Does Peter Obi Really Deserve Our Sympathy

Does Peter Obi Really Deserve Our Sympathy?

Jideofor Adibe, PhD

The moves by the Anambra State House of Assembly to impeach Governor Peter Obi have recently dominated the news. The fact that the impeachment moves came on the heels of President Obasanjo’s state visit have led some to point accusing fingers to Abuja – despite denials and moves by the president’s men to show that the contrary is the case. The impeachment moves have also evoked many emotions – not necessarily on whether the allegations made against the embattled governor are true or not, but that the good people of Anambra state deserve a breathing space.

The emotions are understandable. Anambra state has hardly known peace under any ‘democratic’ dispensation (or more correctly under any plural political competitive environment). The history of ‘wahala’ politics in the state pre-dates the coming of the current Republic. It was for instance a key feature in the Jim Nwobodo regime (1979-1983), where he virtually waged battle and succeeded in forcing out all known political figures from the state NPP in a bid to become the only star in the state’s political firmament. Jim’s Vanguard also routinelybattled the Vice President, Dr Alex Ekwueme, whose Man Friday, Senator N.N Anah, vowed, and did in fact return fire for fire. When Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu returned from exile and allied himself with the NPN and the tempestuous Dr Chuba Okadigbo, the political temperature in the state became considerably raised, with Jim’s Vanguard routinely slugging it out with the Ikemba Front.

Yes, the above was in the old Anambra state, one may argue, but as they say, it is the same shit, just another day. Fast-forward to 1999. Shortly after the inauguration of the current Republic in May 1999, the new state governor, Dr Chinweroke Mbadinuju began his own macabre hide-and-seek dance with one ‘Sir’ Emeka Offor, said to be his political godfather. Anambra state was turned into a theatre of the absurd, with the highly inept Dr Mbadinuju funnelling all the state resources into his private battles for survival while salaries were unpaid, and schools were on indefinite strike. No one could rein in Dr Mbadnuju - who conveniently masked his mischief and incompetence with a religious façade while the state regressed and was being underdeveloped under his watch. The self-styled ‘Sir’ Emeka Offor was also a law unto himself and no one seemed able to call him to order – not Abuja, where he obviously enjoyed unfettered access to those that matter, not the love of the collective good of the Igbos who were being set back by those shenanigans, not the fear of sanction by his Oraifite community because he felt he had grown bigger than his town.

In 2003, a realignment of political forces at Abuja resonated very powerfully at Anambra state, throwing up a new political god-father, ‘Sir’ Chris Uba, and a new political godson, Dr Chris Ngige, whose battles are too well known to be recounted here. I am among those who felt that Peter Obi could have, (after fighting for the mandate for about a year) dropped his protracted legal battle to reclaim a mandate he was thought to have won at the polls – for the greater good of the people of Anambra state. History is in fact replete with people who have subordinated their individual ambitions and rights to the collective good. Justice – the act of determining rights and assigning rewards or punishments - must never be confused with rights – what someone is entitled to, of feels entitled to morally and legally. While justice is communal in character, rights are usually individualistic. Peter Obi’s protracted legal battle was waged on the grounds of the search for justice – rather than for rights (it is really no one’s rights to be a governor). But in doing so he forgot the communal nature of justice, which could have been an auto-restraining factor in this quest, and which would have forewarned him when to give it all up – especially given what Anambra state was going through, and had been through, under the highly incompetent Dr Mbadinuju.

In many parts of the world, elected presidents and prime ministers sometimes willingly step down from a position they had worked hard to get to when they feel that their actions, or sometimes even the actions of their subordinates, have threatened the common good. Some refuse to pursue the quest for justice to the point where the common good will be threatened.

A good example is Al Gore, often described as "the man who used to be the next president of the United States". Many people still believe he was robbed of victory in 2000. But he knew when to stop the quest for justice for the greater good of the community. He had to throw in the towel and send a congratulatory message to President Bush shortly after the recounting of the votes in Florida to avoid a protracted legal challenge that would further polarize Americans and rubbish the country more in the eyes of the world. He accepted his fate with certain equanimity, saying: "I wanted it, and it was not to be". Today he has built sufficient political capital, in part by the dignified way he accepted his fate, that no one will begrudge him if he chooses to cash this accumulated political capital in 2008. Peter Obi similarly had a good opportunity to accumulate a huge political capital had he been a little more gracious in his pursuit of justice, had he not mistaken justice for rights or vengeance, and had he been a little more discerning to find he was merely a pawn in a bigger political chessboard in the state.

His obsession with reclaiming his mandate via a three year legal battle also made him oblivious of the fact that his party, APGA, was disorganised, was from all indications not ready to rule, and had only two members in the House of Assembly. This was the kind of situation where a more discerning person, knowing the nature of Nigerian politics, and knowing the fate of Balarabe Musa as a PRP Governor in an NPN-dominated Kaduna House of Assembly in the 1980s, could have cautioned himself that the mandate, if actualised under the circumstances, could be a poisoned chalice. I was particularly miffed that he was still fighting for the mandate even when there was only one year left of it and the people of Anambra state seemed to have happily moved on under Ngige. Given the fact that the learning curve for posts like governorship could stretch to 18 months, and that Peter Obi was never known to have worked in the state’s public sector to properly understand the nuances and dynamics of running the state, his regime, coming at the time it did, was bound to be seen as retrogression. I believe this was why he was routinely accused of non-performance. Things necessarily had to stop or slow down for him to find his rhythm, learn the job, get used to the office and its politics and articulate his own vision based on actually existing realities (as opposed to campaign promises that tend to be theoretical and platitudinous ).

No one will take away some of the personal achievements of Peter Obi, including his board memberships and chairmanship of many high-profile companies, and the fact that he comes across as a decent man – despite his reported wealth. The argument however is that he could have built more political capital for himself by knowing when what was a fight for justice mutated into an unbridled struggle to realise a personal ambition. At this point, a number of people stopped seeing any altruism, any consideration of the interests of the people of the state in the whole quest to actualise the mandate.

It is true that Dr Ngige’s performance may have been exaggerated but in a state where, even under Governor Jim Nwobodo’s old Anambra state, newspapers carried such headlines as “Teachers to Smile” (because their salaries were being paid), his ability to pay teachers’ salary as, and when due, was a huge achievement (Dr Mbadinuju owed them arrears of over six months, and schools were closed for over a year). Dr Ngige was also credited with repairing and maintaining roads – again something people of the state do not usually expect from their governor. The fact is that perception of competence, even when there is not much to show for it on the ground, is salutary to development. Today Nelson Mandela is regarded as one of the greatest living moral authorities – and rightly so. But try to pin down his concrete achievements and you will run into problems because Mandela’s legacy is intangible – a hope for white and black South Africans. For Dr Chris Ngige, he seemed to give hope to the saying that ‘it shall be well with us’ (now conveniently mocked by some journalists). This hope was the reason why Abuja could not use the State House of Assembly to remove him, why the various inanities of ‘Sir’ Chris Uba failed, and why Abuja could not create the conditions that would enable it create a state of emergency. Dr Chris Ngige, despite his obvious weaknesses spoke the language of the people, and in time, could become one of the rallying points of Igbo renaissance. Again, whatever name we may call members of the Anambra state House of Assembly today, let us remember that they stood solidly behind Dr Ngige – despite pressures from known quarters. They refused to play ball with forces that were more powerful than Ngige, and which could feather their nests far better than Ngige could.

Whatever goes round comes around. Whatever one sows one reaps - one way or the other. It will be absurd and hypocritical for a man to hire a prostitute and at the same time be complaining that he is not getting true love. When the late Dr Chuba Okadigbo connived and plotted in the removal of a fellow Igbo, Evans Enwerem, as president of the Senate, he was unwittingly laying the foundation for his own removal through the same process of intrigue because as they say, a coup begets a coup. Should we now rally to save Peter Obi – on the arguments that the good people of Anambra state have suffered enough – when he did not show the same consideration in his protracted quest to ‘reclaim his mandate’? I do not think it is any use dismissing the legislators as rascals. The governor should be made to reply to the allegations against him – some of them quite serious. Our emphasis should be in ensuring that due process is followed and that the legislators are not being teleguided from somewhere by the hands of Esau.

Beyond the fate of Peter Obi are a number of fundamental questions thrown up by the recurrent troubles in Anambra state, which have implications for the Igbos and the Igbo nation.

a) There is an urgent need for the Igbos to put their house in order if they want to be taken serious by other ethnic nationalities in the country. Granting that some of the recent travails of the state seem teleguided from Abuja using some Igbo rascals as fronts, it may also be pertinent to pose the question of whether a President of Igbo extraction could have been capable of teleguiding such mayhems in say Yorubaland or Hausa/Fulani land. These days, commentaries on Anambra politics have become a convenient mask to poke fun on the Igbos and deride their obvious individual achievements in many fields. To paraphrase a Ghanaian academic, someone may have helped to inflict the tragocomedy in Anambra state, but the ultimate responsibility to fix the problem, and refuse that it will happen again, is that of the Igbos.

b) The willingness of the Igbos to be used to destabilise and destroy their common good has also implications for the group’s position in the competition for the scarce socioeconomic resources in the country, including power at the highest level. This is because politics, in its crude form as practised in Nigeria and other developing countries, is essentially about who gets what, when and how? In this, the doctrine of the three Cs - Conspiracy, Consciousness and Cohesion, plays a determining role in the ability of the various contending groups to position themselves, filibuster, manoeuvre and decoy - without taking their eyes away from their critical objectives in the political processes and engagements. Unfortunately, the Igbo nation - as opposed to Igbo individuals - is terribly deficient in the 3cs, without which it is difficult for any group to maximise its gains from a political process.

c) The troubles in Anambra also bring up the need for the Igbos to make collective effort to develop Igboland, rather than seeing the homeland only as a place for retirement. This lack of a long-term vision for the area is perhaps one of the reasons why, with the possible exception of Enugu, all other Igbo cities - Onitsha, Aba, Awka etc are virtually ‘failed’ cities, incapable of attracting other non-Igbos to create the kind of competitive cosmopolitan environment where the Igbos thrive best. If the Igbos could develop and make their cities habitable as they contribute in making other parts of the federation, it will also be much easier to engender the kind of pride and consciousness that is currently lacking, and which will make it difficult for brigands to be used to subvert the common good. This I think should be the priority of Ohanaeze rather than the current embarrassment that it is (witness its support for a third term for Obasanjo at a time the same organisation was canvassing for a president of Igbo extraction).

d) The imbroglio in Anambra state equally raises a more fundamental question about the nature of our federalism. Federalism is a system in which the various federating units are each, within a sphere, independent and co-ordinate. Agreed that the atomistic nature of the federating units and the central government’s control of the key petroleum resources have made our system more of a unitary state in federal clothing, but the current environment where governors live in fear of an imperial president does not bode well for either federalism or democracy. It is a system that must not be allowed to continue. Unfortunately the governors who should be co-ordinating to collectively resist the imperial president are busy competing to be in his good books. Again, one of Peter Obi’s consolations in his largely self-inflicted travail was that the President had asked him to face his job. But as some will say, his travails may well be his comeuppance for subordinating the common good to his selfish ambition.

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Jideofor Adibe is publisher, Adonis&Abbey Publishers Ltd (www.adonis-abbey.com) and the online magazine, Holler Africa! (www.hollerafrica.com)