[allAfrica.com] [Africa_2006] Godfatherism, Massob And the Appeal Court Battle(2) Vanguard (Lagos) COLUMN January 31, 2006 Posted to the web January 31, 2006 By Chidi Chukwumah FOR Uba, Ngige is a master of propaganda and he was going to fight back. By the time the dusts settled, Anambra State, courtesy of a problem between just two indigenes, had lost billions of naira. The PDP which all the while seemed to support Uba however wielded the big stick when it expelled Uba and Ngige. Although Ngige got the court to void his expulsion, it seemed an exercise in futility because a party is founded on the principle of voluntary association and no court can compel any group of persons or an individual to associate with anyone he chooses not to relate with. And so Ngige and his estranged godfather became the lonely sheep in a political wilderness. Uba's voice was silenced and together with some legal pronouncements against him in courts, he adopted the posture of sit-down-look. But for Ngige, a seeming victory over his godfather only offered a flicker of peace and security. Peter Obi, the candidate of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) had gone to the tribunal to challenge Ngige's victory, insisting that he indeed won the election. The tribunal hung like the sword of Damocles over Ngige's government. On Friday, August 12, the governorship election tribunal sitting in Awka, gave Ngige a red card when it nullified the INEC declaration of Ngige as the winner of the April 19, 2003 governorship election. In Ngige's stead the tribunal declared the all Progressive Grand Alliance, (APGA) candidate, Peter Obi, the duly elected candidate. The tribunal's ruling without equivocation turned Ngige into an endangered political specie. And with no party pillar, the medical doctor's political crystal ball may be showing him a pretty grim future even as he mobilised his people and pretended to be unfazed by the tribunal ruling. But even Peter Obi seems far from the comfort zone. Ngige and 1NEC appealed the judgement and this battle of the Appeal has commenced with INEC insisting that with the manifest iriegularities and wholesome rigging as the tribunal even attested to, the election should be annulled. For many political observers, the Anambra debacle seems a morbid trilogy that will produce no legitimate beginning or a new dawn. Importantly, they maintain that the Anambra governorship election was mired with chaos and unbelievable rigging. And that even if one dares to say that there was no state that election was wholly free and fair, there is nowhere that the protagonists have come out to admit that they indeed rigged the election except in Anambra. Ngige and his estranged god father, Uba, were quoted to have confessed right before President Obasanjo that Ngige did not win the election and that they rigged the election to put him in the Anambra seat of power. This confession coupled with the chaos that characterised the election leaves the modest sized Ngige with a blinking hope for victory at the Appeal. Peter Obi, for some political analysts appears clogged by circumstances that will in no time silence the drums of victory that his supporters had been beating. They opined that, just like the Court of Appeal did in the case of Buhari Versus Obasanjo in the 2003 presidential election in which it annulled the President's votes in Ogun State, the Appeal Court could nullify the Anambra election if it stands convinced about the fact that there was really no election in Anambra State or that it is practically impossible to verify the number of votes polled by each candidate due to gross irregularities. This observation is further strengthened by the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) candidate, Chief George Moghalu who has stated repeatedly that Peter Obi has nothing to celebrate. In his interview with Saturday Sun, August 20, Chief Moghalu maintained that Peter Obi could not have won because there was no election in Anambra State. Although not his making, Obi's chance is all the more endangered by the recent resurgence of the Biafra propaganda by MASSOB which seems to be identifying with APGA, his party. Indeed in the last few weeks, especially since Obi's victory at the tribunal, there has been a renaissance of Biafra and intensified MASSOB activities. Brand new notes of Biafran currency are suddenly everywhere in the East, Biafran colours, shirts, memorabilia and magazine are all over the place while MASSOB has intensified its rallies in the South-eastern states, openly endorsing APGA and heralding the dawn of Biafra. The MASSOB activities since the arrest of their leader, Dr. Ralph Uwazuruike, has worsened the fear of handing over Anambra State to a party openly supported by MASSOB. With the Biafra currency reportedly being used as a medium of exchange in some Eastern states and West African countries and Ralph Uwazurike, the man who on April 19, 2004 reaffirmed his declaration of the sovereign state of Biafra, claiming that MASSOB membership runs into millions, the organisation seems to constitute a grave danger to national security.Indeed, if anyone treated the MASSOB propaganda and threat with levity, that ceased on August 26, 2004 when it mobilised Igbos across the nation to demonstrate their dissatisfaction with the Obasanjo government by closing their shops to business. The success of this protest left no one in doubt that the MASSOB threat is a harsh reality. The thinking of political commentators is that no serious government would allow a party that seems to condone a secession mongering group, to take over the government of a state. Even the judiciary, some of the political pundits emphatically stated, would place national interest and security above every other consideration where the situation arises in the course of their duty.Although APGA has lamely dissociated itself from MASSOB in the media, many believe that their long silence is a tacit endorsement of MASSOB and its activities. And worse still, APGA beyond a mere media statement has done nothing to show its abhorrence for MASSOB's chant of solidarity with the party and Biafra initiative. As Nigerians await the Appeal, judgement, the question remains whether Ngige would get another red card or whether Peter Obi could cross the gulf that separates him from the government house. Yet most analysts hold strongly the notion that for sanity to return to Anambra State and for the needed oasis of peace, Anambra State may need a new election. And this notion is sustained by a robust conviction that there was no election in Anambra State in 2003. Even the tribunal admitted that there was gross irregularities which led to the nullification of a huge chunk of the votes. How could an election in which majority of voters were disenfranchised stand? How could a governor govern without the vote of the people? For a lasting peace and oneness of the people, Anambra State according to political pundits, needs a new election, a new beginning, a new hope.   =============================================================================   Copyright © 2006 Vanguard. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). =============================================================================