Realignment of Forces

Chief Chris Uba

Frontline Anambra political godfather, Chief Chris Uba and former Governor Clement Chinwoke Mbadinuju eventually resolve their political differences, with a decision to ensure that the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), recovers the state in the forthcoming guber election due to hold early next year
By Okechukwu Obenta, Awka
The meeting of stakeholders of the Anambra State chapter of the People’s Democratic Party, (PDP), held on Saturday, May 30, 2009, at Choice Hotel, Awka, the state’s capital, indeed, marked a major breakthrough in the quest for true and enduring reconciliation amongst aggrieved members of the party. This much was demonstrated by the eventual reconciliation between the state’s foremost political godfather, Chief Chris Uba and his estranged godson, former governor of the state, Dr. Clement Chinwoke Mbadinuju. The latter had accompanied the Uchenna Emodi-led executive of the party in the state to the meeting. Apparently to demonstrate to the thousands of PDP faithful who besieged the venue of the meeting that they have decided to put behind them their political differences which lasted all of eight years, the two political titans arrived the venue of the party riding in the same car and walking into the hall holding each other’s hand.
As a mark of appreciation of the development, the venue of the meeting was thrown into deafening uproar by the PDP faithful who went into jubilation as they sang and danced, thanking and praising God for making such a day possible for the party and its teeming members and supporters.
Mbadinuju and Uba had parted ways since 2002 because of the former’s failed bid to secure a second term in office as governor. Indeed, even though the Mbadinuju administration suffered intense opposition from the then Anambra Peoples Forum (APF), established and funded by Sir Emeka Offor, it was, indeed, Uba who single- handedly used his controlling influence in the affairs of the PDP in the state and the state’s politics at large to stop Mbadinuju from flying the PDP ticket in the 2003 general election– a development which halted his ambition for a second term in office. As a mark of protest, Mbadinuju had defected to an apparently unpopular Alliance for Democracy, (AD), where he only succeeded in participating in the governorship contest.
Latest revelations even show that the allegation of masterminding the murder of Barnabas Igwe, the then chairman of the Onitsha branch of the Nigerian Bar Association, (NBA), and his pregnant wife, Abigail in 2002 levelled against Mbadinuju, and for which the former governor was charged to court and was subsequently remanded in prison on the order of an Onitsha magistrate court, was part of the grand plan then to stop his bid to serve a second term n office.
After Mbadinuju was stopped, the PDP had picked Dr. Chris Ngige and gave him the party’s gubernatorial ticket for the 2003 election, but Ngige was soon to part way with Uba and other major PDP power-brokers in both the state and the federal levels three months after he was sworn-in as governor on account of a disagreement with Uba, basically over the sharing of political offices. Ngige even deployed the instruments of state and his influence as governor to rubbish Uba’s integrity in a desperate bid to undermine his overwhelming political clout. To achieve this goal, Ngige had alleged at the time that Uba wanted to abort his stay in office after barely three months because he wanted him to part with a whooping N3billion tax-payers’ money .
Though Ngige succeeded in making huge political capital with the allegation, as the issue gained him huge popularity from the state’s largely politically–uninformed citizens, it was clear though to any educated mind that Uba could not have made such request as the state did not have such money in its coffers. Uba, who personally bankrolled Ngige’s gubernatorial expenses, his supporters say could not have made such a demand as it was clear that he(Ngige) did not have such money at the time.
Meanwhile, since 2002, the PDP in Anambra State has been bedeviled by diverse crises that have defied any solution by the party hierarchy at all levels. As a result the party in the state has remained like sheep without shepherd and majority of the members have defected to other rival parties, with the All Progressives Grand Alliance,APGA, Action Congress, (AC), as well as the All Nigeria People’s Party, (ANPP), being the major beneficiaries.
For instance, Ngige along with many other bigwigs of the PDP defected to the AC during the build-up to the 2003 general election where (Ngige) contested the gubernatorial election under the party platform.
In the same manner , Chief Ndubuisi Nwobu, who is the current AC chairman in the state, was a former chairman of Awka south Local Government Area Council under the PDP. Just as Chief Nkwo Nnabuchi , a former commissioner under the Mbadinuju administration is currently one of the backbones of the ANPP in the state. The list also includes K .C. Enemuo, a former member of the State House of Assembly and commissioner under Mbadinuju. Also at the meeting was Rose Nwankwo, former chairman of the state Primary Education Board(APEB) under the Mbadinuju government. APGA, however, appears to be the greatest beneficiary of the crisis in the PDP, even though many political watchers are of the view that if the incumbent Governor, Peter Obi, played ‘ball’ many state governors are wont to, the PDP by now would have gone extinct in the state .
Indeed, when Mbadinuju walked into the party’s stakeholders’ meeting with Uba holding each other’s hand, coupled with the large presence of former elected political office holders at local government and the state Assembly during his regime, hope loomed very large that the party has begun a serious move towards engendering true and enduring reconciliation.
For instance, the presence of former council chairmen under that regime, including Amobi Chikwendu(Nnewi-North), Anayo Ejidike(Nnewi-south), Sylva Abasilim(Idemili-south), Dennis Ngene(Awka-north), Amedu Udoji(Ayamelum), and Ezeobi Okpala(Onitsha-south), as well many members of the House of Assembly, was a clear pointer to the fact that the party is being returned to it original members.
Prince Ossy Ezenwa , Secretary to the State Government(SSG) during the Mbadinujuera was also present. Other foundation members of the party in the state at the meeting included Chief Guy Ikoku, former state chairman of the party who took over from Chief J .A. Okonkwo, pioneer state chairman of the party. Ikoku was also the chairman of the defunct Nigerian Peoples Party(NPP) in the old Anambra State.
Others were Chief Roma Mocha, former chairman of the party in the state, and Deacon B.C. Okeke, former gubernatorial aspirant under the party. Also present at the meeting were three gubernatorial aspirants currently jostling for the party’s ticket for the forthcoming state’s gubernatorial election. They include, Chief Kodilichukwu Okelekwe, Dr. Alex Obiogbolu and Chief George Ike Okoye.
Indeed, the meeting served as a major warning to the ruling APGA in the state that it is really going to face serious challenge in the forthcoming election. As a matter of fact, Uba made it clear at the meeting that his commitment this time around–as always– is to see that the party recover the Government House, Awka from the ruling APGA government. He made it clear to the party faithful that he is not interested in seeking the governorship position, but that his ambition was limited to making sure that whoever emerges as the gubernatorial candidate of the party wins the governorship contest. Uba went down memory lane and recounted how he had been betrayed by some members who were desperate to make personal political gains and urged the stakeholders to brace up to the challenge of rebuilding the party so that it can win the forthcoming gubernatorial and local government election. Apparently buoyed by the assurances of Uba that the selection of the party’s gubernatorial candidates would be based on the popular choice of delegates in the primaries, Okelekwe, after formally declaring his interest to seek the party ticket to contest the coming gubernatorial election donated the sum of N3.1 million to the party to aid the leadership in mobilising members and supporters for the election.
According to him, N2.1 is to be shared among the 21 local government chapters of the party while the remaining one miilion Naira is for the party’s state executive to aid it in its own membership mobilisation drive. Members of the party who have interest to join in the contest for the party nomination for the coming gubernatorial election were requested to declare at the meeting. Two other guber aspirants who made their ambition known at the meeting included Obiogbolu and Ike Okoye.
Senator Annie Okonkwo, who is one the frontline guber aspirants under the party, was however absent at the meeting . But many members of his campaign organisation were present indicating that he has given recognition to the Emodi executive and would have also announced his own guber ambition to the party stakeholders were he in attendance.
Though it was clear at the meeting that the Ifeatu Obi-Okoye group was still kicking against the recognition of the Emodi executive by the PDP National Working Committee(NWC), it was however clear that the group must have lost out as the NWC appears to have made up its mind as far as the crisis of leadership in its Anambra chapter is concerned. A member of the party’s stakeholders at the meeting made allusion to this fact when he told The Source that if C.N. Ukachukwu, who is the backer of the Obi-Okoye did not retrace his steps soon, he may end up like former Vice President Atiku Abubakar in the PDP. By continuing to criticise the PDP NWC for recognising Emodi, Ukachukkwu, according to the party, chieftain, is questioning the authority of the party’s national leadership and the Presidency which must have arrived at the decision after due consideration of various factors surrounding the feud.
The stakeholders meeting which was earlier slated to hold on Saturday, May 19, was aborted by the police following an order by the Abuja High Court which restrained the NWC's recognition of the Emodi executive based on an application brought before the court by the Obi-Okoye group. The state police command was, however, to reopen the state party secretariat for the Emodi exco on May 26, with a stern warning to all those opposed to its leadership to steer clear or face the consequences of a “ breach of public peace”.
Charles Dike, a Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP), conveyed the warning from the state’s Commissiner of Police, Amusa Bello, to the PDP members at the party’s state headquarters in Udoka Housing Estate, Awka.
In a communiqué issued at the end of the meeting, the stakeholders expressed their unflinching support and loyalty to the PDP NWC and the Presidency under President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua . They also pledged loyalty and support to the Emodi-led executive, as well as Chief Chris Uba as the South east representative of the party's Board of Trustees(BOT).
The stakeholders, however, took exception to the advertorial placed recently in one of the national dailies and signed by one Peter Uyanwa and Obi, purporting to be acting on behalf of the PDP stakeholders in Anambra State, where they attacked the party’s NWC and the Presidency over the recognition accorded the Emodi-led executive. As far the PDP bigwigs were concerned the advertorial do not represent the position of the authentic stakeholders of the party in the state and should be ignored, describing it as a product of impostors.
Ossy Egwuatu, a former member of the House of Representatives read the communiqué which was thereafter adopted by the stakeholders.Dr Emeka Eze had earlier proposed the various issues contained in the communiqué in a motion which was seconded by members at the meeting.
Meanwhile, though it was clear that the PDP may not have in its agenda an immediate plan to pacify Mbadinuju by offering him the party’s ticket for the 2010 gubernatorial election in the state, many political watchers are of the view that the party’s national hierarchy should recommend him for a juicy political office, otherwise the nemesis of the injustice done to him would continue to haunt the party in the state.