Anyim and politics of
personality misrepresentation
By Ikeoha Ezeaku
Saturday,
September 1, 2007
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Anyim
Photo: Sun News Publishing |
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Given the circumstance under which Anyim Pius Anyim, former
President of the Senate dignifyingly walked away after his
tenure in 2003, one had reasoned that he must have found politics
an uncharted territory and therefore decided to bid farewell
to the strange profession.
In spite of the loud ovation that greeted his principled conduct
of the affairs of the Senate, Anyim was not persuaded to re-contest
the 2003 general elections.
Many felt he was frustrated out while others thought he was
too much on the gentle and humble side of life to cope with
the bedlam and uncertainty that normally engulfed the Nigeria
electoral process. Still millions of Nigerians see his stepping
aside in the midst of the 2003 debacle as an act of wisdom
and integrity.
The disposition of the party in the conduct of its gubernatorial
primaries in Imo State, Rivers State and even the presidential
primaries in the last general elections, people still refer
to as pointers to the fears that the anointed rather than
the elected in PDP ascends to political positions in the party.
Incidentally, Anyim is disadvantaged by the fact that he has
never been ranked among the lackeys and pageboys of the oracular
leaders of the party. The musing among pundits is that if
the garrison closed circuit affirmative attitude of the party
is still maintained in the present dispensation, Anyim can
only hope more for God’s anointment and less of man
in his quest for PDP national chairmanship.
That is even more of a major obstacle for Anyim in the contest
of political race in Nigeria. If he is not identified by the
party moguls as someone who chops how does he expect them
to make him the next distributor-in-chief of chop-chop? Unfortunately
for Anyim too, the odds against him have not made him impervious
to the stereotyped perception by his opponents that he is
a candidate to beat in the race. Whether by omission or commission
reactions both positive and adverse since he declared interest
in the post has pointed to the fact that he stands taller
than others. I have read some of the adverse comments on Anyim,
I find most of them very unsettling because they are politically
incorrect.
Let us take some of them for analysis.
In an interview with the Sunday Punch, August 19, 2007, Dr.
Sam Egwu, the ex-governor of Ebonyi State who incidentally
is in the race with Anyim said that his trouble with Anyim
started when he stopped Anyim from imposing a candidate for
the chairmanship of his local government. That is far from
the truth. Instead it was Anyim who insisted on the side of
equity that his community which is larger in the area should
give chance to other smaller communities to partake in the
affairs of the council.
This, Egwu opposed in order to spite Anyim and hand-picked
a candidate for the post. Again, Simon Kolawole while reeling
out Anyim’s achievements as senate president in the
ThisDay of the same Sunday 19th August 2007 still concluded
that Anyim’s problem is that he fell out with former
President Obasanjo who he claimed made him Senate President.
Again, that Anyim single handedly suspended Senator Arthur
Nzeribe from the Senate. Incidentally, many Nigerians however
felt that Anyim stabilized the Senate especially when he demystified
the nefarious banana peel that persistently swept away the
occupants of the seat of the senate presidency.
My take on that is that Kola actually lacked facts to hold
against Anyim particularly when he said he was responding
to earlier provocative remarks made by Anyim against his previous
publications. Anyim’s headship of the Senate never included
the power to take unilateral action on behalf of the upper
chamber of the national Assembly. Again it would have made
more meaningful impact if one person, just one who started
the political struggle with the former President Obasanjo
including those who brought him out from prison and made him
president is named as still having good romance with him till
date.
Anyim never had any personal score to settle with the former
president. Instead he is revered today as one of the few Nigerians
who came close to ex-president Obasanjo and survived his tsunamic
onslaught without compromising his integrity or the sanctity
of his office. It is a common knowledge that ex-president
Obasanjo is driven by a reverse political philosophy of permanent
enemies but no permanent friends.
Still I fear that talking about this paradox will not influence
anyone to miss the right choice for the post of the National
Chairman of PDP. I feel uncomfortable however that the darts
on Anyim is more of a psychological phobia of his person than
any wrong doing. He rather has more compelling attributes
for the job than otherwise.
He has left indelible foot prints in the track records he
has garnered for himself within his stint in politics. The
difference between him and others who are vying for the post
could be found in the legacy he left behind as a senator representing
Ebonyi South zone and as a President of the Senate. The stretch
of federal road from Okigwe in Imo State, traversing his senatorial
district of Ebonyi South, attracted by him to his zone is
a sharp contrast to the one stretching from the same Ebonyi
South to Abakaliki, the Ebonyi State capital attracted by
Ebonyi state government within the same period. While the
Okigwe-Ebonyi South road often refers to as ‘Anyim Road’
had over ten years guarantee by the contractor, Julius Berger
before any maintenance job could be done on it, the Ebonyi
South- Abakaliki road could not enjoy such a guarantee even
for a year from the contractor, Hapel Nig. Ltd. While protests
trailed the recommendation of the contractor for the Abakaliki-
Afikpo road by the state government for obvious reasons the
people’s fears were confirmed early as the road steadily
caved in even before completion.
Anyim’s tenure as President of the Senate brimmed with
optimism as people saw leadership demystified and spelt out
in lurid humility and simplicity. Many Nigerians however feel
that successive Presidents of the Senate owe their survivals
on the seat to the solid foundation laid by Anyim.
What stretched the imagination of many and stupefied a horde
of followers of Anyim is the rate to which our memories undergo
atrophy. Or how else can one explain the groundswell of discordant
voices over Anyim’s decision to be the national chairman
of PDP. Much as followers of politics in the South East in
the last couple of years are in the picture of the unabating
powerplay among politicians in the area, nobody imagined the
zone could degenerate to such a putrid level as not to accord
honour and recognition to accomplished personalities in the
zone.
It bleeds my heart and I guess that of well meaning people
of the area that we always miss the opportunity in the name
of politics of presenting our best when it matters most..
Ordinarily, Anyim’s antecedents ought to be a source
of pride to any Igbo man to the extent that his aspirations
should not attract the wellspring of flaks nor draw the ire
of anybody from that zone. Although such situation would always
satiate the mind of his detractors, the implication is that
the sensibility and psyche of the zone is poignantly and hugely
being slapped. There are few Anyims in the South East who
are eminently qualified to represent the zone positively in
any political position.
Ikeoha Ezeaku wrote in from Enugu
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