Did Ngige Become Governor As ‘Nobody’? – By Obi Ogadi

Recently in a media interview, Mike Okoye, erstwhile Deputy Governorship candidate for Hope Democratic Party (HDP) who played an unenviable role in the post 2010 governorship election electoral litigations being the first deputy governorship candidate to go to court without his principal, said while answering questions from journalists that Dr Chris Ngige, former governor of Anambra State and now Senator representing Anambra Central came to power as Governor of Anambra State in 2003 as a nobody.
The first impulse was to ignore Okoye, but this did not count against the resolve to put issues in perspective, because many people vote in Anambra State for lack of knowledge.
Okoye did not see that the answer to the tricky question by the interviewer on how he plans to beat Chris Ngige lay more in what has prepared him for the office of the governor and not whether Ngige came to power as a ‘nobody’.
Okoye’sargument is that ‘Ngige came to power in 2003 as a nobody and excelled, so he (Okoye),’the new wine in new skin’, should also be given power as a nobody, so that he can ‘excel’ like Ngige did. Nice! But, but how can you convince Ndi Anambra to lay their political experience aside and re-invent the will, doing what was done four years into the latest democratic dispensation on the 15th year? Not likely!
But is it really true that Ngige came to power as a nobody? Let us return to that viewpoint, after previewing the presumptions contained in Mike Okoye’s answer to the simple question on how he plans to beat Ngige.
First Okoye is already assuming that he is the candidate of the PDP. This assumption brings the greatest goose pimple to followers of Anambra politics particularly from the PDP angle. Like Obiogbolu who would not address the issue of the PDP factions, Okoye by not seeing a united party as a major prelude to the reality of his candidature is already envisaging a situation where each of the five factions of PDP would produce one candidate and submit the name to INEC. Lobbying and power-play by Abuja will produce one assumed super candidate who will be recognised by INEC.He hopes the in the lobby and power play with his sponsor outside Anambra State. Danger! A non-Anambra agenda is already brewing.
Then litigation begins and continues till years after election to determine retroactively-most likely at the Supreme Court -who the governorship candidate of the PDP was supposed to be in an election already held.
In the process the ordinary voter in Anambra State loses the chance to assess the candidature of the person they wish to vote for to the judiciary. They loose the chance to listen to him and raise question in election debates. They lose the chance to asses his temperament and take pieces of information on his background and compare notes on integrity. They lose the chance to assess his programme against the resources of their state and above all each of the five aspirants who stand elections as ‘anticipated candidate’ canvass for and gets home votes from five locations to place other law-abiding parties at electoral disadvantage.
This challenges the Anambra State electorate to begin to insist on their right to choice, by having only one candidate presented to them on one platform. To this end, if a party fails to resolve its issues and present only one candidate, and neither INEC ,nor the courts are able to prune the list to just one BEFORE the elections, the voters should reject all the candidates from that party. The devil you see and feel during campaign is better that the angel to be introduced by the courts after the fact of voting.
The second assumption by Okoye is that doing his work as human rights lawyer earning income for the upkeep of his family earns him the pedigree to lead Anambra State in the midst of many qualified by experience in public service, simply because he thinks his views agree with the personal opinion of an incumbent governor who represents PDP in another party. That Okoye did not dwell and deepen understanding with any materials that may be at his disposal is a sustainable minus.
The third and most dangerous assumption in Okoye’s surmise is that by coming from Anambra North Senatorial Zone of the State, he has a bloc vote. This kind of assumption led some governors and their external supporters in the recently concluded Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF), and they emerged badly bruised and historically stained. Where in the history of Anambra State has Mike Okoye ever seen a bloc vote? No matter who offers him assurances to the contrary, or subjects him to surface-scary oaths, even the votes in his campaign organisation will be split. Besides, is the Anambra North Okoye refers to different from that of Alex Obiogbolu, Emma Anosike, Chinedu Emeka, Chinedu Idigo, Chike Obidigbo and Stella Oduah? Or is it different from that of super candidate, leading 13 others by the nose in Obi’s faction of APGA?
Having addressed these three presumptions thrown up by his uncalculated answer to a tricky question, let us quickly return to ask if Chris Ngige was actually a nobody when he assumed power in 2003 as governor? Historical facts on my radar do not suggest so. Dr Ngige was at some point in his public service the physician of the National Assembly, then in Lagos, which was a breeding ground for all national politics. He developed his first contact in national politics even as his stethoscope made contacts with the body of legislators.
While yet in Lagos Dr. Ngige was elected the President of Aka Ikenga an Igbo Intelligentsia group formed in the city which soon impacted most Ndi Igbo In the globe. It was under him that the group influenced the composition, voting in and the agenda of the South East platform to the 1994-5 constitutional Conference co-chaired by Dr Alex Ekwueme and Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu. They it was that canvassed through Ekwueme the principle of the six-zonal structure of today’s Nigeria. It was on this seat that Ngige earned the sobriquet ‘Igbo leader’, having established his clear visions and steered them to safe landing in a clear constituency.
He did not stop there. He soon became the President of Alor Development Union, through which he woke up a sleepy little town in the doldrums into a tiny unit of development, which fuelled the model later adopted in larger Anambra State between 2003 and 2006. Even as a public servant he had cut his teeth in his quiet influence on many far-reaching policies affecting South Eastern Nigeria. By the time PDP was formed, Ngige a foundation member became the Asst National Secretary and showcased his workaholic tendencies in driving the initial fortunes of the party.
It was therefore only too easy for the then PDP to call out a man who had cut his teeth and demonstrated what he could do with bigger power and responsibility when the party ran into deep trouble with Mbadinuju’s government. Can any organisation –never mind a political party-risk a nobody, who had been endorsed for the Senate to help it through a rescue mission and go ahead to insist on him, if his abilities were not known?
It is therefore absolutely incorrect to sum up that Dr. Ngige was a nobody when he came to power as Governor of Anambra State. If that is Mike Okoye’s driving force, he should gracefully settle down to building his pedigree, before he can stand up to be counted. It does not matter who is providing sponsorship funds and from what part of Bayelsa State he gets his backing in this unfolding masculine race.
But even if such was to case, as it is not, Anambra State voters would still find more wisdom in choosing the best out of what they have, than in travelling back to yesteryears.