Anambra’s difficult political
story
on november 15, 2013 at 12:32 am in
politics
Anambra’s political course since the
advent of the Fourth Republic has been
laced with deep intrigues. Tomorrow’s
election of a new governor may finally turn
the tide
By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor
Anambra State was the first state in the
country to hold an off season
gubernatorial election in 2010 when the
incumbent, Mr. Peter Obi was elected for a
second term in office.
Obi had first emerged as governor in
March 2006 when the Court of Appeal in
Enugu ruled that he, and not Dr. Chris
Ngige, was the winner of the April 2003
gubernatorial election.
The first off season gubernatorial election
in January, 2010 only helped to further
symbolize the state’s awkward reckoning
as the state of many political oddities.
Before then, the state had drawn attraction
for its spate of politically induced violence
which climaxed with the kidnapping of
Obi’s predecessor, Ngige on July, 10 2003.
Obi had contested the 2003 election on the
platform of the All Progressive Grand
Alliance, APGA, but Ngige had been sworn
in on the ticket of the Peoples Democratic
Party, PDP following the declaration of the
Independent National Electoral
Commission, INEC that the PDP candidate
won the election.
That declaration was to be upturned by the
Court of Appeal in 2006. But Obi’s stay in
office after his inauguration in March 2006
up till President Olusegun Obasanjo left
office in May 2007 was exceptionally
chaotic. A presidential aide, Andy Uba, a
trusted confidant of the then president had
eyes on the governorship of the state in
2007, and given the mood of the time,
seemed to be a roller coaster to achieve his
aim.
Uba’s quest, sources in the state say, was
perhaps the reason Ngige was in the first
place pushed forward for the governorship
in 2003.
Dr. Chinwoke Mbadiniju who served as
governor between 1999 and 2003 was
denied the PDP’s return ticket for 2003
allegedly because of poor performance.
However, beyond the reason of poor
performance was the fact that those who
wanted Uba in as governor in 2007 had to
overcome the geopolitical balancing in the
state on the fact that Mbadiniju and Uba
come from the same Anambra South
senatorial zone.
It was thus in the permutation of those
backing Uba that somebody willing to
serve for one term from outside Anambra
South senatorial zone should be made to
fill in the gap between 2003 and 2007 when
Dr. Uba would have finished his service to
President Obasanjo in the presidential villa.
Stakeholders in Anambra claim that that
was really the reason Mbadopped in 2003.
Ex – Gov Mbadinuju
“It would have been very inconvenient for
those working on the 2007 Uba projeiniju
was drct for Mbadiniju from the same
senatorial zone as Uba to continue in
office till 2007 as that would have made
Uba’s effort very, very difficult in 2007,”
one of the stakeholders revealed.
So, Ngige who had earlier desired to go to
the Senate to represent Anambra Central
Senatorial district was now lured into the
gubernatorial contest under the patronage
of Chief Chris Uba, junior brother to the
then powerful domestic aide of the
president, Andy.
Ngige, however, very early in the day
proved to be an unwilling man in keeping
to agreements supposedly reached with his
backers, and hence the troubles that
shadowed him in the weeks that followed
his inauguration in 2003.
On July 10, a detachment of policemen led
by AIG Raphael Ige arrived Government
House, Awka and took Ige away in a
scheme that was allegedly scripted to give
the impression that the governor resigned
from office. A resignation letter was
available and the State House of Assembly
had sat to accept it and approve the
inauguration of the then deputy governor,
Dr. Okey Udeh as Ngige’s replacement.
Ige on arrival at Government House that
morning upon his higher authority had
commandeered all the policemen on duty
to surrender their weapons and ordered a
few policemen to take Ngige to Alor, his
hometown where he was to be kept
incommunicado in a government Peugeot
406.
However, along the way Ngige pleaded
with the policemen to pick some clothes
from Choice Hotel, Awka where he was at
that time keeping for his accommodation,
having not taken residence at the
Governor’s Lodge.
Having arrived Choice Hotel, Ngige,
however, played a fast one on the
policemen as he refused to cooperate
further with the policemen and dared them
to shoot him in public. While the stand-off
lasted, Ngige sat on the ground in the
courtyard of the hotel and it was at that
point that the abduction story unraveled.
A billionaire businessman and a major
shareholder in one of the country’s leading
construction companies, an Igwe who was
dressed in Igbo traditional regalia
happened to visit the hotel at that time.
Shocked to see Ngige sitting on the
ground he expressed shock and following
a brief discussion with the governor, the
Igwe (names withheld) called former Vice-
President Alex Ekwueme. The Igwe had
addressed Ekwueme, Your Excellency, Mr.
Vice-President.
As a witness to the drama of that time
disclosed:
“Ekwueme was the person he called Vice-
President, but people thought it was Atiku.
Igwe asked him (Ngige), who is aware of
what is happening, and Ngige said
nobody, that they ceased all his phones
and so Igwe now called Ekwueme and told
him that there is confusion here (Awka)
and that Ngige is here and Igwe now
handed the phone to Ngige and Ngige was
telling Ekwueme, yes sir, yes sir, and once
the policemen realized that Ngige was
talking on the phone contrary to the
instruction that he was to be kept
incommunicado, they ran and snatched the
phone from him, but the Igwe screamed
back at the policemen telling them “the
vice-president is on the phone with Ngige
and you are disrupting their conversation
and the policemen now out of fear handed
the phone back and when he finished
speaking with Ekwueme, Igwe asked him to
call anyone in Abuja. So, Ngige who had
worked at the national secretariat of the
PDP and is said to be good in memorising
phone numbers called the PDP land line
and incidentally the PDP National Working
Committee, NWC was meeting.”
So once Ngige’s call came through Prince
Vincent Ogbulafor (then national chairman)
and the journalists who were milling round
his office at the Wadata Plaza to get the
party’s reaction to Ngige’s alleged
resignation ran to the phone. The phone
was put on speakerphone mode and the
journalists milling around heard Ngige
speak. So Ngige with the aid of Igwe’s
phone spoke to the journalists at the PDP
secretariat and said that he had been
abducted and that he had not resigned
contrary to the reports coming out from
Awka. That was how the abduction story
changed for Ngige.
Dr Chris Ngige
Following his restoration as governor, the
political trajectory of Anambra State
changed and Ngige proceeded to make a
name for himself as a performer through
road constructions.
His performance nonetheless, Ngige had
been rejected by the PDP hierarchy under
President Obasanjo’s influence and
performance was not a matter.
When Ngige lost at the Court of Appeal to
Obi in March, 2006 it was an opportunity
for Anambra State to turn a new leaf in the
era of political gangsterism.
But the political drama would not fade
away. Obi was impeached from office on
November 3, 2006 by the Anambra State
House of Assembly sat as early as 5 a.m.
in a process that was ostensibly
teleguided. The impeachment sitting was
not done in public and the announcement
of the governor’s removal from office was
announced by the speaker, Mr. Mike
Balonwu who announced it.
*Gov Peter Obi
Obi challenged the impeachment and
refused to partake in the April 2007
election that was won by the PDP’s Dr.
Andy Uba.
Obi’s patience was to prevail as the
Supreme Court annulled his impeachment
and ruled that he should be returned to
power, and by that, puncturing Uba’s 17
day governorship.
Following his restoration, Governor Obi’s
performance in office has been hailed for
its remarkable touch on the state’s
infrastructure and development strategy
using the Anambra Integrated Development
Strategy, ANIDS.
Obi’s re-election in 2010 was a hard fought
victory that was partially helped by the
division in the PDP’s divided house. Prof.
Chukwuma Soludo who was the PDP flag
bearer was not helped by the rancour that
characterized his emergence as the PDP
flag bearer, especially with his sister-in-
law, Prof. Dora Akunyili, the likeable former
minister of Information who won laurels in
her earlier position as Director General of
the National Agency for Foods, Drugs
Administration and Control, NAFDAC.
While Obi has won endearment from near
and wide, given his portrayal of being
apolitical, his recent actions in fighting for
the soul of APGA with the national
chairman, Chief Victor Umeh, his inability
to conduct local government elections for
the eight years of his tenure and his
alleged efforts in getting his protégée and
banker as his replacement have changed
opinions that Obi is entirely apolitical.
Tomorrow’s election would show how
successful he has been in his endeavour.
He is challenged by Ngige who is flying
the ticket of the All Progressives Congress,
APC and the PDP which is now reinvented
and near united behind the former
students’ union leader, Comrade Tony
Nwoye.
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hmm Anambra politics no be here o