It is pertinent that people should embrace the selfless campaign of Dr.
Orji Uzor Kalu, the immediate past governor of Abia State, for Igbo
presidency in 2015. Anything that is against the Igbo presidency in 2015
should be seen and measured as a punishment against Ndigbo. This was how a
People’s Democratic Party’s stalwart said in 2002 that all the (PDP)
governors would be returned in the 2003 elections. Except Governors
Chinwoke Mbadinaju and Rabiu Kwakwanso who were not returned, Tony Anenih
whom the statement was credited to, his prophecy almost came true.
This is why Ndigbo must take this statement from a Julian Jaynes seriously.
Jaynes said that behavior now must be changed from within the new
consciousness rather than from Mosaic laws carving behavior from without.
Sin and desire are now within conscious desire and conscious contrition,
rather than in the external behaviors of the decalogue and the penances of
temple sacrifice and community punishment. The divine kingdom to be
regained is psychological not physical. It is metaphorical not literal. It
is “within” not in extenso.
Anenih further said that the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) would soon
collapse and join the PDP; those not at ease with the way the PDP
congresses were conducted could egress from the party. There were qualms
from the South East reports on the congresses of the PDP and it nearly
collapsed or broke the spirits of the South East Governors to join other
parties. And in other states of the federation the story was not different.
Factionalization was at its expediency!
In Imo State, then Governor Achike Udenwa was in antagonism with the Hope
Uzodimma group of the returnees which openly declared for the PDP with the
National Officers of the party in attendance, and Udenwa lost control of
the party. In Enugu State then, Governor Chimaraoke Nnamani was afraid that
politicians like Senator Jim Nwobodo, Chief Emeka Eze and Dr. Okwesilieze
Nwodo were, according to reports, capable of holding the political
landscape in the State to their advantage. So, Nnamani was not ready to
make the mistake his counterpart made in Imo State. He was credited to be
inbuilt with political wisdom, which the doll Udenwa failed to foresee, and
Udenwa opened his backyard to the Uzodimma’s group who walked out of the
party in 2003 when their mission were sidelined. And Nnamani who was
applauded to be a man of wisdom wouldn’t have had peace if not that Senator
Nwobodo emerged the presidential candidate of the United Nigeria Peoples
Party (UNPP). Governor Nnamani, by the help of PDP brokers in Abuja, was
the Controller-General of PDP in his State.
Why Imo-State had no peace? Udenwa’s political adviser, George Egu was who
alleged that the Imo-State’s congress was marred by ‘Hi-tech thuggery and
fraud’. This was, according to him, the art of high placed politicians from
the State. There was an accusing finger on Senator Ifeanyi Araraume of
importing over 99 thugs into the State to cage the executives in the
Imo-PDP. Like Chief Mike Onu, loyalist of the Senate president, who was the
treasurer of the State’s party that was exempted, people like Chief Onyioha
Nwanjoku and the State’s executives, Ugulu O. Ugulu included, were all
returned through voice consolidation.
It was not a sugarcoated experience for Dr. Chris Ngige, then governor of
Anambra State. Dr. Ngige who was suspended from the party went to Enugu
Court of Appeal with his legs on the ground in his room praying for his
reinstatement as a PDP stalwart. The PDP failed to recognize him even when
the verdict of the court was in line with Dr. Ngige’s prayer to still be
PDP’s member. This was bad manners of Uba group, Dr. Ngige’s estranged
godfather.
About the Congress? Chris Uba’s group was in charge, not minding an Ogidi
Court order secured by Ngige and his group.
The group asked all factions in the State to maintain what journalists
referred to as ‘status-quo’ pending the hearing and determination of a
motion earlier filed. Yet, at the end, Dr. Ngige’s name was missing from
the congress list.
Afam Illuno, who’s the publicity secretary of Uba’s faction of Anambra PDP,
braved their supporters not to mind any announcements that cropped-up from
Awka Government House about the Congress. By the National Executive
Committee’s virtue to have expelled Dr. Ngige and his factional chairman of
PDP, Ifeatu Obi-Okoye, Illuno claimed that both men were not members of the
party (PDP).
There was speculation, when Uba’s faction held the State Congress at the
Udoka House in Awka, which was presided over by Ugochukwu Uba; others who
were likely to go out of the PDP with Ngige were absent. The absentees
included former vice president, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, Senators Joy Emordi and
Ben Obi.
Abia State was not exempted. There were reports that PDP in the State
constituted its executives twice in six days. Dr. Rex Otuka, who emerged
chairman in the executive list before the State Congress, Alfredo Awa as
deputy chairman, while Chief Dave Nwosu as secretary, yet three congresses
were witnessed in the State.
There was speculations of what this ripples would cause the State when
those loyal to Governor Orji Uzor Kalu faction alleged that, according to
them, the ‘fake party members’ were registered in the houses of Abuja based
politicians in the State, because there was secret registration of PDP
members in private residences during that Card membership registration.
For the Abuja-politicians? Accusing fingers were pointed at the (then past
and present) National Secretaries of PDP, Vincent Ogbulafor, Ojo Maduekwe,
former NDDC boss, Onyema Ugochukwu and House of Representative member, Mao
Ohuabunwa, amongst others.
Just like these politicians, then President Olusegun Obasanjo and Chief
Tony Anenih and other PDP bigwigs in Abia State hated Dr. Kalu for what
journalists called ‘lack of loyalty’. Yet Dr. Kalu’s poster indicating his
interest to contest for the prime seat of the president in 2007 was
everywhere.
In Ebonyi State, observers noticed that a parallel faction of PDP was
drawn, when the State’s governor, Dr. Sam Egwu was battling to regain the
membership cards that were said given to the man who’s the Culture and
Tourism minister, Frank Ogbuewu. Ogbuewu’s group in the State was
chronicled to have been operating under the name, Obasanjo Solidarity Forum
(OSF), which Bony Ofoke was its chairman.
Having said that, the squabbles above illustrate how Ndi-Igbo’s agitation
to produce the Nigeria president of Igbo extraction could not be achieved
in 2007 except they come together in one spirit and reckon with the fact
that though they might be in different parts of the country consolidating
their political ambitions but they are Ndi-Igbo.
It is said that, east and west, home is the best. No matter the mammoth
forces debilitating the eager minds of Ndi-Igbo to unite, Ndi-Igbo should
make or borrow a leaf from Dr. Ngige’s spirit when his then party was after
him thus: “The registration exercise is a job for the boys and for the
people to lose their money. What they are doing is a local 419. We know
that those who joined the PDP from ANPP like the current National chairman
Dr. Ali, Senator Nzeribe and others plotting to sack those of us who
founded the PDP. But I can tell you that we are ready to resist them. The
party belongs to us because we laboured to set it up”. Ndi-Igbo, Nigeria
belong to us all!
Ndi-Igbo laboured to set Nigeria up, and it is high time they fought the
‘Ibos’ among the Ndigbo to really have a refined Igbo nation, if not, the
celebrated ambition on the newspapers for Ndi-Igbo to produce the next
president of Nigeria in the 2015 polls will be another Ndi-Igbo political
mishap.
