By Nwachukwu Raymond
Is the build up to the primaries of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the November 2017 governorship election in Anambra State really splendid or absurd? If the game of politics is generally splendid, the motive is absurd, at least in Nigeria. Two basic ingredients lacking in the Nigerian political climate are the magnanimity on the part of winners to share their victory and the equanimity on the part of losers to accept defeat. The driving force in all this is free oil money and its concomitant corruption which has eaten deep into the fabric of the Nigerian society. Official corruption in Nigeria has made politics so attractive to evil men and women that they can easily bet their mother’s head to run for elective offices.
It is the only reason why politicians want to win at all costs and by all means. Aside from the morbid drive to carry profane party flags, most politicians in Nigeria now hug different contours of unbridled ambition; and so they go into politics as a “do-or-die affair.” True, the political business corners a huge chunk of the ego market due largely to the enormous return on investment as the one most profitable business venture in the country. Indeed, politics is tougher than most professions to actually sort through the excess refuge since all types of characters go into it with reckless abandon, hence no decorum in their approach to the game.
In virtually all the states in the country, parallel political structures exist alongside the official party structures, all in the name of capturing political power. And, one of the states in which the battle for supremacy is more ardent is Anambra. As always, the bone of contention is who will call the shots at the palatial Governor’s Office, Awka, after the November 2017 governorship election. Given the desperation among politicians to capture power as executive governor of the gateway state to Eastern Nigeria, the issue is one for serious political evaluation and honest intellectual articulation. In it, sense and spirit must not be sacrificed merely to pedantic refinements. For a state known for its high sense of political desperation, the schemings before parties primaries have been stringent.
The war, verging on conspiracy, rebellion, and betrayal, is indeed taking a toll on the soul of the state as the various interest groups that started beating the war drums soon after the sitting governor, Willie Obiano won the election in 2013, still waft their odium. Within the APC family in the state, which is trying to leverage on its control of the government at the centre to capture power in the state, the infighting is getting dirty. The result is the mindless polarization of the state along several contending divides.
Two of the aspirants struggling to grab the APC ticket, who are poised to taste the juicy spoils of power, have vowed to use whatever means at their disposal to thwart the chances of one of the aspirants, Dr. Andy Uba, from gaining the ticket. This aspirant is said to be coasting to victory at the soon to be held primaries because he has the backing of grassroots supporters and party members in the state.
In a democratic environment such as ours, these people have the right to either exercise their franchise to vote and be voted for or their fundamental human right to express alternative political opinions. Similarly, he has a legitimate right to aspire to occupy the office of governor of the state, a feat he already achieved in 2007.
What is reprehensible, if not outright nauseating, is the way and manner they are going about the campaign and the process of convincing Ndi-Anambra to support their ambitions. The ubiquitous jockeying for power has assumed an incestuous frenzy in these two characters that they have resorted to blackmailing the aspirant just to run him down. For now, the battle-line has been drawn between those who want to take the state back to the dark era of Godfatherism and those who are determined to extricate it from wayward impotence to a rapidly developing state to be numbered amongst the first five best states in Nigeria. The candidate in question represents the latter group whereas his traducers are dreaming of the past.
Banking on an old, over-flogged story of an alleged certificate forgery, a fantasy fabricated by them, which is so furious and fallacious, and which, above all, the man has been given a clean bill of health by a court of competent jurisdiction, they are still bent on bringing him down. Yet, until recently, Ndi-Anambra had not embarked on the search for new political icons.
Given the absence of dynamic political, economic and social institutions in the state, instead of politicians to dwell on issues as the driving force of their campaign mantra, some of them are still swimming in the arcane politics of a departed era. Why not find out those attributes of this candidate that are endearing him to the party leadership and the generality of the party faithful instead of chasing shadows?
As we write, Anambra state is faced with one of the worst ecological challenges since its creation. Wicked gully erosion has wrought devastating havoc on most parts of the state. Whole communities and some major roads have already been buried by the holocaust of the natural disaster. Besides the network of motorable roads built by past and present administrations, all federal roads in the state including the major Enugu/Onitsha Expressway, are in critical state of decay. Agriculture, which supports trade as the mainstay of the state’s economic drive, is stunted for lack of mechanized impetus. Even the industrial revolution that has begun in earnest in the state needs to be driven and sustained through a concerted effort as a policy thrust of government.
Because majority of the youths are idle, they are easily swayed by empty slogans and co-opted into mundane restive jamborees by separatist movements. There should be a deliberate policy geared as it were towards employment generation to accommodate our teeming graduates and empowerment of those who want to go into business. These are some of the issues that should engage the attention of those who want to govern the state. Politicians should test their popularity through the articulation of ideas and solution-delivery templates. The voters in Anambra state are educated enough to be provided with educated alternatives in order for them to make informed choices. Not a recourse to frivolities, especially when those inanities are concocted to discredit opponents who have no time to swing anybody.
Invoking issues that have been treated time and time again even to the extent of being settled in a law court just to discredit your fellow aspirants amounts to flogging a dead house. It doesn’t remove any feather from Uba’s growing popularity. So, those aspiring to govern a complex state like Anambra should address issues, not primordial sentiments.
Nwachukwu writes from Lagos.