoke a fight to set off a protracted bloody crisis.
Such a crisis will give the Presidency a legitimate alibi to declare a state of emergency in Anambra State and introduce unconstitutional rule there. Later on, another election would be called to firmly put the April poll, which is on the verge of being exposed for the fraud it was, out of contention. PDP, with Dr. Okey Ude as the new Governor would retain its hold on Anambra State, with Dr. Ngige having been put out of the harm’s way. Uba would be fully back to the saddle. The putsch, which was initiated on July 10th, would still come to fruition.
The speculation to this effect has been in the air for some time. When Chief Olabode George, Nze Ozichukwu’s pair in the South West visited Vanguard last Monday, he promised that the Party would bring the crisis to "an end" before the end of December. Since the two warring sides have proved irreconcilable so far, what other magic wand will the Party wave to bring the crisis to an end apart from forcing a dirty end game? That is the question. Where is the answer?