By Sonala Olumhense
What is it about governing Anambra State that transforms men this way and that? In the past 22 years, this state of great education and wealth has produced what appears to be Nigeria’s most fascinating governorship chair.
To see one Chris Ngige now conduct an entire federal ministry like something of a pantomime, you might forget that he was the one who, in 2003, took over as governor from the totally regrettable Chinwoke Mbadinuju.
But Ngige was soon exposed by Chris Uba, the very man responsible for one of the earliest and clearest cases of the Peoples Democratic Party rigging in the Fourth Republic.
Uba was a close friend of the then President Olusegun Obasanjo, so Anambra was considered to be ‘good’ rigging for a political party which openly declared that it would control Nigeria for 60 or 100 years. The man Uba had rigged for Ngige? His name was Peter Obi.
In 2007, with Obasanjo on his way to the political mortuary, he chose Andy Uba, another close friend of his and a brother of Chris Uba, to run for governor. If you are old enough, you would remember Obasanjo campaigning for Andy, his former domestic servant, his most potent advert being perhaps this one, “He wakes me up and watches me till I sleep.”
Anambra has not recovered from those early stumbles. Current governor Charles Soludo first arrived on its governorship scene in 2009, having joined the ranks not only of the state’s highly educated but also its wealthy following his stint as the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria. He had no democratic pretensions: the PDP handpicked him as its candidate.
But as we all know, all of that was futile for him. Soludo lost to the same Peter Obi, who, in the intervening years, had kept the Anambra governorship carousel going by recovering his mandates through the court.
If you are an election loser and you must wait four years for another shot at your coveted position, those must be long and tortuous. I imagine that they indeed were for the former CBN governor, and the eight years following that might have been even longer as he was disqualified from the governorship race in his new party, the All Progressives Grand Alliance, in 2013.
Willie Obiano was the winner, paving the way for Soludo in 2021. He is remembered for two embarrassing incidents on his last day in office: his wife being publicly slapped by Bianca Ojukwu at Soludo’s inauguration, while he was arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission as he tried to flee the country for the United States.
Anambra’s colourful governorship returned to the limelight last week following Soludo’s dismissal of the presidency chances of the man who defeated him for the top seat 12 years ago. The original claims having been made on television, he returned in a verbose statement to explain his position, one that has annoyed a broad spectrum of people.
My position is that in the spirit of democracy, Soludo should be permitted to speak. He has already begun, anyway, writing ‘History beckons and I will not be silent (Part 1)’.
Let Soludo speak, as he appears prepared to do. But he must speak in full, not in part and not in tongues, as an elected official about the past and the present.
