Our mega party has taken a hard view of the announced retirement from politics by Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State and see it in summary as ‘Sunset at Noon’. “For me, I have come to the end of it; I want to quit and rest,” Governor Peter Obi said in a remark to the synod of an Anglican Church in Enugu last Sunday.
We have noted the significance of his chosen venue out side Anambra State and have also thought of the possibility of Obi’s pronouncement to mean that he may be seeking the views of his audience to make the final decision to be communicated in Anambra State.
In the circumstance, our view is that Governor Peter Obi is too young to retire from politics and public service, unless of course he missed his way in the fist place, and that may explain many things that we observed have gone wrong in Anambra State under his watch. However, we leave it to Governor Obi to decide on furthering his ambition in the federal level, now an open secret to all in the political class, and which has started with his appointment in the National Economic Committee of the federal Government, with a second notch being the participation of governor Obi in every Federal Government decision outside Nigeria in a PDP government.
The other equally plausible interpretation is that having plunged the party by which he came to power-All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) into an egotistical and otherwise avoidable crisis, he needs an indirect route to official membership of the PDP, from where his next move would be made, particlualrly when he is already supporting Gov. Jonah Jang of Plateaus State, who lost an election in the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF). In that case we counsel that the shortest distance is a straight line and the proposed rigmarole will not be necessary because the average Onye Igbo is nobody’s fool.
If, however the announcement of ‘retirement’, supposedly effective after handing over to a new governor is intended to introduce another ‘last wish’ into the lexicon of Anambra 2014 electoral process, it challenges every living Onye Anambra to do a quick recourse to the last ‘last wish’, and brace up to steer away from the proverbial banana peel.
Ndi Anambra will recall that our revered and respected hero Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu had endorsed Mr Peter Obi in the 2010 governorship elections, raising his hand as ‘my last wish’.
We note that people in Anambra State responded to this request in varying degrees, leading to the loss of APGA in Nnewi North and Nnewi South Local Government Areas, and the inability of Obi to win the lections. But courtesy of the imperfections in our electoral management that peaked in 2010, and the considerations that informed the discontinuation of litigations on the subject, Obi is today a governor.
It is in this light that our rejection of Obi’s second request made in the same occasion would be TOTAL. Obi had stated his wish that the coming gubernatorial elections should throw up someone like him. Anambra State does not need someone like Obi again. The state deserves far better.
Anambra requires persons who have held lower public offices before becoming governor, not just surfacing from private business platform and that is why the state may not forgive Obi for denying the up-coming politicians the chance to get what he did not have-public service experience- at the local government level. Anambra State desires someone with mass appeal who can win elections and not just be returned from the top.
Anambra requires someone whose integrity position can be ascertained and not wolves in sheep clothing. Anambra State does not need someone who will announce retirement while pumping away her money in raw cash to individuals and agencies outside the state mandate to hold in stock to fund an ambition at the federal level and install a governor to watch his back.
Anambra does not need someone who will be failing in Housing and Education, utilities and infrastructures and invest in propaganda to make the reverse look plausible. Anambra State does not need a governor that would preside over the building of roads with two-year life span such as Awkuzu- Igbariam –Ifite Ogwari Road and pay for the reconstruction without holding anyone responsible for the wasteful disaster.
Anambra State does not need someone who will balkanise the state on primordial, religious and class lines and divide his party, introducing divisions in all spheres, as our future political class may be tempted to learn that approach to politics. Anambra needs someone who has enough experience and popular appeal to hit the ground running, because it is a time to rebuild.
Our position will be appreciated better as Obi’s skewed investments in media propaganda, by a government kicked of with N22.3 bn (12.8 bn in direct account and N9.5bn from refund on construction of federal roads) and earned about N2trillion afterwards begins to give way to reality.
We therefore urge Ndi Anambra to be patient and await the departure of Obi as governor, while voting out any person endorsed by the outgoing governor, because ,that person is coming to serve Obi’s interest and not that of Anambra State, which runs against the grain of our liberation as a state that has never looked back since July 2005. To the remaining contestants, the people should at he right time demand their manifestoes and programmes and subject them to rigorous scrutiny, rather than relying on the views of those who have just been given visible Greek Gifts.
In this spirit, we urge the Presidents General of all town Unions in Anambra State to recognise the democratic rights of their respective communities and manage the illegal and ill-advised instructions given by the Anambra State governor, through the Secretary to the State government, Mr Oseloka Obaze and the Special Adviser on Town Union and chieftaincy matters, Mr Godeffery Motolu for his PGs to deliver a lob-sided political message to their communities in favour of Obi’s fragmented party.
We warn that any breach of the peace arising from this attempt to impose partisan views on Anambra State communities in exchange for SUV vehicles for the PGs from Anambra State government, would be stoutly resisted in the right quarters, at the right time. Once again we wish Anambra State well and appreciate their resolve to correct all grave errors of yesteryears in the coming governorship elections.
We seize the chance to invite INEC to release the guidelines for this year gubernatorial elections in Anambra State so as to reign in the actions of political players of all shades and shapes under the umbrella of the law.
For: ALL PROGRESSIVE CONGRESS, APC (ACN+ANPP+CPC+OTHERS) Okelo Madukaife State Publicity Secretary, ACN
