“In Stalin’s politics, other people were either to be seduced and mastered or excluded and eliminated” - Richard Overy

Richard Overy may as well be thinking of President Obasanjo when he made that remark. In order to understand the Peter Obi victory, I am going to further explore some of the points I raised in a previous submission.

I had stated that from the sublime to the utterly ridiculous, anything is possible in Nigeria. And that the invalidation of Dr Ngige’s electoral victory is yet another slap on the face of those who love their people. I went further to state that before we jump up and down for and against this (in) justice, let us ponder on a few things. Because these things are germane to the root cause of whether Dr Ngige actually won the election or Peter Obi did.

Before I begin this little mental exercise I will seek the indulgence of the reader to use just simple logic in his/her analysis. At the end, the identity of who really won the election will be fuzzy simply because there was no election but vote allocation.

Okay, now lets move on to this simple mental exercise. In Anambra state there was supposedly a local government election, the state house of assembly election, the House of Representatives election, the senate and then both the gubernatorial and the presidential elections, all these elections were single handedly won by the PDP except for a few crumbs thrown at the AD and APGA. So what is the probability that if actually an election was held and the same party won almost all available seats, the most coveted seat of the governor is the only one they rigged and eventually lost?

How possible is it that President Obasanjo will win in Anambra and Ngige will lose? And how possible is it in today’s Nigeria for a lone candidate whose party made a supposedly poor showing at the polls in Anambra to turn around and be the winner of the gubernatorial election?

At the core of Ngigegate (as I hope we shall henceforth call it) is the fight for power between a vicious cabal led by a recalcitrant President driven by vindictiveness and petty ambition. The President said the truth albeit unknowingly when he said the issue between Chris Uba and Dr Ngige is like the one between two thieves, who after looting a store, are fighting over their loot. What the President didn’t say was the fact that in this twosome thieving party, he is the third unseen hand. The reality of the matter is that, in Anambra, as in many other states across the nation, there was no election. In its stead, there were bulk vote allocation and pre written names of supposed winners. Clearly, Dr Ngige was a beneficiary but so also is our “moralistic” President.

In his inner conscience, I doubt whether Peter Obi actually believed that he won that election. Unless, after much repetition, he also has started believing the lie. That the mainstream Nigerian press were in a sort of a jubilative mood was disappointing, whatever happened to investigative journalism? The court of appeal that upheld the tribunal’s verdict, how sound is their judgement? What was the basis of the judgement? What are the evidence or source to buttress the infallibility of the judgement? If the source is INEC, why is it accepted in court after supposedly declaring the wrong person as the winner? If the evidence is from other than INEC, how reliable are they and what is their interest in the matter? I believe strongly that since the whole election was tainted by fraud, the best thing would have been a judgement annulling the whole exercise and a court-mandated election ordered. What about a situation whereby the eminent jurists were intimidated or compromised? And why is the INEC not sanctioned?

On the other hand, if Obasanjo is so “moralistic”, why just listen to Chris Uba’s confession, why not hand him over to the police, why is he walking free when he has committed a felony? And since the President won’t hand him over, why is the police and EFCC/SSS/ICPC et al not questioning this rogue? But the age old truism that he who comes to equity must come with clean hands is the reason President Obasanjo would not have Uba arrested and even after the invalidation of Ngige’s election he can still walk free. The only point the President seeks to prove in this, just like in the Alami and Ladoja case, is not about the morality or otherwise of the issue, its about his gotcha attitude. One way or the other these individuals have crossed him and they must be sacrificed. I am not in anyway excusing the disgraceful behavior of ex governor Alami nor did I think that Ladoja was a competent governor but the issues at stake are more than these individuals. Some of us have seen through the hypocrisy of a President pontificating about values and morals of which he has none. Why would 18 pro Adedibu lawmakers suspend 14 of their colleagues and yet they are considered the new majority with powers to make an impeachment? Why would the state not follow the ruling of the courageous lady jurist in Ibadan who declared without fear of intimidation that the state must maintain the status quo? Why was the Bayelsa lawmakers cajoled by the state? Why did the Obasanjo led federal government invade Bayelsa with troops even though the governor did not ask for any? On these and many issues, Obasanjo is not propelled by right or wrong but rather as the late Uganda maximum dictator Idi Amin said quite succinctly “ A man is either my friend or my enemy, if he is my enemy he must die”.

Obasanjo is not worried about the consequences of his actions on the Nigerian state, to Obasanjo, just like dictators before him, he is the state personified. How do you comprehend that under this presidency opposition figures cannot even hold a symposium, a rally or associate in whatever form they desire as long as they do not threaten the freedoms of others? Why is President Obasanjo afraid of opposition? How could a man be so fortunate but yet squandered all his goodwill on vendetta and a lack of a big heart? Little wonder, these days, this particular Obasanjo democracy is not any different from Babangida and Abacha’s military regimes if not worse.

There is something common to most dictators, which is their lack of understanding of what I will appropriately call divine rights. The right to write what I want, the right to think what I want, the right to say what I want and present it the way I want and the right to associate with whoever I want, is not given to me by President Obasanjo but rather I was endowed by my creator with these rights just like the rest of my fellow Nigerians. That Obasanjo sought to curtail these rights shows how out of step he is and how fast this republic is teetering on the verge of despotism. When you have peaceful, law abiding Nigerians arrested for the simple fact that they have something to say contrary to what Obasanjo thinks, you begin to wonder, is this the same democracy that the Wole Soyinkas, the Enahoros fought for?

And since they have termed the judgement that swept away Dr Ngige as an episode of the ides of March, I pray the same ides of March in 2007 foretell the exit of President Obasanjo from power.

Postscript

To kabikala, The term Jim Crow originated in a song performed by Daddy Rice, a white minstrel show entertainer in the 1830s. Rice covered his face with charcoal paste or burnt cork to resemble a black man, and then sang and danced a routine in caricature of a silly black person. By the 1850s, this Jim Crow character, one of several stereotypical images of black inferiority in the nation's popular culture, was a standard act in the minstrel shows of the day. How it became a term synonymous with the brutal segregation and disenfranchisement of African Americans in the late nineteenth-century is unclear. What is clear, however, is that by 1900, the term was generally identified with those racist laws and actions that deprived African Americans of their civil rights by defining blacks as inferior to whites, as members of a caste of subordinate people- Ronald Davis

While the comparison to Ngigegate may seem a little farfetched, it is not entirely dissimilar, Jim Crow as an idea personified by people and their ignorant laws is as repugnant as Obasanjo’s understanding of democracy, while real heroes will be praised in the not too distant future, dictators like Obasanjo will take their place in the footnotes of history.

Abdulmumin Yinka Ajia can be reached at abdu_mumi@yahoo.co.uk

Robot  Villager

# 1 “In Stalin’s politics, other people were either to be seduced and mastered or excluded and eliminated� - Robert OveryRobert Overy may as well be thinking of President Obasanjo when he made that remark. In order to understand the Peter Obi victory, I am going to further explore some of the points I raised in a previous submission.I had stated that from the sublime to the utterly ridiculous, anything is possible in Nigeria. And that the invalidation of Dr Ngige’s electoral victory is yet another slap o...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 19.03.2006 06:11