By Tai Emeka Obasi
Oseloka Henry Obaze, fondly called OHO is an immensely interesting individual. Somebody once described a diplomat as one who could dive into turbulent water without making a single splash. OHO is such a diplomat.
I don’t want to go into his trail of degrees and awards. I’m truly not interested in paper qualifications when examining one with ability to perform in public office. I know of professors capable of holding international audiences spell-bound with excellent paper deliveries but who would fail woefully when saddled with leading just their communities. I’ve most times wondered why such respected academics usually perform below par in public offices. My humble summation is that such revered class of people self-destruct with the assumption that they know it all.
However, in OHO you notice the first quality of any great leader – Humility. I’m yet to meet one at his level as humble. And he has this unbelievable memory of remembering one’s name after just one introduction.
Obaze is one person, who would not make a decision while conducting any meeting without listening to the views of everyone. He calls you, however junior to him, to listen to you carefully then respond or ginger you with so appropriate words. And I still don’t know how he manages to do it but he keeps track, communicates via sms and email so regularly, despite his workload and out-of-office engagements. Whenever he wouldn’t pick your call, he must return the call to apologise and explain why he couldn’t pick when you called earlier.
While working for the United Nations, he had been sent to over 100 member nations. And he is a perfectionist of some sort. He will continue working on it until it’s perfectly executed. Now, this is the most important aspect of one interested in public service. OHO exhumes reliability. His consistently being sent to those nations as a UN diplomat is a confirmation of one with the ability to proffer appropriate solutions. He has served Anambra State as the Secretary to the State Government for three years and significantly across two different governors. In his book, Here To Serve, he uncannily branded the term SSG to stand for Senior ScapeGoat. Interesting but then are equally his dedication and accomplishment in those three years. He so redefined the office to not only stand it out as the real administrative hub of the state’s governance but also infused transparent dedication and quality of delivery from the members of staff. So much was his impact that when he decided to resign from that position one year into the tenure of the incumbent governor, the members of staff he was leaving behind were unanimous in printing a farewell banner thus – We Lost A Saint!
But OHO is not all about administration. He’s much more of action. While in service to his state, he was directly in charge of managing very complex policy and practical issues. Top amongst the practical issues include the flood disaster of 2012, the illegal repatriation of Anambra indigenes from Lagos, the return and settling of Anambra IDPs from Central African Republic, the 2014 Ebola crisis, the spate of collapsed buildings in 2014 as well as handling the leadership crisis within the Anambra State Association in the United States. In all these, he exhibited a quality of leadership ability that won over keen observers.
Taking the flood disaster issue as a reference point, one could be convinced beyond doubt that Anambra State and indeed humanity are blessed to have a man of such dedication and diligence around. He brought his years of experience in handling such issues in the UN to bear immediately. That unprecedented flood of 2012 devastated properties and farmlands worth trillions of Naira in 24 states of the nation. With 57 communities in eight local government areas adversely affected, Anambra State was not just one of the worst hit, it actually was deemed as the most acutely affected. Two of these LGAs, Ogbaru and Anambra West were extensively submerged. Property and business losses in the state alone were estimated at nearly N23 billion.
But under Obaze in his dual capacity as the Chair, Anambra State Flood Disaster Relief Coordination Committee and Chair, Anambra State Flood Disaster Relief Trust Fund, Anambra State became the most proactive and transparent state of the 24 states in effectively managing and efficiently responding to the complex natural disaster. Managing 125,000 internally displaced people, (IDPs) was quite a task but he did it admirably. An estimated 15,000 houses and businesses were fully or partially submerged. In all, four people directly lost their lives via drowning, the lowest number of human fatalities from the 24 states.
While efficiently coordinating and involving both the State and Federal agencies responsible, the State Emergency Management Agency, SEMA, and Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, respectively, Anambra State, under his firm control, admirably dealt with the worst natural disaster the state had faced since Nigeria came to being.
Though the state government released N100 million immediately while the Federal government came later with N500 million, many well-meaning people donated cash and food items, clothing, etc to the cause. These generous individuals could have been compelled to assist based on humanitarian basis but law of nature would largely revolve their encouragement to do so around the professionalism and transparency shown by the people in charge.
Concerned Anambrarians took deep interest and time to study that disaster and concluded that in OHO was one individual completely capable of replacing the man he was then serving and assisting in managing the terrible disaster. But those people got the disappointment of their lives. They were never given the opportunity. The very terrible politics of vendetta denied the expecting population of Ndi Anambra the opportunity to cast their votes in favour of this amiable and workaholic diplomat. OHO’s party then, All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, disqualified him from participating in the primaries.
And many Anambrarians shed tears, tears that such individual of class was denied the opportunity to govern a state he loved so much as to resign from his plum job and very enviable position in the UN to come home to serve. And because of the zoning formula in Anambra they all believed the chance was lost forever.
But the poor masses counted without considering destiny. When OHO agreed to serve this present government of Gov. Willie Obiano, it was to show he accepted whatever God put in place in good faith. He decided to serve Anambra further from the number three role, despite the circumstances with which he was schemed out. His love for humanity was the deciding factor. He buried the desire to ever govern Anambra again and moved on.
OHO’s new party, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has already elected him as its candidate. And in doing so the party has thrown up the best candidate for the November 18 election by a mile. Already Ndi Anambra are rejoicing that they will make that choice on the D-Day.
Obasi writes from Ozubulu
The matter of 38 Army officers
The petitioners argued that even though it was claimed that these officers were “retired”, they were actually dismissed going by the proper construction of their circumstances. “I must point out that the very public nature of the declaration of compulsory retirement of the 38 officers has undermined the individual reputations of these senior army officers and frustrated their respective efforts as securing a livelihood for their families,” said Abdul Muhammed, who signed the petition.
The petitioners told President Buhari that 18 of the senior army officers that were dismissed did not at any time appear before any one of the two panels that were set up or any other inquiry or investigation for that matter.
According to the petition, “the 18 officers were never investigated for any infraction, they were never indicted, they were never tried and they were never convicted of any disciplinary or criminal breaches whatsoever.
“Additionally, many of these officers have no relationship whatsoever with election duties or procurement office as falsely alleged by army leadership. Most importantly, Your Excellency, none of the 38 senior officers that were compulsorily retired was at any time ever charged or tried by a court martial or found guilty of any offence in line with due process of the armed forces extant rules and regulations, before they respectively heard of their retirement in the media. Interestingly, none of these officers has been informed of the particulars of any alleged offence till date,” the petitioners explained.
The affected officers also recalled that some of them had written to the army authority to furnish them with facts that constitute any alleged offence, but the army failed to respond to this simple request one year after.
“After the very public dismissal of the 38 senior army officers, the Minister of Defence and the Chief of Army Staff went to the media with the narrative that the 38 army officers were professionally corrupt and that these officers were punished after due process.
These are untrue statements because the dismissed officers were never indicted or found culpable at all as there was a complete failure to follow the due processes laid down by the Nigeria army with respect to these wrongful and illegal dismissals.
They told President Muhammadu Buhari thus: “Your Excellency, in fact records of the Army will confirm that at the relevant periods some of these 38 retired officers were actually in the frontline of North Eastern operations waging war against terror which earned them official commendations and accolades for their exploits, as against the narrative of participating in election duties.”
“Several others in the list of petitioners were on Army posting outside the shores of Nigeria or civil studies during the period of the General elections and during the entire periods that the relevant panels were sitting in Kaduna and at Abuja,” the petitioners explained.
They accused Ali, Olonisakin and Buratai of gross act of abuse of office without any due process by punishing innocent officers and deliberately misleading the President.
The petitioners appealed to President Buhari to order an urgent investigation and reinstatement of the innocent officers, alleging that the names of innocent officers were substituted in place of the guilty ones in a case of gross corruption and abuse of office.
The petitioners also disclosed that after one-year of persistent abuse and denial of justice to the 38 retired officers, one of them, Lt Col Baba-Ochankpa died of a heart attack while the military leadership deliberately refused to forward his appeal and that of others to the president for his matured consideration as stipulated by the Harmonised Terms and Condition of Service (Officers) 2012 which was the quoted basis for their retirement.
“Your Excellency, the 38 Senior Army Officers are crying for justice as promised to Nigerians by your administration. The widow of Lt. Col Baba-Ochankpa (Mrs. Ruth Baba-Ochanpka) deserves justice. The children of the late Lt Col Baba-Ochanpka, Master Joshua Baba – Ochankpa, Miss Esther Baba-Ochankpa and Miss Abigail Baba-Ochankpa deserve our justice. These beautiful children deserve to have removed the stain that the present Army leadership has put on the memory of their father the late Lt Col Baba-Ochanpka,” the petitioners added.
In the light of these serious allegations against key military and Defence officials, it is only just, fair and good in morality and the law that President Muhammadu Buhari considers their plea for thorough investigation so as not to damage the professionalism of the Nigeria Army.
Besides, Section 15(5) of the Constitution of Nigeria stated in black and white that the Nigerian State should eradicate all corrupt practices and abuse of office. The Nigerian President as the father of the nation for now must provide remedial redress to these 38 Army officers.
Concluded
Onwubiko is head of the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) and writes from Abuja