By Igboeli Arinze Napoleon
‘Ngige appeals to Andy Uba for help’ “Ngige afraid of Dora” Ngige
this! Ngige that!! Ngige hmm( A human expression)! Ngige HA (another human expression), Ngige before! Ngige after! These catchy headlines
and newspaper posts continue to catch the attention of many who are
normally given to the habit of reading, now this is not a problem as
if there is one thing we should encourage amongst our people and
particularly our leaders, it should be to pick the reading culture and
probably make it a habit like taking snuff and watching the
premiership. But sometimes one is angered beyond repair by the level
of falsehood intentionally disseminated within the space of the mass
media and the social media, such items as putrefactive as they seem to
be with the reeking effluvium of intellectual rubbish screaming right
in the face of the innocent reader who but honestly cannot be blamed
for wanting to read something? “O what a goodly outside falsehood has”
as Shakespeaere wrote in his Merchant of Venice. The spin doctors in
Anambra are at it again! Wanting to earn their pay from their media
frenzied boss whose stock in trade as Governor of Anambra State is in
posing for newspaper camera men at different angles and even hemming
up to our belabored President sizing up the TV and digital cameras
putting up a form of camaraderie that has no import on the State
business or the business of the federation, such narcissism is quite
historic and surely deserves to be clapped out, only please let us do
this with one hand.
May I add his windy platitudes and speeches where he is always the
first to do this and that, the first to build a digital library
without books, the first to build a modern hut and called it a digital
village, the first to tackle erosional problems only on the pages of
newspapers. He very much engages the services of spin doctors, pupils
not really worth their salt whose specialty remains to launder
whatever remains of his deluded image, aides whose level of
intelligence on paper is like cutting floor room material, sadly these
toxic materials find their way into our newspapers and the internet,
the first being the trouble with the media in Nigeria the second owing
to the fact that the internet is relatively free!
Let me let you in on the workings of these media aides ably headed by
a cheap propagandist who uses a plethora of emails and nom de plumes
to harass innocent citizens of Anambra State simply for the reason
that on one or few occasions they have politely engaged the Government
of Anambra State in an intellectual spat only to receive abuses,
half-truths in their replies and of course the Governor’s praise!
Once an innocent writer showered praise on the Governor but drew his
attention to a small problem, oh Memphistotles let out a spree of
insults so foully worded that I began to question his allusive gender
since his temperament resembled that of a shouting house wife.
Also he engages in soliloquizing with himself, he sets up an issue on
the internet and then uses different names to answer a question or an
issue that his charred mind has cooked, neophytes normally have fallen
for such tricks but majorities of the people are wiser and know
better. This spin doctor works at his best when his master’s nemesis
is in the scene, for nothing pleases this merchant of Agulu than
knowing that potshots are thrown at a contemporary of his, a slip of
the pen forgive my error for certainly a Chris Ngige cannot be in the
same league with a Peter Obi, it’s like comparing Zik with a KO
Mbadiwe or in soccer analogy the Samba boys of brazil with Crown
Biscuit Football Club of Ogbomosho, a Chris Ngige is naturally ahead.
Memphistotles loves taking a go at the current Senator representing
the good people of Anambra Central Senatorial District, using his
plethora of names he accuses the good Senator of everything evil under
the sun, if the chickens fail to crow for his principal, then it is
Ngige’s fault, if Labour is engaging his boss in a battle for better
wages for themselves then it is Ngige, when Okey Ndibe writes some
sense on his column then it must be Ngige! It seems there is an
Ngigephobia by the government of Anambra State prompting the crux for
this article, who is afraid of Ngige?
Who is afraid of the man whose love for the people of Anambra State,
Igbos and Nigeria as a whole is so monumental? Who is afraid of the
man that liberated the state from the grasps of the godfathers and
largely reinvented governance as service to the people and not the
other way round? Who is afraid of his popularity and style, his native
intelligence and principled stand, his frankness and philosophy? To
these questions I shall give the answers at the end of my page but I
trust that the commonsense of my reader will be above average to
denote the answer.
But why are they afraid of this diminutive folk hero from Alor?
Certainly he is no terrorist and controls no standing army, (surely
the people would be ready to fight for him and what an army that would
be) he has never believed in violence and would not surely pick to new
habits at his glowing age of 59, so why the fear, the paranoia, the
obsession with the pull Ngige down project? What has he done to earn
such?
As I pondered to this recent set of questions, with my mind rowing to
and fro the flotsam and jetsam of the warped thinking of these
charlatans, I stumbled upon the answer, the very reason for the
depletion of the treasury of Anambra State, the wastage of resources
for battles that were surely lost from the beginning, the misplacement
of the commonwealth of the people of Anambra just to annihilate one
man politically if not physically too. It’s all about 2014.
Yes sir, it’s all about 2014 and who becomes the governor of Anambra
State, it’s all about the permutations, the matrices and the abutting
factors. For some time ago in 2006 when Governor Peter Obi mounted
the seat as Anambra State Governor, he literally coasted on the love
and popularity of the people not because he was in anyway popular but
for the fact that he was of the same party as the Grand Commander of
the Igbo Nation, Dim Emeka Ojukwu but sooner than later this
businessman turned politician found out that governance wasn’t similar
to merchandising wine and juice neither had his plethora of executive
courses prepared his wit nor will to solve the myriad of challenges
facing the people of Anambra. Thus it didn’t take up to six months for
the people of Anambra to realize that the former glory was greater
than the latter, soon Mr. Obi’s popularity began taking a decline and
he would only blame one man for it, Dr. Chris Ngige.
Even after the shoddy elections of Feb 6th 2010, the worst election in
the annals of Anambra history where Mr. Obi was undeservedly handed a
debatable victory, Mr. Obi would not squarely face the issues of
governance and let Dr. Ngige alone. For no sooner had Dr. Ngige sent
signals of his intention to occupy the Senate Seat for the people of
Anambra Central via consultations did the ghouls and gremlins in our
rock awaken to deny him victory. Even with madam NAFDAC, the billions,
the police and thugs and the brazen form of rigging unprecedented in
the history of Nigeria could topple the big masquerade, not even when
the Governor threatened not to carry out any project in any area that
voted Ngige the people simply defied him and gave their mandate to
this bearded medical doctor.
Not satisfied Mr. Peter Obi urged an unenthusiastic Professor Akunyili
who had told the world after the thumping that all she wanted was to
go and cook for her family, to head to court with the aim to distract
the former governor from carrying out his duties as a Senator at the
same time the state broadcasting media and all its spin doctors have
gathered like witches and spiritual mediums to misinform the public,
pronouncing and speculating judgments of a case that can largely be
said to be lacking in merit. Imagine a serving Governor leaving the
importance of State business to attend a tribunal session where he is
neither the petitioner nor the first respondent but simply because
Ngige is involved.
But is it not preposterous that an election that is yet to be held two
years from now is attracting the attention of Mr. Obi? Is the Anambra
State government seat his personal property that he feels he alone can
bequeath power or block the chances of others for no justifiable
reason?
Even as his evil empire built on rigged votes begins to crumble with
the nullification of the victories of their candidates for various
elections in Ogbaru, Anaocha,Dunukofia and Njikoka, Anambra West and
many more one would have advised Mr.Obi to rather face the issues of
governance seriously rather than choosing to suffer from what seems to
be a withdrawal system.
Finally let me state that the good Senator isn’t perturbed as such
issues largely do not bother him, but I have only taken the pain to
write because the Igbos say, o da fiaru o fiaba ru!
A word is enough for the wise!
Arinze writes from Abuja
