Silly theatre
in Anambra, again
By
Okey Ndibe (E-mail: okeyndibe@gmail.com)
Anambra State is embroiled once again in some silly theatre. This time, it’s
the Nnamdi Uba-appointed state assembly that has decided to hold the state hostage
by toying with the budget.
Late last year, Governor Peter Obi presented a proposed budget of N84.2 billion
to cover capital as well as recurrent expenditures. Several months later, the
membership of the state assembly is far from finalising the budget. Instead,
a majority of the members have taken to playing the most sordid politics with
a matter that touches directly on the lives of Anambra indigenes. In an arbitrary
move informed neither by rhyme nor reason, the assembly is threatening to gut
the budget by cutting it deeply. It’s nothing short of shameful and unforgivable
politicking.
On the face of it, this kind of budgetary disagreement is far from unusual in
a democracy. Democracy thrives, after all, on fierce debates and philosophical
differences over policy directions.
Let’s put things in some perspective. Under the Nigerian Constitution,
a governor’s place is to propose budgets. The same Constitution empowers
the state legislature to vet the proposal and then approve what it deems appropriate
expenditure.
Given the above, it is easy to suppose that the state assembly is acting prudently
in so slashing Mr. Obi’s budgetary proposal. But the assembly is neither
prudent nor Constitution-minded. It is, in the deepest sense, a rogue parliament,
with all 30 of its members selected by Mr. Uba.
The budgetary impasse in Anambra has little to do with democracy or the Constitution.
Therein lies the sordidness.
Twice, the Supreme Court has abbreviated Uba’s gubernatorial fantasy.
A man of more sober sensibility might have packed it in and retreated to the
drawing board to prepare, if he must, to fight another day. But not Uba. A self-avowed
admirer of former president Olusegun Obasanjo’s “politricks,”
Uba has sought to use his legislative appointees as tools to render the state
ungovernable.
Uba’s brinkmanship took on a desperate note after a panel of the Federal
Court of Appeal handed him a symbolic, hollow, favourable judgment that he and
his attorneys initially portrayed in giddy terms. For a few days, Uba and his
spin-doctors trumpeted the fiction that he has been declared “governor-in-waiting.”
Their giddiness lasted a short time, then the reality dawned: That the idea
of a “governor-in-waiting” is a freak notion, absolutely alien to
the Constitution.
But Uba’s determination to mire Anambra in crisis has increased with every
judicial defeat.
He has made political capital out of manipulating the men and women he carefully
selected and assigned seats in the state legislature in what remains a record-breaking
scandal of elections. He has used these usurper lawmakers to ambush the people
of Anambra in the name of punishing Obi, the man whose dogged pursuit of justice
finally torpedoed Uba’s illicit grab for the office of governor.
Uba’s vendetta-driven tactics have even alienated some of the members
of the state assembly. Several weeks ago, 11 of them exposed and then renounced
the agenda of holding Anambra residents hostage to one man’s political
machinations. The agenda’s singular thrust is to sabotage Obi’s
administration by denying him the money to pursue any significant developmental
initiatives. The calculation is that Obi’s failure would then make the
people of Anambra so despondent they would hanker after an Uba governorship.
Futile dreams are made of these!
Anambra’s unfortunate budgetary drama illustrates the dangers of our godfather-mediated
politics. When a people or the judiciary permits one man’s money and reckless
ambition to override the electorate’s sovereignty, then nobody should
be puzzled when that lone power broker’s selfish interests dictate a tragic
turn of public affairs. In Oyo, “Governor” Alao-Akala is doing a
superb job as long as he keeps Lamidi Adedibu happy. In similar fashion, the
Anambra legislature, peopled by Uba’s appointees, discharges its “honorable”
duties according to its main sponsor’s decrees.
In the meantime, the state’s wretched of the earth (to echo Frantz Fanon)
are left to bear the brunt of one man’s inordinate ambitions. While seeking
to severely cut the budget, the legislators quadrupled their own budgetary allocation
to more than N1.2 billion. What self-centeredness!
In the short run, the way out of the budgetary stalemate lies in the hope that
several more of the assembly members would develop enough spine to reject Uba’s
ruinous agenda. In the long run, the election tribunals ought to expedite the
disposition of pending challenges to the “election” of Uba’s
slate of candidates.
Anambra—as much as other states as well—deserves to start enjoying
the reign of political sanity.
In the end, the antidote to the agents of impunity is to conduct elections in
which the voices of eligible voters are felt and respected. Then, and only then,
would we have lawmakers who put their constituents first in all they do.