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Socialist Democracy September - October 2003

On July 10, 2003, the unusual happened in Anambra State. The newly elected governor of the state in person of Dr. Chris Ngige was first arrested in his office and later abducted and detained by a contingent of 200 policemen led by an Assistant Inspector General of Police in charge of zone 9, Mr. Raphael Ige. While still in detention, the state House of Assembly hurriedly met and accepted the letter of resignation purportedly written by Ngige. In a jiffy, Ngige's deputy, Dr Okechukwu Ude with the connivance of the house immediately declared himself the new governor "so as to avoid a vacuum".

Even by Nigeria's standard, a country that had spent almost 30 out of the 43 years of its post -independence period under military rule, the July 10 event in Anambra, in sheer brazenness, was on unusual happened. Unlike classical military coup, the Anambra event was a coup not made to overthrow the constitution, but one made in the name and under the provisions of the constitution! Prior to this coup, there was no any known disagreement on policies by the PDP leadership in Anambra state. It was therefore a big jolt to many people across the country to learn of the abortive, military-like attempt made to remove governor Ngige who had only spent 42 days in power on the day of the coup.

Many commentators across parties, including the PDP had unreservedly condemned the abortive criminal plot. Demands have been variously made for the arrest and prosecution of the self-confessed leader of this coup plot, in person of one Chief Chris Uba, Ngige's political godfather, together with all those that may had one way or the other participated or contributed towards this brazen assault on the constitution and by extension the collective democratic rights of the working masses across the country.

Many have correctly argued that if the makers of Anambra coup are not tried and punished, some other elements, or these same elements might someday and somewhere else decided to repeat the Anambra saga, even against the central government and, who knows, with better luck, they may achieve greater success next time around. To all those that remember or know the unrelenting poverty and perpetual political brutality of the military years, the abortive coup in Anambra represents a mortal danger not just to civil rule but the collective democratic rights of the masses.

It is not something that should just be swept under the carpet. Unfortunately however, the cacophonic demands being made across the country on President Olusegun Obasanjo and the PDP government for the arrest and arraignment for criminal trial of Chris Uba and his lieutenants-in-crime, are demands that can never be seriously contemplated, let alone being thoroughly executed by these self-serving elements.

From whatever angle one looks at the Anambra coup, one fact remains incontrovertible: the masses or masses welfare, democratic rights, etc, count for little or nothing to the coup plotters and or those plotted against. The reason that has so far been advanced to justify the July 10 coup is that Ngige no longer enjoyed the goodwill of his political godfather (Uba) and other patrons. Right from his first to his 42nd day in office, when the coup in issue took place, Ngige was practically held hostage by the coup plotters.

The coup plotters� group made sure he did nothing without their approval. Consequently, he was never able to pick his commissioners because his godfather had not had enough time to address such a trivial issue.

Suffice to note, the governor had not been idle. Without commissioners, without doing anything positive for the masses, the governor had been busy pandering to every whim and caprices of his godfather. Ngige speaks: "They came to demand that I pay them N3 billion. And I said where do I get N3 billion to give you. They said that was the money to secure my loyalty or to make me conform (emphasis in the original). They said whenever you remember that you are owing us N3 billion, you will conform to certain things. They said you wont leave this room, you must get your checkbook. Give us N3 billion, you might sign this agreement. They said if you wouldn�t sign the document, then give us N1.5 billion cheque in two places. I said okay, l agree � After I got sworn-in, they came again. I have to pay N870 million. He said the construction work he was doing � Mbadinuju did not pay him for some months now. That he has irrevocable payment standing order (ISPO) for N10 million every month on the project. Before l could say Jack Robinson, my Account General, emerged from a corner. They had prepared a paper addressed to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), saying I had directed that such money be paid, N10 million be paid for 87 months � I told him � I will be governor for 48 months and I can only do an ISPO that would carry me for 48 months for you, which translates to N480 million." (The Guardian, July 21, 2003, page 9).

When asked by Senator David Mark, during a session of the special senate committee investigating the Anambra coup, why he had been playing along with the group when he knew they were of questionable character and why he did not resist the group, Ngige had said: "You can either decide to face them headlong or decide to wear them out". Through this statement, Ngige seeks to portray himself as a decent person who only innocently found himself in the midst of looters and was just playing along so that these elements may publicly show their true colours.

Nothing can be farther from the truth. The truth in fact is much less flattering. Ngige was just acting like many middle class/capitalist hustlers would have done in the giving circumstances. He was never bothered that the agenda of his political mentors was primarily designed to loot the Anambra state treasury dry. All his calculations were based on the assumption that he himself as the chief front man-in-crime will have enough opportunity to make a loot of his own. He, apparently beclouded by greediness did not foresee a situation where his godfather might decided to ditch him for another fall guy. His statement quoted above is thus nothing but an afterthought.

If the mindless, mercenary-like, gangster-robbers politics of the Uba and Ngige camps are reprehensible, the way and manner with which the entire saga had been treated by the PDP-led federal and Anambra State governments lucidly underline the serious dangers to the economic and political rights of the working masses for every extra second, minutes, days, months and years spent in power by these capitalist elements. Beyond the setting up series of panels which lack judicial power by the senate and the PDP at the central level, nobody has been arrested, let alone put on trial in connection with this daylight coup.

In fact the coup leader, Uba, has been busy addressing press conferences with video coverage, to justify the conducts of his group. Presently, he is reported to have travelled out of the country. Immediately after the abortive coup, the PDP leadership at the central level not only condemned the coup, it in fact announced the expulsion from the party of certain members of the Uba gang. Few days later, while inaugurating a panel to investigate the coup, the party's National Chairman, Chief Audu Ogbe, told a shocked populace that PDP was ready to pardon (even without trial) all those involved in the coup provided they agree that they made a mistake.

Some have agreed that Uba and his group is untouchable because Obasanjo's wife, Stella, is a relation of Uba's wife. Socialists, working class activists and youths must go beneath this superficial level of reasoning. The real reason why Uba and his gang are not being touched is principally because almost all the governors across the country and even the President got to their positions through financial bribery, official manipulation, and rigging largely facilitated by and with the active collaboration of their mentors, godfathers, locally and internationally. None of the top political officials in the country today is an independent agent.

If it is not Adedibu in Oyo State, it will be Olusola Saraki in Kwara State, or the Oni of Ife, Okunade Sijuwade, Sunday Afolabi, Iyiola Omisore, etc, in Osun State or Atiku in Lagos State. The list is identical everywhere. None of the so-called set of elected leaders across the country can honestly claim to have got to their positions through free and fair electoral processes. The "election" of Ngige himself as governor was a fabricated fraud. This is why even the "born again" government of Ngige can never make serious efforts to prosecute Uba and co, even though it has all the powers under the criminal code to do so. Mr. Chuma Nzeribe, a PDP member of House of Representatives and a top member of the Uba gang had in fact threatened, while testifying before the senate committee, to expose the fraud behind Ngige's "election" as governor, apparently if their group is not left alone. Hear him: "I have graphic details of how we won and how we didn't win the elections in Anambra" (The Guardian, July 18, 2003, P2).

We consider highly undemocratic the practice whereby local government chairmen, governors, chief executives of industries, presidents, etc are invested with arbitrary and wide powers to decide the economic and political fates of millions without resort to any genuine democratic checks and balances.

Socialists of course do not subscribe to the bourgeois utopia of placing individual powers of office holders over the party and on all matters of life and deaths. We have always advocated and we still do today that all policies and their mode of implementation must always be democratically decided by every rank and file party members in or out of power.

The crisis in Anambra State is just a reflection of the political situation and crisis across the country. It is not just an Anambra rot. If it were, the central government would have by now arrested and put on trial all those involved in the criminal conduct. All the PDP governments at central and state levels have more pecks in their own eyes and as such could not be validly accused of not helping to remove the peck from the eyes of Anambra .The capitalist opposition parties tragically equally do not stand for something different and credible.

lf this is not the case, they could have used the crisis in Anambra to fight for a change of government and policies not only in Anambra but across the country. Tragically their own opposition to PDP elements and governments is centred on their own personal interests not the interests of the majority.

These capitalist opposition parties (ANPP, AD, APGA, NDP etc) just like the PDP agree totally with the imperialist/capitalist privatisation/liberalization agenda, sale of the commanding heights of the economy to private individuals, and corporations, mass retrenchment of workers, low wages, incessant hike in fuel prices, commercialisation of education, health care, housing transportation, telecommunications, etc. They are not opposed to treasury looting and political manipulations. These they themselves already do in every economic and political sphere where they hold sway. The main grouse they have against their colleagues in PDP is that they have less opportunity to loot and manipulate as much as those who control the central government can do.

Herein precisely lies the tragedy for the working masses. We have at the central level and in 28 states PDP governments made up mostly of mindless mercenaries, treasury looters and political manipulators. The remaining other 8 states are equally under the control of elements whose greatest ambition is to be strong or opportune enough to be the country's main looters and oppressors.

Sadly this tragic phenomenon will continue for as long as the working masses are unable to build an independent political party of their own which in policies and methodologies will be totally opposed to capitalist parties and elements and whose central goal will be (through a workers and poor peasant government) the running of the economy and polity in a way that will permanently guarantee the economic and political needs and rights of the working masses.

The NLC leaders along-side other elements had seriously condemned the coup and demanded the arrest and trial of all those involved in the dastardly act. In the given political situation however, this is just and empty demand. You cannot reasonably expect any justice from looters and political manipulators. Instead of sowing illusion that the capitalist elements and their system can work in a fair, rational and logical basis, which the Anambra saga has once again contradicted, the NLC leadership should be prepared to take responsibility to build a mass working peoples' party with genuine pro-masses programme and active presence across the country with a view to chase out the capitalist gangsters in power in Anambra State and all over the country.

Socialist Democracy September - October 2003