There is dagger in men’s smile,” that is how William Shakespeare captured a similar plot as this in his days. Though this Anambra situation seem insignificant and indeed many would rather play it down, but the deft shafting of Prof. Chukwuma Soludo in his quest for the Anambra State top job portends deep-reaching augury not just for the individual in the mix of the shenanigans but for the entire Igbo race. In other words, the back-stabbing and emasculation of Soludo in his quest to lead Anambra is a knife in the back of Ndigbo.
But the stab is deeper and more injurious because it is obviously self-inflicted. There is no doubt that Professor Chukwuma Charles Soludo is the man to beat in Anambra State’s governorship election coming up in November. Former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, who acquitted himself most remarkably well on the job; a first class scholar and an economist of international renown Soludo lost narrowly to the incumbent in the last election in 2010 flying the flag of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
This time, the political calculations in his party has changed and the new powerbrokers of PDP are out of his league and they seem easily discomfited by his intellectual prowess, self-assuredness and the strong Igbo libertarian world view. It was apparently long decided that not only that the now tenuous umbrella of the PDP would not provide him cover, his contesting the Anambra guber would be inimical to PDP’s interest. APGA-cadabra Having determined that, Soludo was promptly nudged out of PDP as a first step, he was then lured into the supposedly Igbo party, the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA.
Having been reassured, he promptly purchased APGA nomination form for N10 million and was fine-tuning strategies for participating and triumphing in the primary when his detractors moved again. The fear of Soludo must be the beginning of wisdom for the PDP hawks. He was reportedly approached to jettison his quest for the top job but he insisted on going through with it having gone so far. But not wanting to leave anything to chance, a jankara screening committee was set up by the APGA hierarchy whose primary target was obviously Soludo. Pronto, Soludo and some unknown quantities had been screened out; they are not fit to contest even in the primary.
How is it that someone who was corralled into joining APGA and who was promised a fair shot at the contest? Someone who had bought nomination forms for such huge amount and who had started setting up campaign structure is suddenly not fit to attempt the primary? Of course we are not told why he is not eligible apart from the mutterings from some quarters that he had declined to join earlier when he was approached and that he came around too late. But they forgot that until a few weeks ago, APGA had been a banana case running from one court room to another. It can even be conjectured that Soludo was instrumental to the rapprochement in APGA or that APGA was reconciled for the sake of arresting Soludo’s ambition.
It does not require a pundit to see that the race for Anambra’s number one job is a three horse one between Andy Uba, Chris Ngige and Soludo. If PDP would grab Uba and APC flies with Ngige, why would APGA shun Soludo if it is not a marionette dangling from another man’s strings? If the APGA clowns fool themselves successfully, do they by any chance imagine that they can fool the generality of Ndigbo who had hoped that they had a party in APGA? Which of those motley fellas they have pre-qualified will expect to beat Uba or Ngige in any election in Anambra State? APGA’s nunc dimittis The PDP will take no prisoners in this Anambra election having serious implications for 2015. It would not brook to share its glory in a southeast in which Anambra is the most strategic. On the other hand, APGA’s loss of Anambra would mark its demise and the passing into history of a once upon a time Igbo party.
Maybe it is just as well that APGA should die because it never served the Igbo cause for which it was supposedly founded. It will be trite to say that APGA finally sold its wretched soul and litigation-wracked body for a pot of porridge; it is quite self evident now what we had only conjectured all this while. Just because we are traders does not mean that everything we have is for sale. Some things are supposed to be priceless, only to be nurtured and preserved for national pride, for posterity and for collective edification and well-being. But the leaders of this APGA – the incumbent governor of Anambra, Mr. Peter Obi, the chairman of the party, Chief Chekwas Okorie and all the other dramatis personae in this farcical epic will have to answer to the Ndigbo and her posterity for they rode on our back; they will have to answer to history some day when all this hurly-burly is done. It will be recorded that at this critical juncture of Igbo history, they failed us; at their moment in the sun when they had the opportunity to stand up for Ndigbo, to uplift them, to help them reclaim their dignity and manhood, they chose to trade it off.
Though Soludo may have been killed politically, it is only a momentary setback. In fact this deadly blow could serve as a wake-up call for him to begin anew; change his template, review his strategy and return to the arena. The entire world beckons, Nigeria calls and Igboland yawns for an authentic, honest and fearless leadership. It may well be providential that APGA would achieve its expiry date soon. Away with the imp, away with the ogbanje party; this rascal abiku has served its inglorious time, it must move on into its pre-destined oblivion so that Ndigbo may begin to pick the pieces of their political lives. There is need to find a new, genuine Igbo voice, a new Igbo spirit and a new Igbo body that will negotiate our place under the Nigerian sun standing on our feet, using our head and not our stomach. – See more at: http://thebusinessdispatch.com/?p=27799#sthash.UtZRFOdQ.dpuf