Verdict on Ngige

Verdict on Ngige: Grounds for jubilation?

Ikenna O. Ezenekwe

Who amongst us would deny the influence of President Obasanjo PDP in hand delivering the recent verdict to Peter Obi via the tribunal – possibly for the sole purpose of embarrassing Ngige and for the continuance of perturbations to quake the little prosperous run the state has enjoyed so far. It is of good service to remember the same influence was employed to dispose of Ogbeh and many like him – it was employed in the rigging of the said election 2003 in Anambra and many more. No one would attempt denying the President's involvement in these and other like thuggish meandering to subvert fair and transparent elections and due legal process. Yet, many parade around lost in the playgrounds of euphoria that justice has been rendered. If the election was rigged then who rigged it? Would that be the reason Uba recent relocated his family abroad? There, then should be a logical need to seek the culprits responsible for rigging election 2003. No?

It is baffling why some folks jubilate over this news. I do not understand the logic of jubilating over gifts laced in President Obasanjo kindness for Anambra people. Complicating matters exponentially is that some sincerely believe justice has been served to Ngige and his band of election rigging friends and that Peter Obi has been returned by the Hands of Justice. Some others take it as the real evidence of true justice in Nigeria while forgetting it was the same very band of election rigging friends responsible for the abduction of the governor on July 10^th and the burnings of November 10^th – as the Governor so bravely guarded the State treasury – it was the same friends that ensured the tribunal delivered to favor the removal of Ngige – whether or not it favored justice was secondary. To remove Ngige was the primary objective. So it deludes logical reasoning as to why it appears justice has been served via a five-man committee headed by a Hausa man - the resultant being the appointment of an APGA governor in the person of Peter Obi – A party headed by the ex-Biafran leader. For some, it appears as justice but little analysis reveals it as the opposite.

It does not take a complicated thinker to understand Peter Obi may at earliest get to the seat by July/August 2006 just in time for the campaign 2007. What will he then plan to achieve with this victory for the people of Anambra? Will it all be worth a mere moral victory? At what cost to the people of Anambra? Who really will stand the chance to suffer the brunt of a possible shake up in the consistency of all the progressive programs that Ngige currently have in place and of those in the pipeline? Would it not be the people in the rural villages? Irregularity in Anambra administrative stability which are most likely to result due the supposed change of government warrants more emphasis as it may result to become the bottle neck that derail the wonderful efforts of Ngige’s administration.

The impulse to celebrate this as a victory for Anambra people is illogical. To what value is good governance? The choice Anambra people are faced to make is between proven governing body and that of due electoral process. The obvious question then becomes -Are we willing to trade good governance for due electoral process? Could this be resolved without accounting for the peculiarities in the case of Anambra and Ngige? Particularly since Anambra has proven a very tough place to govern – talk more of administrating. Ngige has excelled at both. I emphasize the current FG has not been helpful.

So it is important we understand that when we celebrate the tribunal news – what are we really celebrating? Is it for the coalition of the President and Uba? They are the only party that achieved their targeted goal to remove Ngige and to disown him. The interesting thing is that the so-called tenets of democracy professed by the folks in celebratory mood- enabled President Obasanjo to hypocritically apply it as a chess move against Ngige, fooling some that justice has been served. From a weak side, he scored a goal. A spectacular goal at that because as soon as the dust settles and all the negative and positive impacts of the verdict is summed, I predict the net result will lean negative for Anambra people. The PDP machinery will benefit while APGA will remain APGA.

I fault the tribunal badly for lack of wisdom. How two years would go by -to return such Obasanjo sanctioned verdict is disturbing, unsatisfactory, and indicative of foul play, reeks of suspicious under pining and backhand dealing and the timing falls too incidentally at the time suitable for President Obasanjo to have Ngige out and out of PDP. Wisdom suggests that care be yielded to the importance of preserving good governance – this being a must for Anambra especially following the mayhem of November 2004 which exposed this need for continuity as essential.

To those who believe the electoral judicial process worked, I will point to the incidental nature of it and will classified it as a by-effect of another primary objective which had nothing to do with justice and all to do with empty netted vengeance at a well performing Governor. They forget that the people on the ground know Ngige’s removal benefits the only people up at the controls of PDP. They know the implications can not be good. By the President hand delivering Anambra to Peter Obi, the suspicion is that it is designed to backfire in a manner to return PDP back to the governor’s seat.

So I find it pointless to refer to the verdict as justice rendered or as victory for the people of Anambra because it is clearly not. Unless we decided to welcome our roles as puns in the playbook of PDP and the Federal executive council, then it will be a victory and justice can be considered rendered – judging by their yardstick. But there is another yardstick the real people on the grounds use as measure of what truly justice is and whether it happens to be incidental byproduct of a targeted vengeance. To these folks, the playbook of President Obasanjo’s tricks is bare and transparent. He has come to become an open book. These folks understand this verdict for what it is. Unfortunately there appears a normalcy of crabs-in-a-bucket tendency that continues to hold them in handicaps and to cause them to turn blind eye against what is good for the disguise of “due electoral process”. A good exercise in self deception will be for any Anambra person to believe in this verdict was justice served.

Come 2007, the typical complications will pop its ugly head up again and find itself in the electoral equation almost immediately, PDP will field its candidate, and APGA will do so too, and Ngige will probably seek the senatorial seat. With this, the political players in Anambra will revert to the same political jerseys as in 2003 and the same thing repeats again. And a PDP candidate is declared governor again in 2007.

Ikenna O. Ezenekwe is a chemical engineer in NYC