Something is fundamentally wrong in the camp of my immediate past governor, Chief Peter Gregory Obi, CON. In response to my article on the back page of The Sun of September 1, 2017 objecting to the determination of the ex-governor to serve a third term by using his secretary to the state government, Oseloka Obaze, as a decoy candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the forthcoming gubernatorial election on November 18, both Obi and his media assistant, Val Obienye, wrote on the back page of the same paper on September 7 that I do not exist and that my name was manufactured by agents of Governor Willie Obiano. Yet, my picture was printed boldly in the publication.
How my erstwhile governor and his team could boldly make this assertion without any sense of embarrassment is revealing. They are grappling with what psychologists call projection, that is, they ascribe to other persons what they do secretly on the assumption that others do it. According to Chief Uche Ezechukwu, a veteran journalist and author, Val Obienye had over 10 email addresses with all manner of aliases, which he manufactured when he was Obi’s media aide and used them to abuse his principal’s numerous critics. For Obi and Obienye to claim that I don’t exist just because they want to embarrass Gov Obiano is worrisome. I was until last year a manager with Keystone Bank, having headed First City Monument Bank in Ihiala, Anambra State; my private firm is involved with SABMiller, in which the ex-governor has enormous interest.
I can now understand the mindset of someone who announced repeatedly that he would quit politics after eight years as governor, only to seek to become President Goodluck Jonathan’s Minister of Aviation, but lost to the much younger Chief Osita Chidoka. I can understand the mindset of someone who instead of being in retirement in Onitsha, as he pledged and received a great applause, is fighting dedicatedly to enthrone a wimp as my governor. I now understand the mindset of someone who left only N13bn in the treasury for an incoming governor, but announced a stunning N75bn just to earn public plaudits and besmirch the character of the very person he chose as successor.
I now understand the mindset of someone who did not employ even one teacher or civil servant for the eight years he was governor, but employed a whole 6,000 on the eve of his departure, in the expectation that his successor would not be able to pay them, thereby earning him public ignominy. Ndi Anambra are delighted that not only did Obiano retain all new employees, they are among the thousands of workers whose salaries were increased across the board by 15% by Obiano two years ago and they earn their pay before other government employees throughout Nigeria.
I also understand the mindset of an ex-governor whose state teaching hospital could not earn the accreditation of the Nigerian Dental and Medical Council for nine years but is today not only accredited but also training medical consultants in various fields, thanks to Obiano who provided funds for the hospital to hire well qualified people and procure the right facilities. I understand the mindset of an ex-governor who did not pay retired workers of the state’s print and electronic media their gratuities and pensions for eight years, but all those who retired since the state was created in August 1991 have now received their entitlements, thanks to Obiano.
It is instructive that Gov Obi is complaining that he has not received his pension since he left office. While Ndi Anambra may not know the whole truth about this claim, it is pertinent to ask the ex-governor: did you pay your predecessor, Dr Chris Ngige, even a kobo of his entitlements for the eight years you were in office? Did you pay Ngige’s predecessor, Dr Chinwoke Mbadinuju? Let us turn to a more pathetic case. Did Peter Obi pay the salary of any employee of the state water corporation for even a month throughout the eight years he was in office? Was it not Gov Obiano who cleared the N1.9bn the water corporation’s staff members were owed in salaries? Has Gov Aregbesola of Osun State owed his workers this long, yet everyone is calling for his head?
Here is a bit about my brother-in-law, Mr Pius Nwabugwu, a top employee of the water corporation. A 1972 Geology graduate of the University of Ibadan, Mr Nwabugwu joined the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the same day as his classmate, Mr Jackson Gaius-Obaseki, who was to become the NNPC Group Managing Director under President Olusegun Obasanjo. But he left early to return to Igboland to join in its rehabilitation after the civil war, and so joined the water corporation. In recognition of his brilliance and dedication to duty, Chukwuma Okoye, the literary scholar who was Jim Nwobodo’s Commissioner for Public Utilities in old Anambra State, sent Mr Nwabugwu to the United Kingdom to do a Master’s programme in Geology. To cut a long story short, Mr Nwabugwu died in 2010 when Peter Obi was Anambra State governor without receiving gratuity or pension or salary for years. He and his family suffered and suffered and suffered until Obiano became governor and cleared years of unpaid salaries and pension.
Obi will make a rewarding study to psychologists. Even when he is caught with his hand in the cookie jar, he will deny it so strongly and swear in the name of God that he never did it. This was precisely what he did when he claimed publicly that he had paid for the 130 roads he flagged off as he was about to leave office in 2014. Peter Obi was claiming, in effect, that he had paid fully for roads, which were at between 1% and 10% completion stages! When his attention was drawn to the bizarre nature of the claim, he edited himself to say that he meant that he provided enough funds for the payment. And when he was confronted with the cold fact that he did not leave N75bn in banks for his successor, he said that he meant “cash and investments”! The investments include the N100m, which Dr Ngige made in Orient Petroleum set up by Dr Mbadinuju. They include Anambra State government’s shares in Nigercem at Nkalagu, which it inherited from the defunct Eastern Nigerian Region, though the firm has not operated for decades!
Who has forgotten how Peter Obi proudly told the audience in Lagos last May at a lecture how he had been wearing just one watch for 13 years, only to be shown pictures of him wearing various watches at public functions in recent months? Who has forgotten how Obi publicly swore that he would never abandon the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), only to jump ship unexpectedly and joined the then ruling PDP which provoked millions of Ndi Anambra into dumping Obi’s Hero beer in favour of Life by the Nigerian Breweries, thus affecting my personal business?
Obi says that by singlehandedly picking Oseloka Obaze to become a governor he is not looking for a weakling. But he cannot allow Obaze to choose his own running mate. He chose his loyal Chief of Staff and Commissioner for Economic Planning, Stella Okuna, but the academic refused for fear of losing both her current job and the election. Obi, according to media reports, has been tapping on Dr Alex Ekwueme’s first daughter, Mrs Chidi Onyemelukwe. Ironically, there is nothing derogatory that the Peter Obi Campaign Organisation did not write against the venerable former vice president in 2010 when the elder statesman endorsed ex-Central Bank governor Chukwuma Soludo who was the PDP governorship candidate.
My former governor must know that principle pays. He must know that hypocrisy and deception are terrible vices.
► Nzeribe, a former bank manager, lives in Onitsha.