Date Published: 09/28/11
Ndibe, Leave Andy Uba alone by Uche Ezechukwu
I see eye to eye with Okey on many contemporary issues, including our shared belief that the steady but unfortunate corrosion and denudation of Nigeria’s institutional and personal values are lamentable and unfortunate. However, I have refused to see eye to eye with Okey, since in 2007, when he made personal attacks on Andy a regular sport and a commitment. Against good and consistent advice, my friend’s has pursued his unending castigation of a man who has committed no wrong against him, in a very personal and malicious manner.
I was surprised that my friend did not appreciate such a basic fact in public communications that if you continually attack a person who says nothing to you in self defence or reply, whatever your motive was loses its potency and instead, you attract sympathy for your victim. I had reasons to complain personally to my friend at that time that he was injuring an innocent man out of mostly hearsay and accusations of envious political opponents.
Even after those elections, Okey did not stop disparaging Andy, but rather tended to create the impression that the former senior aide to President Obasanjo had become so omnipotent as to have been responsible for every ill besetting the nation. At a time, I am aware that some concerned people made overtures to him to find out what the problem was because what he was doing was definitely abnormal and hovered over and above the altruistic demands of our profession. Okey rebuffed those attempts and kept on hacking at the reputation and personality of the man who was doing his best to serve his people and carve out a political niche for himself in the murky waters of Nigerian politics. It was obvious that Andy, like every other Nigerian, including Okey and me, are not angels; but then, who said that politics is for angels. But Andy was definitely not a fiend, either.
It is a pity that I should join issues publicly with my very close friend on an issue which we should have discussed indoors. However, the recent attack Ndibe launched against Senator Uba in his column in the Daily Sun of last Tuesday, was in such a bad taste and so maliciously inspired that it left so much bile in my mouth and those of our other constituents, such that I needed to spit it out publicly.
Writing under the title “Andy Uba, Boko Haram and Electoral Reform”, Ndibe did a heavy-metal job that had no rhyme or reason and ended up casting a very huge question mark on the objectives and reasonableness of that piece. At the end of the day, an ordinary and averagely intelligent reader became at a loss as to what the writer sought to achieve. make Up till today, I still do not understand what Okey had set out to achieve.
Ndibe started by excoriating the senate president for having appointed Senator Andy Uba as the chairman of the Committee on INEC, describing such an appointment as ‘ghastly’ and ‘hilarious’, without explaining why and how. Rather, he pursued that illogic by stating that “Uba epitomises some of the maladies of Nigeria’s troubled
electoral system...” How, he did not expatiate on, either. Rather and in the same gratuitous malignity, he claimed that, “Nigerians seek a movement towards electoral credibility and probity, not a return to the days when elections were
an all-hijackers’ affair”.
He made further questionable preachments about electoral misdemeanours being the precursor for social and political upheavals. While electoral ills are patently unacceptable, Okey failed to prove how the position of Andy as the committee chairman of INEC and electoral reforms has anything to do with all that arm-chair pontificating. After a long non-sequitor rigmarole on Boko Haram and the insecurity in the land, which obviously has nothing to do specifically with my senator, Okey essayed to bring himself back to his favourite business of Andy-bashing by positing that “Mr. Uba’s antecedents should preclude him from serving – posing – as a leader..” in any efforts at electoral reform.
He went further to tabulate what he alleged were Uba’s record in alleged electoral manipulation, which of course, started and ended with what Okey had repeated ad naseum in the past. It was his claim that INEC banned “all of Uba’s formidable opponents” during the 2007 elections in Anambra State. He did not say that Andy worked at INEC at that time, but knowing the nature of his earlier position, if one had nudged him further, Okey would have regurgitated his favourite story that Andy Uba ran the INEC because he had allegedly had a hand in the appointment of Prof Maurice Iwu as the INEC chairman. I have always been bothered that while attempting to carpet Andy, the likes of Ndibe had tended to create the impression that the humble and self-effacing former presidential aide was God who could do anything.
That must obviously be the justification of Ndibe’s fear that the same omnipotent Andy would now pocket Prof Jega, just as he had allegedly done to Maurice Iwu and would now turn the entire electoral system upside down
in 2015 or earlier. Without saying it, Okey might really be fearing that Andy, who he is supposing would be playing the role of the de-facto INEC chairman, would be in the position to short-circuit the ambition of his political hero,
Dr. Chris Ngige (his senator), who we hear, might be making another ill-fated attempt at governorship in 2014. Many of my constituents are rather surprised that the sanctimonious Okey has never written a line against his favourite Ngige who was thrown out by the tribunal for having rigged the 2003 gubernatorial elections in Anambra State – a fact that Ngige even acknowledged.
The problem is that my friend Okey often tries to set angelic standards for those he does not like – like Dr. Andy Uba and recently, Governor Peter Obi –and in the process, unwittingly betrays his lack of understanding of the nitty-gritty of realpolitik. If he understood that as the chairman of the senate committee on INEC, Uba would not be ‘overseeing INEC’ as he wrote, but rather ‘over-sighting’ it, he would not have written in the vein he did. Those concepts are different and far apart, for while Prof Attahiru Jega, the INEC chairman, would be overseeing the affairs of INEC, Uba’s committee would merely be ensuring the funds appropriated to the electoral body are being spent in tune with what they were made for and that the body is being run in accordance with the constitutional demands. That being so, is my friend saying that with the type of practical and cognate experience that Dr. Uba has gathered, he would be
incapable of over-sighting any body in Nigeria?
The venom with which Ndibe always writes about Dr. Andy Uba is not normal and if I did not know him well, I would have agreed with some accusers’ claim that he is envious of the senator. Otherwise, why would he tend to give the impression that the misfortune which Uba’s electoral fortunes suffered in 2007 was due to what he alleged was “
a vote tally that exceeded the number of registered voters in the state”? Does Ndibe have to present such a patent inaccuracy in order to drive his nail into what he sees is Uba’s coffin. Okey, as far as I recall, was several thousands of
kilometres away from Anambra State and could, therefore, not have witnessed the “heady celebration” with which Anambra shook “when a panel of Supreme courtm judges dismissed Mr. Uba from office”. Ndibe carefully hid from his readers the fact that Andy was not ‘dismissed’ by an electoral tribunal which queried the integrity of his victory but rather by a court which quashed his ßelection on the basis of a pre-election matter, to wit, Peter Obi’s successful challenge that the election had held when he his tenure had not expired.
The continued allusion to Uba’s academic qualifications leaves a lot to be desired as Ndibe tends to be leaving the substance to chase the shadow. If, as he erroneously claims, “Uba has produced no proof of a first degree”, of what
import is that issue when the constitution has always required only a secondary school leaving certificate as the qualification for both the gubernatorial and senatorial aspirations? His refusal to address Andy as ‘Dr.’ also smacks of
little-mindedness because, being aware that many people who use that title in Nigeria on basis of a honoris causa award conferred on them, have not been derided. Or does he not know that Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, for instance, never had a PhD?
In conclusion, Professor Okey Ndibe should do well to learn to water down his personal, regular, malicious and unwarranted attacks of the man whose people take as a very good representative and defender of their cause. Just last week, Andy embarked on efforts to settle an inter-town quarrel that has lasted for over 50 years and which has left a huge trail in human and material costs. The massive efforts and resources he has expended in community and personal empowerment and development in our constituency and all over the state and beyond should attract commendation and goodwill to Senator Andy Uba and not the type of motive-hunting of motiveless malignity that Ndibe has embarked upon.
Today, a massive edifice stands as UNIZIK’s faculty building – a present that Andy made to the academic community when he obtained an honorary doctorate degree from there. A wise and very cerebral man like my great friend should know when enough is enough. That is one of the most visible indices of a truly educated and balanced mind
Courtesy The Sun
Today, a massive edifice stands as UNIZIK’s faculty building – a present that Andy made to the academic community when he obtained an honorary doctorate degree from there.
