In those speeches you could see a man who loves humanity. A friend of the masses of our dear country who have long lost hope. A patriot who has been eight years as governor and clearly understands the appropriate indices of a healthy nation. A man who would have easily become the president of this great nation if we were a less complex country not embroidered in tribal sentiments. A messiah any country would have welcomed with open arms, turned around their economy and general well-being.
But this is Nigeria!
The last man I saw in governance with same masses-loving attitude and people-oriented deliveries was the late Chief Sam Mbakwe. Mbakwe shared so many characteristics with Obi. He was then dubbed the crying governor because he was able to go to Dodan Barracks, literally, on his knees to the then NPN-controlled seat of power to get every dot of the shares accruing to his dear state of Imo despite being an NPP governor. The same tactic Obi effectively employed with then Aso Rock-based PDP Federal Government despite being the only APGA governor. Mbakwe worked to satisfy the basic needs of the people. So did Obi. Mbakwe denied himself unnecessary luxuries just to deliver dividends of democracy to the people. Obi even did more in this aspect.
I’m from Uturu, Okigwe. I was just entering the university to study law when the army struck in 1983 to disrupt that second Republic. I cried – not because the Alhaji Shagari-led government was anything to write home about but rather that my own state was robbed of the best father and uncle any group of people could ever wish as their leader. If the then Gen Muhammadu Buhari-led team knew the feelings of the good people of then old Imo State, they would have kept Mbakwe in charge of our dear state as a civilian administrator. Or better still, they could have waited for the ‘crying governor’ to complete eight years before inviting the martial music.
But the rest is now history.
Fast forward to present day. There’s another Mbakwe in Igbo land and he is very here with us, very active and very eager to take governance to the people. Peter Obi! He was lucky to have seen his eight years of governance completed without disruption from the men in khaki. I truly hope we have passed that level of interruption in our struggles as an independent nation.
Sometime in late October this year, I was coming home with my very good friend, Emma. Emma is an architect and into full time construction. We met in youth service in Ibadan and have remained inseparable ever after, especially when we travelled together after service to Lagos to start our lives as young graduates. We haven’t become Bill Gates in our separate endeavours but we certainly haven’t been paupers either. The right choice of words should be that God has been faithful to both of us.
Emma bought a new Landcruiser jeep, tokunbo of course, but the grade A type of it. And it was making its first journey to the East. And as is customary, we travelled together. My friend is from Ihiala in Anambra State and we were going to make a brief stop in his home before we proceeded to mine. We drove into Head Bridge at exactly 11. 25 am. I knew because I checked the time. I always do check the time at important places whenever I travel. But on getting near the Flyover at Upper Iweka, we noticed a little crowd gathered around a group of cars. Emma slowed to ascertain what it was all about. And I saw him!
“That’s Peter Obi,” I exclaimed!
“Of course…that’s him,” Emma returned casually.
I shouted to my friend to pull over. It took him sometime to find space and I jumped down from the vehicle immediately, walked back. By then the crowd had astronomically increased, hailing and following the man into the market. Curiously I followed. It was then I noticed he was in company of the PDP gubernatorial candidate, Oseloka Obaze. The crowd had increased that I really couldn’t get very close. But truth is that I had never seen Obi live before and that close was pretty close for me.
As a lawyer, I’m keenly interested in politics…so I followed them into the market. They were campaigning, sharing leaflets, shaking hands and stuffs like that. But I was only interested in reactions from the people in the market.
God, people love the man, Obi!
One thing you must know about Nigerians is that they hate their leaders, especially when they have left office. But what I witnessed at that mini-market was astonishing. In the mini-market(not Onitsha main market) I saw genuine love for a leader.
‘Okwuteeee, Okwuteee, Okwuteeee’….all over the place. Tried as I did, I couldn’t get quite close to shake hands with him. That would have made my day. But what I observed from close quarters was enough. This is a man genuinely loved by his people. How many past Nigerian leaders could openly get into an open market to such reception? It was marveling!
Thirty minutes later I was back in the passenger’s seat. Emma was furious at my ‘childish’ stunt but we soon settled it.
From that moment I told whoever cared to listen that Obaze would be the next governor of Anambra State. That the people of Anambra would follow wherever Obi indicated interest. My friend Emma has taken me to almost all local government areas of Anambra state that I know for sure Obi built the best network of rural roads in any state of the country before he left office. I’ve seen school buses everywhere and the WAEC and NECO positions of the state as number one repeatedly before he handed over spoke loudest that the man from Agulu was not only about road infrastructure. The overwhelming success of SABmiller, brewers of Hero beer makes a very affirmative statement in the area of industrializing his dear state under his watch.
Health, Agriculture, Environment, Erosion Control, Housing, Judiciary, Poverty Alleviation, etc – all scored marks in the excellent region under Obi’s watch as a governor whose state was adjudged the best in the country in achieving Millennium Development Goals. I knew all these because I made my own investigation. In fact, I call Obi an institution and I wouldn’t just use that word lightly. It’s well-deserved of a man whose simplicity is another sphere where he scores excellently. Humility too.
Anambra was blessed to have had such a man for good eight years. Then I watched the debate on Channels TV. I saw in Obaze a rare quality of man with stunning knowledge and experience to take the state even further. Above all, this man had been in government and understood clearly what was needed to turnaround from the seemingly dangerous corner the incumbent had navigated it to. I called my friend and told him Anambra was lucky. That they got Obaze in time to halt further decay from the incumbent who was clearly dusted at the debate.
It therefore came to me as a huge shock when the results started flowing in. There’s nowhere any sane person would believe the same incumbent I watched in that debate could win all local governments in the same Anambra with such landslide margins. It’s just not possible! It brought back the memories of how the great Ezeigbogburugburu, Emeka Ojukwu did not make it to the Senate despite all the love and fanfare that followed him on return from exile. Almost three and half decades later, the scenario was repeated here.
I started making calls to my friends in INEC to ascertain if there could be any possible explanation. I gathered that as much as between N5000 to N10,000 was paid per vote! When will the masses be allowed to freely choose their leaders in this country? Astonishing, but when I gathered that there were over 8000 people that were accredited but didn’t vote, I made further calls to clarify the rules of the exercise. I gathered that it was strictly accredit-and-vote-instantly. Yes, people queued to vote, and once it got to one’s turn and his/her name appeared on the voters’ list, his/her card got slotted into the card reader and read, he/she got given ballot paper immediately to vote. Question is – who would then go through all these processes of accreditation and then refuse to vote? Somebody suggested only an unsteady fellow and I ask, are there as many as over 8000 of such fellows in Anambra?
Whatever happened to dump the best candidate in the distant third in that election is still a mystery. But the over 8000 ‘unsteady’ count certainly says the election might have been free but definitely not fair!
Chamberlain Njoku wrote in from Festac, Lagos.
