Former governor of Anambra State and
senator representing Anambra Central
Senatorial Zone, Dr. Chris Ngige, has said
that Governor Peter Obi was playing God
by insisting that Anambra North Zone
would produce his successor.
Ngige made it clear that Anambra
stakeholders have never, at any time, sat
and deliberated on zoning and rotation
and has not in the past preclude any zone
in any governorship election.
He spoke to GEOFFREY ANYANWU about
his interest in the November 16
governorship election, his past elections
and experiences, his party, APC, and
other national issues.
Excerpts:
In the Anambra 2013 guber election, are
you running?
Well, your question is a categorical
question; you want a no or a yes. But I
will disappoint you; I don’t do yes or no
in this type of situation. I have to explain
to you what the season is like. The issue
at stake now is that governorship election
will take place in Anambra State on
November 16, 2013. We have always
known that and we’ve always known that
the incumbent tenure, that’s Governor
Peter Obi, will end on the 17th of March,
2014.
So we have known that, and by the end of
2012 I started being under pressure from
people to consider coming for this
particular election 2014. I tried to ward it
off initially. But try as much as I could,
the pressure continued. So I have been, as
it were in the last two to three months,
doing some intense consultation with
members of my family, political
associates, friends, colleagues in the
Senate and large spectrum of
Anambrarians, including religious leaders.
And by last week I’ve concluded my
consultations and whether I like it or not,
the preponderance of views and
preponderance of opinions and majority
of the people consulted, very large
majority, wants me to do a second
missionary journey in Anambra state.
The reasons vary. Some say the present
government has not achieve much; some
say it tried but they have not measured
up to the expectations. They cite the issue
of unsafety or lack of security in the
enclave called Anambra; they cite lack of
infrastructure, rural development, rapid
infrastructure development, lack of
airport for air travellers, rail lines for land
transport. Some even talked to me about
the poor state of Medicare, which
abounds everywhere. Today as I speak to
you, I’m meeting with the Nigeria Medical
Association, Anambra State Chapter and
they want to consult me on this, but even
with this consultation, I can tell you that
it is becoming clearer to me everyday that
I have no choice than to run in this
election. I think, with this explanation,
you can now put together whether or not
I will run. Yes or no is for you now to
pick. We will do the running in two
stages. I will inform my colleagues in
Senate and then I will inform
Anambrarians. You know I do have a
constituency, which is the Senate and I
respect that Hallowed Chamber and the
occupants so much. So this is the
situation with the Anambra 2013/2014.
Yes, I can deduce you shall be running.
Yes, I will run.
Why did it take you this long to decide?
It has to take me that long because the
variables that are there, the mathematics
of it, the possibility of winning it, the
layout for your campaign and the logistics
support are not things you can underrate
if you are a very good politician. I’ve seen
a lot of people making noise and going all
over the place and distributing money,
sometimes at road junctions they stop and
throw money up in the air and they carry
about deadwood politicians and some
whom I can refer to as urban gorillas.
They don’t have any grassroots appeal but
in the urban areas of Abuja, Awka, Lagos
you see them, they are now the people
going about with some of this people. So I
look at them, I laugh because it means
that the nitty-gritty of the journey, the
dancing steps are not clear to them. The
dance is coming and this dance will be
for those who know the beat and how to
step, how to do the stepping. For some of
us, if we go into it, we go there with
measured steps; any step we take means
something, to add value to the journey, so
it has to take me that long.
More so, when some people feel or tell
me that they are my friends, that I have
done wonderfully well at my first outing,
that they are afraid that I cannot measure
up again to that first outing, that the bar I
put there has not been met by any of the
occupants after me, and that they rather
want me to leave the bar at that point
instead of going now and maybe I will not
cross the bar like others, that that is their
own fear and they tell me, because or
that reason, they prefer me to continue
with Senate which is a place for statesmen
with less hassles, less job risk and
everything. And I tell them no, I’m a stoic;
I like hard work, I’m one of those who
believe that the reward for good work is
more work. So, I have seen certain things
in Anambra State, which I can do to add
value to the people. I have seen so many
things that are still in my blueprint and
yet they are unattended to in this state.
Talk in terms of airport, for example. I
was at the brink of starting to build my
airport before I left. I had already
commissioned a consultant about four
days before my departure from Anambra
seat of government. But today, no airport.
The present government botched the idea,
formed a committee, promised Anambra
people an airport by the end of 2007 and
later removed it to 2008, the committee
was in place, later they said they will build
it with Orient Petroleum as a partnership.
Today, nobody is talking about it
anymore. I don’t feel good about that.
Hospitals, I worked tirelessly to get
Onitsha General Hospital accredited with
my Commissioner for Health, Prof. Brian
Adimma, who incidentally is also my
classmate, so we knew what and what to
do. I worked in Federal Ministry of Health
and I left from the Directorate Cadre and
in one of the beats in the Directorate
Cadre I was supervising Nigeria Medical
and Dental Council. I was the supervisor,
so I know what and what that can be
done to get a hospital accredited. So am
not pleased that after Onitsha General
Hospital, seven and half years, none has
been accredited.
Then the area of education, the tertiary
education in Anambra State, when I came
our university at Uli had no accreditation
for their courses. I put action in motion
and the National University Commission
came for their accreditation and by the
time I left here, I had done accreditation
and gotten accreditation for 35 courses
out of the 36 that we presented, including
more and a partial accreditation for, I
think either music or one of those liberal
arts, that is the 36th. But today, I hear,
the lecturers call me and tell me they have
lost accreditation – those ones I gathered
for them. As a matter of fact, I hear that
about 22 accreditations have been lost, in
courses that are very dear to my heart
and I don’t feel good.
This is apart from the fact that in my own
blueprint, which I had when I came here
as a governor, a blueprint is your work
plan, I had only done about 23 per cent
of it. I go to that my blueprint I look at
what the present government has done,
they have only done seven per cent. So
together, my blueprint has been 30 per
cent done I don’t blame the present
government because it is not their own
blueprint; it’s not their work plan, even if
when they see it they might not know
how to approach it in execution. Even my
work plan on road, when they saw it, they
didn’t use it. They started using it during
their second tenure and even at that, they
couldn’t do my roads to my specifications
and my standard and the quality needed.
I was doing anti-erosion roadsm because
Anambra is an erosion-prone area. So you
cannot see, any road done by Ngige
administration that does not have enough
drains to collect water and with collecting
and channeling the water, the roads get
dry and you don’t have the roads giving
way after some years. Most of my roads
are 10 years now, some nine years, some
eight but you cannot see potholes on
them. They are still firm because of the
degree of supervision we gave those
contractors, even though I had major
reputable contractors, RCC, Setraco,
Nigercat and Inter Bau, but you must
supervise them well.
So I am not happy that those blueprints
of mine have not been fulfilled,
particularly our blueprint on agriculture
and agro-base industries. So I intend to us
a method of carrot and stick to attack the
issue of insecurity in Anambra state. You
take the carrot and eat if you are
amenable to what we suggest, that you
come out from the bad ways, be a good
citizen and join us, we provide job that
will enable you feed your family, feed
yourself, have a decent live, but use the
stick too if you refuse and decide that,
that is the path you must take forever, we
will flog you. That is what I want to do.
For those who don’t understand and said
that I have set a bar, a high jump, that I
have jumped six feet 10 or seven feet or
10 feet and that if I now go again I will
not be able to jump that 10 feet, I laugh,
shake my head because it means they do
not have access to my blueprint, which is
true of course. It is the man who designed
a blueprint that will know how and where
it can be made operational. So I am
confident, if I go back there, that I will
put smiles on the faces of Anambrarians.
My only draw back is my colleagues in the
Senate, they will miss me and I will miss
them and I really enjoy the Senate and
the legislative work there.
Now the last time you contested, you lost
to the incumbent Governor, what is giving
you the hope that you will win this time
around?
I did not lose, I did not lose to the
incumbent Governor, and I did not. If
you remember, I was and I’m still in the
Election Petition Tribunal. A panel came
here, Justice Abariya and left, another
panel of Justice Damulak of the Plateau
State Judiciary came again and they were
still on the chase before they were
dissolved when some things that were
abnormal began to happen. So they got
dissolved. The then President, Court of
Appeal, not former because he is still
President of the Court of Appeal, Justice
Salami, was to give us panel but he didn’t
do that before he had his own troubles
and had to vacate his seat. His new
successors have always been in acting
capacity and have not been too keen to
put up a panel for us and we were
embroiled in a new election for the
Senate in 2011, just nearly one year after
that other election. So we decided to fight
this Senate election first and when we
finished we can come back. But one thing
led to the other, from the Senate we went
to Election Tribunal on my case. Prof.
Dora Akunyili took me to the tribunal and
we spent another half-a-year there. That
six months saw us into late 2012 and
there was really no time to go and start
fanning up that case. So I decided to face
the job in the Senate for a while and as
we are doing that, this other election is
now coming up. From all indications, we
have to abort that other case.
We did not loose the election, we
querried that INEC has no right to
announce Obi winner because Obi did
not satisfy the mandatory requirement of
winning 25 per cent of votes in two-
thirds of all the local governments in
Anambra state, two-third of the local
governments is 14 and he had 25 per
cent in 13 local governments and that’s
why we went to the Tribunal.
In the present election, there has been
much noise about Anambra North
Senatorial zone producing the next
governor and Governor Obi has been
championing it. Do you think you have a
chance going by this development?
Well, the truth of the matter is that the
incumbent is saying that he wants
Anambra North. You can then ask some
pertinent questions. Has there been any
election in Anambra State that the
political gladiators from Anambra North
did not participate in? The answer is
capital, no. Starting from 1999, gladiators
from that side like Senator Joy Emodi
battled Mbadinuju in the elections; you
had Nnamdi Ozobia, the Ede of Onitsha,
Mike Areh he ran for governorshi in
1999. So, in Central, we had people who
ran too in 1999 but Mbadinuju from the
South took it. From Central you had Sam
Okechukwu, Aneze Chinwuba and
Agunwa Anaekwe. And from the South
you had Frank Oramulu, the Labour
Leader; Okechukwu Odunze, so many of
them. In 2003, ditto. All of them came out
again, Okechukwu Odunze, Frank
Oramulu, Joy Emodi came out for a little
while and went back, Ede came out and
others. I came from Central, Peter Obi
came from Central, Ajulu Uzodike, Obinna
Uzoh, Mbadinuju from South and we
battled, I got the ticket and later on when
the baton fail down, Peter Obi, from
Central, also took it. That is how it is. In
2007 when they say Peter Obi’s tenure
had ended, you had many people from
the North – Dr. Obiogbolu, Okechukwu
Odunze, Mike Areh, Anibata, Mike Okoye
and others. So there has not been any
election they did not participate or
struggled for.
Two, we have never sat down as
politicians and stakeholders from
Anambra State to say this power will
rotate in this manner in the zones. Never.
Not even at the PDP level when I was in
PDP; not even in other party’s levels,
none because Anambra has always been
free. In 2007, Andy Uba got it and
became Governor for 17 days, the court
sacked him and Peter Obi came back
when the Supreme Court pronounced
that his tenure was not ended. Same goes
for 2010 when we contested – Soludo
South, Obinna Uzoh, so many people, I
even thought I was disqualified in 2007
by INEC, I was barred. But in 2010,
everybody, including Andy Uba, came
back again and all the people from the
North came.
So, the point I am making is that, we
never sat down to debate and it will be
preposterous for anyone now to start
proposing it – you don’t change the
goalpost in a match midway or half way,
you can’t do that. So the Governor, from
all indications, is not doing that as a
patriot or a statesman, he is doing it for
reasons best known to him and the
reasons are not far fetched. The fact is
that he wants to preclude Senator Dr.
Chris Ngige from vying, Senator Andy Uba
from vying and may be Prof. Soludo from
vying. These are the people the governor
doesn’t want to hear their names as
possible successors. But he is not God; it’s
only God that will say who will succeed
him. Even we, like me now, I have made
up my mind that am going to run. It is
God who will determine my fate; it’s not
in man’s hand. So, going to be waging this
war, he is trying to play God, but he is
not.
More importantly, we have never, in
Anambra State, regarded ourselves as one
group being superior to another or
another group being the weakling. The
history of actions in this state lays
credence to what I am telling you. Dr.
Nnamdi Azikiwe ruled this place as
Premier. When he left for Lagos in 1960
to become Governor General, he handed
over to M.I Okpara the mantle of
leadership of NCNC and Eastern Region as
Premier. In 1967 when the war started,
Ukpabi Asika was made Sole Administrator
of East Central State, he was in the
Supreme Military Council and when the
war ended he became full Sole
Administrator. He ruled unfettered in this
part of the world to the extend that he
was able to appoint the Chief Justice from
Onitsha and he Ukpabi Asika was from
Onitsha. He appointed two Commissioners
in East Central states cabinet from
Onitsha, nobody queried, nobody said
anything. That is to show you what I mean
that we don’t segregate or regard any
other person as superior or inferior;
nobody queried it. And when our
brother, Chuba Okadigbo, decided to run
for Senate, he got the Senate seat, wants
to become the Senate President but
Obasanjo thwarted it with AD Senators
supporting a handful of PDP senators to
make Evans Enwerem Senate President.
And when Evans Enwerem fell from the
thrown, the Anambra senators were asked
to produce a replacement, the three
senators we had then, senators Mike
Ajaegboe, Okadigbo and Nnamdi Erobuna
came to meet us in our caucus. I was the
Assistant National Secretary of the PDP.
They met us at the caucus and we were
asking them who will replace Enwerem,
they should go and find somebody, they
went out and came back in less than one
minute and said Chuba Okadigbo should
take over. Chuba Okadigbo is from Oyi
Local Government of Anambra State in the
North, number three position, the
number three man in the country. Ukpabi
Asika from Onitsha, in the North, Nnamdi
Azikiwe, the Rt. Hon. from Onitsha in the
North the revered Nnamdi Azikiwe.
So we have never talked about
marginalization, even the present
dispensations from Yar’Adua, the ministers
have been coming from the north. John
Emeka, Transport Minister from Anambra
West, Stella Odua is from Ogbaru, North,
we have never queried their credentials.
So why did they now query the
credentials or other people and the
governor because he wants to preclude
some people, he wants to play God now
say, ‘I decree.’ We are saying to him that
we un-decree this decree; it will not
stand. In fact, his posture has embolden a
lot of us, especially me, to contest this
election, because we don’t want anointing
anymore in this area. Let him not anoint;
if he wants to anoint, let him go to his
family to anoint people; let them take over
his private business, not the government
of state.
I have nothing personal against the
governor, but when he does something
that is not proper, I’ll tell him and I
should be able to say so. I’m an elder
statesman in this state; I’m the young man
too in this state. I fit into any cadre you
call me in this state. So I should be able to
speak the truth; it’s only the truth than
can set the people free.
What lessons did you learnt from your
experience in the race with Obi now that
he is bent on installing his successor?
Which of the races? I did the
governorship race with him, I did the
Senate race with him, even though Dora
Akunyili was in forefront, it was the
government machinery that fought me.
The Governorship race
No, no no, the lessons I learnt in the
2010 governorship and the Senate race, I
will not leak it to you because we are
going into a fresh combat. If I reveal
them to you, you publish them and they
will go and redesign their own war
strategy. A good general doesn’t say
where and how he defeated his opponent
in a war that is continuous. You don’t
even show your arsenal, they will go and
destroy it before the war starts or before
the major battle, and you will be
handicapped. So for now, I want to keep
them to myself, but I learnt a lot about
their style and I know their style and they
know I know.
What hope do you have in APC?
With that party we have at least a
semblance of pure democracy, where you
have two major parties striking themselves
– PDP and APC. It will make for a very
healthy competition and even Mr.
President, Jonathan said he was happy
about that, that it enthrone competition,
that there is nothing that brings out the
best than free and fair contest. So we are
going to do contest with them, with PDP
and others, APGA here in the
governorship election and if by the grace
of God they allow the council election to
hold in October, that will be the first
major test.

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If i were 2 be dis man cald ngige, i wil jst respect my self and remain in d hse of senate

Can someone please ask him why he hasn't sponsored any bill in the senate.

Thank you.

Sunny_bobo: Can someone please ask him why he hasn't sponsored any bill in the senate.

Thank you.

I think it is because he had been busy plotting on how to go back to Awka government house.
Only we have Soludo now, who can do a better job.

NGIGE NGIGE NGIGE
How many times did I called you.


Go REST.

Sm1 is gettn frightened here....

Sunny_bobo: Can someone please ask him why he hasn't sponsored any bill in the senate.

Thank you.

exactly my thoughts

He still has a court case challenging Peter Obi's victory in the last election. Since then he has won election to the Senate and now he is running for election again to become Governor

Sometimes I wonder if Ngige is just your average survivor? What if there was no Chris Uba and OBJ did not play the kind of role he played in Anambra? Would Ngige have been a hero today? would he have achieved much? Did he pretend to be working in order to earn the people's sympathy while he was fighting the powers that be?

Why has the all knowing Ngige not championed and sponsored any Bill in the Senate?

Sunny_bobo: Can someone please ask him why he hasn't sponsored any bill in the senate.

Thank you.

Sunny my brother I tire o.

mikeansy:

exactly my thoughts

He still has a court case challenging Peter Obi's victory in the last election. Since then he has won election to the Senate and now he is running for election again to become Governor

Sometimes I wonder if Ngige is just your average survivor? What if there was no Chris Uba and OBJ did not play the kind of role he played in Anambra? Would Ngige have been a hero today? would he have achieved much? Did he pretend to be working in order to earn the people's sympathy while he was fighting the powers that be?

Why has the all knowing Ngige not championed and sponsored any Bill in the Senate?

Nwanne ike gwuru o!

I like Ngige for his courage and vision but, he is annoyingly arrogant, petulant and impervious.