It appears that Anambra has captured all the dubious records in recent Nigerian political history by occasioning the first female governor of the nation through fraudulent means and then having a governor (if we can call him one) who lasted only 17 days in office, the shortest in the nation’s history. Not even in military times did a state in the federation have such number of governors in such a period of time. It is disgraceful, inimical to any known concepts of developments and utterly indicative of the politics of greed, avarice and violence being played out in the land.

Here is a state that has produced the most versatile and productive intellectual class in the nation, the finest of them all in the academic and political ranks, a state that the likes of literary giant, Achebe, calls home, a state that produced gladiators like the Owelle of Onitsha, Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe, to mention, but a few, suffering supremely and unabatedly, I might add, in the wicked hands of charlatans, thugs, political rogues clad in suits and red hats, misfits and miscreants in the persons of Andy Uba and his disturbed or is it deranged brother, Chris Uba, both of whom must and should be collectively held responsible for the downward spiral of this great state. 

How then can anyone expect the state to forge ahead with six governors in eight years? Is this not a case of too many hands in the soup? And if so can we expect the soup to be sweet? The statisticians in our midst would agree that this averages out to be 1.3 governors per year. It is no wonder the state has not seen any sustainable developments in eight years of democracy as none of the governors (except Mbadinuju) had time to settle to the business of the state before the demons in the State House of Assembly, amply possessed by the greater demon in Abuja, rolled into the action of impeachment and mayhem. As a friend noted to me only this weekend, "Anambra has more governors in the last eight years than it has good roads." Indeed.

 For the avoidance doubt, let us examine those six governors who have made Government House in Awka, the state capital, the busiest in the last eight years, busiest than a prostitute’s den.   

                 List of Anambra Governors between 1999-2007  

For those who have been to Awka, they see the deprivation, poverty, the burden of the Nigerian nation so evident on the faces of the citizens struggling to survive in a nation fraught with such unwholesome characters. Unemployment and frustration reeking to the high heavens, crimes surging higher than an eagle can ever sour and yet, Andy Uba, the man of immense questionable character and credentials, a man who like his crony, Prof. Maurice Iwu, the unfortunate Chairman of INEC, accused of dubious academic claims, was elevated to the exalted throne of the governorship by his godfather in Abuja who had instigated the impeachment of Obi on a state visit to Anambra.

But as it so happened, Obasanjo did not have the last word, the Supreme Court did and by default, Peter Obi, himself. For many, the verdict of the Supreme Court on June 14, 2007 is one for truth, it is one for the suffering people of Anambra, and it is one that serves notice to the numskulls in the Anambra State House of Assembly that they must take the business of impeachment a lot more seriously. It is a victory of immense proportion to be remembered for generations to come. Andy Uba, who if all things being equal, would never have ascended to governorship in the midst of far more qualified candidates and persons, must wallow in the shame he had occasioned for himself with Iwu being his chief accomplice. 

It was noted previously that Iwu felt obliged to repay Uba for the favor of recommending him to the presidency for the job of INEC Chairman which came to him (Iwu) with much prospects for a huge financial windfall for his role in installing fraud and perpetrating wholesome rigging for his paymasters. To this end, Iwu, the supposed learned professor of Pharmacy, did not fail his bosses as he willfully circumvented all known electoral laws by declaring Uba winner of the sham that took place on April 14, 2007 ascribing to him a tally that far exceeded the number of registered voters in the state. 

But in his vicious rush to complete the paid job, Iwu had forgotten the exact number of registered voters in the state and betrayed his fraudulent intentions in the ensuring “selection” results he declared. In furtherance of the admonition sounded by Okey Ndibe, in his fine piece titled, “Truth and Sweet Truimph”, (nigeriavillagesquare.com) I must state that as Andy Uba plays host to the gods of shame in his palace of opprobrium today, we must equally shame those who have been conduits to this monumental fraud overturned by the Supreme Court decision.

I refer to those who remained complacent, muted as they were, as Uba pocketed the state as a master would a slave. The citizens who refused to take to the streets to protest this mockery of an election that occurred on April 14, but rather, remained satisfied by his paltry promises of salary increases for state workers. While Uba increased Anambra State workers’ salary from N7000 to N7500, we must wonder by how much his own bank account increased? We must wonder how much he siphoned to accounts unknown beyond the shores of Anambra and Nigeria in the 17 days he acted as governor.

 Here is man, as fraudulent as they come, the godfather of fraud, an impersonator of the highest rank, a smooth operator in the true criminal sense, a man who has ran afoul of US laws while in the United States, dodging IRS (Internal Revenue Service) and all manner of law enforcement agents, a man that charted $170,000 on the presidential plane to satisfy his whims of driving a sleek Mercedes Benz that cost $90,000, an amount he would never have earned even if he were a domestic adviser to the president for 50 years, claiming the high moral ground to govern the fine and intelligent people of Anambra with all his well noted intransigencies.

As all decent Nigerians celebrate this verdict in a land that has hardly given any reason for celebration, let Andy Uba and his co-travelers in the persons of Obasanjo and Iwu partake in his shame. They deserve it as much as he does. For Andy Uba, a man for whom Awka was not good enough as he governed the state from Abuja let him return to his fat mansion in Abuja and flounder in his sorrows and let shame, I mean, abundant shame, be his lot.

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Author can be reached at alalibo@gmail.com. Article first published on http://www.newnigerianpolitics.com