My good friend, Barrister Olisa Metuh, who is also the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, has never failed to tell anyone, who cares to listen, that Anambra is a PDP state. Of course, I had always taken that claim with a pinch of salt. I felt Metuh, a key national officer of the ruling party at the centre, had to have an explanation to give as to why he and his fellow PDP big wigs from Anambra could not deliver their state to the party, letting it fall into the hands of APGA. So, I have never really believed him.
But then, should anybody really blame me for not believing Metuh? His PDP has such a repugnant smell when it comes to election matters. It has made a name in infamy and election rigging – so much so that some of us are convinced that even if PDP were to be running against itself in an election (unopposed), it would still rig. Just to make sure!
So, when the PDP people reminded me of how they won fair and clean with Mbadinuju in 1999, how Ojukwu’s name was invoked to smuggle in APGA and how the APGA government contrived to rig everyone else out at the 2010 guber election, I always dismissed it as baseless political talk.
However, with the PDP showing at last weekend’s governorship election in that state, I can now confirm that Metuh was right all along. That is the only explanation that can justify why a governorship candidate, who did not have as much as a full week of campaigning could put up the kind of showing that Comrade Tony Nwoye made at last weekend’s election.
For one, given the sterling performance of Governor Peter Obi, which even his most ardent critics acknowledge, given the huge cheques, which the governor doled out to different communities and groups in the run up to the election (forget that he kept telling us the monies had nothing to do with wetting the ground for the APGA candidate ahead of the election), it was almost unthinkable that Obi’s candidate would not record a landslide victory on November 16. For one, the only stumbling block everyone saw on the way was APC’s Chris Ngige. Most analyses put the election down to a two-horse race between Obi’s Obiano and APC’s Ngige, with either of LP and PDP candidates coming third and the other fourth. Not too many people gave Nwoye any chance. They forgot that there is something very PDP about the Anambra way. Many did not reckon that in Anambra, it is not only performance alone that counts. Money (money sharing, to be precise) counts as well. And I am not talking about a few billions doled out at the eleventh hour! In Anambra, the sharing has to begin early – and, in fact, become part and parcel of governance. That was where Peter Obi ‘failed’. And it nearly cost him (and APGA) dearly. In fact, before now, it had cost him all three senatorial seats in the state. But it appears Obi wizened up in this swansong election. But that is topic for another day. Suffice it to say, however, that last Saturday, the Anambra people again reminded Obi that he ‘failed’, as they went back to their old love; the PDP. And, consequently, Nwoye.
How do I mean? First of all, I did not think Nwoye had the colour and swagger of an Ngige, for instance, nor the confidence and flambouyance of an Ifeanyi Ubah. Of course, I am not saying the APGA candidate that won was anybody’s idea of that colourful politician. It is just that Willie Obiano (and his running mate) had a profile that should interest any non-partisan lover of Anambra. But, even within the PDP, I did not think Nwoye was the best the party could have come up with, in a crowd that had the likes of Andy Uba, Nicholas Ukachukwu, etc.
But that is the PDP way. Having long taken a naked oath before the god of self-destruct, the PDP has a penchant for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Even when it is clear that any monkey standing under the red, white and green umbrella would be genuinely elected by the people, the party still manages to contrive enough internal wrangling to deny itself of victory. Even when, in spite of itself, the voters insist on electing PDP, it could still turn out that somebody whom the voters did not see on the ballot would spring from nowhere to eventually claim the mandate in court. So, it is as well good that Nwoye did not win. Because if he did, there can be no guarantee that he would rule. For one person would spring up soon after and get the courts to confirm that he (and not Nwoye) was the authentic candidate of the party. That is PDP for you. Or did the party not hold three or so different primaries?
Back to the election proper, unlike the election monitors, I do not think last Saturday’s election was totally free and fair. But, unlike some of the losing candidates would have us believe, I do not think the ‘unfairness’ had anything to do with any premeditated plan of APGA or PDP to rig. It was just the gross incompetence on the part of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). However, I do not believe as well that the lapses were INEC’s own veiled way of assisting APGA to win. The commission was simply confused. Overwhelmed!
And to make matters worse, it had led President Goodluck Jonathan to believe that it was ready – leading the president to boast that the Anambra guber would be freer and fairer than those of Edo and Ondo before it. From the reports emanating from that election, however, it appears Ondo and Edo exercises were far better organised.
But, for me, by far, the biggest shock of the election was in the alleged number of accredited voters; 451,826. In a state with 1,763,751 registered voters? In a state where even several indigenes resident outside the state travelled home to go and vote? In a governorship election that was so publicised that virtually everyone wanted to be a part of? Haba, INEC! What kind of cleaning (or was it cleansing) went on that saw the names of hundreds of card-wielding potential voters vanish from the voters register? Was there no display of the register before Saturday’s election?
But then, something at the back of my mind tells me the election has been won and lost, irrespective of how many wards in which fresh elections would hold and when. I don’t see the pattern changing much. I guess the three other leading candidates are also smart enough to know this – which explains why they are calling for outright cancellation of the entire election.
But in all of these, I always spare a moment to ponder over what would have been if Jonathan and PDP had been desperate to capture Anambra and decided to do a little of what we know them for. Indeed, if there was any party that would genuinely sack APGA in Anambra, it was PDP.
But then, APGA just cannot celebrate yet, for the election will remain ‘inconclusive’ for a long time to come – even after INEC might have concluded the process. There is enough on the ground already to guarantee us a long-drawn legal battle, at least.
Even before the first vote was cast, those who suspected that they could be heading for defeat had begun to make all manner of wild allegations, preparing the ground for what to say when they are eventually defeated. Now is the time to activate their Plan B.
After-thought
Is anybody following the story about the ongoing detention of some senior bank officers, from 13 banks, by the Department of State Security (DSS)?
While the bank chiefs are said to be fuming over the continued detention without trial – and even contemplating a symbolic strike, the DSS people are sticking to their guns (literally and literarily), hoping and praying that the bank chiefs would make true their threat
To confirm that somebody somewhere is actually spoiling for a fight, the security operatives do not appear to be in too much of a hurry to arraign the detainees. It appears they want to be provoked even further, having already been adequately angered by what they allegedly saw in their probe of the banks. All the banks, they say, are stinking – with fraud, that is. I am told that while the politicians have mere skeletons in their cupboards, the bankers have real dead bodies. That a minister’s alleged N255 million bulletproof cars and a governor’s N20 billion loot are kindergarten stuff compared to what goes on in the banks. Hmmm! That the psychedelic stealing going on behind all those private-sector accountability façade is actually more than Jonathan and all his aides can ever hope to loot in eight years. That if there is corruption that is threatening the corporate existence of Nigeria, it is not likely to be found in the government houses and the National Assembly or state assemblies. The only difference is that these ones ‘chop’ their own in the open and are seen to be ‘chopping’ by everyone. I almost fainted when I got hint of what was traced to one banker, so much so that I wish I didn’t have to hear it again. My poor heart can’t handle it. And I don’t think that your hearts can handle it, dear readers. So, it’s better you don’t know at all.
So, I just want all the parties to, for the sake of our fragile economy, our recuperating banking sector (and our already overstressed hearts, which has had to process and comprehend too much fraud already), tread softly, softly. Spare us the messy details. For what the eye does not see, the mind does not grieve about. Or as the old poet put it, “he who is robbed and knows not that he is robbed, then he is not robbed.
But come to think of it, what have we made of all the other revelations? Are the culprits not all bestriding the polity free, and laughing at us all?
The post No doubt, Anambra is a PDP state appeared first on The Sun News.
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