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The Unholy Trinity-How the presidency uses the Ubas to scuttle democracy-TheNEWS/Saharareporters

May 14, 2006

BAMIDELE JOHNSON
Seated at a church service for the celebration of his only son’s first birthday last January, Chief Chris Uba, the controversial and sparsely educated Anambra State politician, cut the image of a man lost in thought. His eyes rolled away from the pulpit, settling on nothing in particular.
 


BAMIDELE JOHNSON

Seated at a church service for the celebration of his only son’s first birthday last January, Chief Chris Uba, the controversial and sparsely educated Anambra State politician, cut the image of a man lost in thought. His eyes rolled away from the pulpit, settling on nothing in particular.

 

Dressed in a black French suit atop a white shirt that revealed a gold necklace, Uba looked like a Mafia godfather plotting his next hit. Indeed, Uba is a political Mafioso. Anambra, his home state, is practically under his thumb. So are the biggest politicians in the South-East geo-political zone. He moves around in an eye-popping convoy shielded by a blanket of armed policemen.

For his influence, President Olusegun Obasanjo is a big fan. Obasanjo’s love for Uba covers everything: his politics, dare-devilry and even his family.

Until 2003, Uba was little known oustide Anambra State. Then, the political top gun in the state was Sir. Emeka Offor, also barely educated but wired to the right sources of power. It was Offor who engineered the electoral victory of Dr.Chinwoke Mbadinuju as governor in 1999.

 

Four years later, Offor had become an obscure figure, pushed out by Uba, the new Sheriff in town. The deposed godfather quietly slunk out of Nigeria to Sao Tome, where he runs his oil business.

 

Like Offor, Uba is obscenely rich and wired. The guest list at his housewarming ceremony in 2002 read like a Who-Is-Who in Nigerian politics and business. Governors, senators, ministers and captains of industry were in attendance.

Again last January, Uba reconfirmed his A-list crowd-pulling power at the first birthday celebration of his only son, Chimobi. Held at his vast home in the Government Reserved Area, Enugu, the event drew an even larger crowd. In attendance were Senate President Ken Nnamani, Alhaji Aminu Bello Masari, Speaker of the House of Representatives, governors of Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo, Kwara, Borno, Akwa Ibom and Jigawa states. Others included Chief Tony Anenih, Chairman, PDP Board of Trustees; Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, Chief Franklin Ogbuewu, Minister of Tourism; Dr. Kema Chikwe, former Aviation Minister, Senator Arthur Nzeribe, General Lawrence Onoja and Dr. Rabiu Kwankwaso, Minister of Defence.

 

From the business world came Alhaji Aliko Dangote, President Dangote Group, Chief Tony Ezenna, Chairman, Orange Drugs, and Chief Festus Odimegwu, Manging Director of Nigerian Breweries plc, among numerous others. The event also afforded the public the opportunity to see Uba’s gaudy lifestlye.

 

The controversial politician presented a posh car, with a personalised number plate, to the one-year old son, as well as a marble pulpit to the Christ Church, Uwani, Enugu.

Uba’s home is a study in immodest opulence. The large compound is infested with top-of the-range automobiles. There were Rolls Royce, Bentleys, Lexus and a Hummer Jeep among others. But Uba’s gleaming garage is the opposite of his life. The story of his early life is strewn with gaps. He was said to have been a thug to Chief Arthur Eze, another questionable politician and businessman, who made a mint under the military regime of the late General Sani Abacha.

 

Though Uba found schooling difficult, dropping out in his fourth year in secondary school, he had enough street smartness to eventually outfox Eze, his boss. As the story goes, Eze had grown to trust Uba and he started using him as a front for some of his businesses.

Unknown to Eze, Uba had no plans to be a perennial front. He wanted a bigger bite of the apple and successfully converted some of Eze’s money in his possession to his own.

 

And the servant became a master. His rise was swift, as he quickly identified politics as the shortest route to influence and bigger wealth.

With politics came contacts. Politicians who needed street muscle courted him. In return, he got fat building contracts from government. In the late 90s, a building he was handling collapsed and killed all the workers on site. But Uba was beyond prosecution and kept getting contracts.

By 2003, Uba had become a tin god. In the struggle to replace Mbadinuju, who had fallen out of favour with Offor, Uba shopped for a candidate and eventually found one in Chris Ngige, a physician who was nursing a senatorial ambition on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. Offor supported another candidate, who was defeated by Ngige.

 

Other candidates supported by Uba also won their party’s tickets. For the senatorial slots, Uba ordered the party’s candidates to step down after the primaries had been concluded. He replaced them with three new ones, including his elder brother, Ugochukwu.

The three were elected. Nigige, through Uba’s dexterity at using violence and money, defeated Peter Obi, the more popular candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).

 

However, Ngige was holding the proverbial poisoned chalice. Uba was a control freak who wanted to take charge of everything from cabinet appointments to selecting the governor’s personal security aides. More importantly, Uba wanted an unfettered access to state funds. Courtesy of an Irrevocable Standard Payment Order (ISPO) signed by a previous administration, Uba was receiving N89 million monthly from the state government for a contract to build a new governor’s lodge. This is in spite of the fact that he has not completed the building.

 

Uba also claimed that Ngige owed him N3 billion spent on campaigns. The money was to be paid in two installments. To get an assurance that his interests were protected under Ngige, Uba, assisted by Chuma Nzeribe, attempted, without success, to force Ngige to sign the agreement that he would pay. Even the list of Uba’s nominees to the cabinet was rejected by Ngige.

Yet, this had been preceded by an oath-taking session at the Okija Shrine.  The trip to Okija was in the company of Nzeribe, another toughie.

Ngige admitted going to the shrine, but claimed to have stayed back in the car, caressing his Bible, while Uba and Nzeribe entered Okija’s dreaded groves.

 

A few days to Ngige’s swearing-in ceremony, Uba and Nzeribe moved to stop Ngige by demanding that he resigned his new position. According to Ngige, he was forced to sign a resignation letter at gunpoint. On 10 July 2003, Uba, with considerable support from Abuja, led a contingent of mobile policemen under the command of the late Raphael Ige, an Assistant Inspector-General of Police, to abduct Ngige.

 

Uba also facilitated a radio announcement that Ngige had resigned. But on emergence from where he was held at the Choice Hotels, Awka, Ngige insisted that he was still the governor.

The state throbbed with apprehension. Outside, it was a wave of condemnation for Uba who showed no remorse for his action. Worse still, he bagged no reprimand from PDP or President Olusegun Obasanjo despite his coup-like action.

 

The incident marked the beginning of a tempestuous reign and protracted court battles, which ended about two and a half months ago when the Election Petition Tribunal declared APGA’s Peter Obi the rightful winner of the election.

 

In between, Uba remained implacable. In the middle of 2004, he masterminded an attack on Ngige’s life when his convoy was shot at as he was returning from an official function. In November of the same year, Uba’s supporters ran wild, burning numerous government buildings in a violent spree that lasted for days. The disturbance was believed to have been aimed at offering Obasanjo the excuse to remove Ngige as governor via the imposition of an emergency rule in the state.

 

In the violence, the Governor’s Office, that of his deputy, the House of Assembly Complex, offices of the Anambra Broadcasting Services and the state-owned Ikenga Hotels, among others, were either completely burnt or looted.

Amazingly, Uba did not deny responsibility for the disturbance, yet the Presidency looked the other way.

 

As a matter of fact, it blamed Ngige for reneging on the agreement between him and Uba. A letter to the President by Chief Audu Ogbeh, former PDP National Chairman, accused Obasanjo of inaction on the Anambra crisis. Ogbeh warned that the President’s failure to act may result in the death of Ngige and other dire consequences, including a possible termination of the nation’s democracy by a military coup. He added that prominent politicians could also end up in jail or in poverty, like they did after the collapse of the Second Republic.

 

The former PDP boss apparently underestimated Obasanjo’s affection for Uba. The President’s came out with an inflammable response. In the response, Obasanjo listed all his efforts at bringing about reconciliation during which, Obasanjo said, Uba and Ngige confessed to rigging the governorship election for the party. The President’s outburst brought a new dimension into the saga.

 

Public opinion was in favour of Ngige, but Uba could do no wrong. The President’s handling of the crisis was one of the reasons given by literary giant, Professor Chinua Achebe, when rejecting a national award for which he was nominated in 2004. And for his support for Ngige, Obasanjo elbowed Ogbeh out of office. Though the PDP later expelled Uba and Ngige from the party, the latter was re-admitted and made a member of its Board of Trustees, while Ngige remained expelled till his removal was successfully engineered by Aso Rock through the election tribunal.

 

Uba’s return to the PDP fold was a huge event. Weeks before he was officially re-admitted, national newspapers were awash with advert messages welcoming him back. Politicians and businessmen who hoped to use him to further their interests gladly paid for the messages lionizing Uba. “We Welcome Back Our Leader,” read one of the adverts. Since his return, he has maintained a low profile until it came to the time to bribe legislators for the third term bid.

 

In this, he is being assisted by Andy, his physiotherapist elder brother and Obasanjo’s Special Assistant on Domestic Matters.

Andy’s position makes him the first to see Obasanjo when he wakes up and the last to see the President on his way to bed. He also decides who sees or does not see the President, irrespective of whether there is an appointment. Andy also screens Obasanjo’s phone calls and he is reputed to have prevented some of the President’s closest friends from reaching him. He is also said to be stupendously wealthy, literally making a mint from selling Low Pour Fuel Oil (LPFO) and using his influence to attract contracts as well as oil blocs to himself and political associates.

 

The extent of his influence is not lost on Aso Rock frequenters. At a meeting of Southern Governors’ Forum in Benin last year, Governor Donald Duke of Cross River State gave hint of Andy’s influence.

Reports said Orji Kalu, Abia State governor and presidential aspirant, humorously suggested Duke’s name as tourism minister if elected president. Duke rejected it, saying he would not want to be a tourist in government. Kalu then offered him the ministry of agriculture. Again, Duke turned down, saying he had planted enough pineapples.

He then made his choice known: “I want the job of Andy (Uba).” His colleagues knew what he meant. Andy’s job is the stuff of dreams, offering direct access to the power switch, wealth and adulation by politicians.

 

Already, the Presidency is lining him up to become the next governor of Anambra State.

Andy’s elder brother, Ugochukwu, is a senator. As a matter of fact, Ugochukwu, a former university teacher, was Obasanjo’s choice for the Senate Presidency in 2003.

But being a new member of the upper legislative house, Ugochukwu was halted by the Senate resolution that new members would not be allowed to stand for election into its principal offices. He, however, got compensated with the chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Power and Steel.

 

The President then opted for Adolphus Wabara, a nominee of Andy Uba. In a chat with TheNEWS, Ugochukwu explained that their closeness to the Presidency is nothing unusual. “As for me, or together with my brothers, we are just normal Nigerians who are struggling to actualize ourselves like any other Nigerian....Knowing the President or someone working in the presidency is normal because it is human beings that are working there. So there is nothing peculiar about the Ubas,” he said.

 

But the affection is not one-sided. The three brothers are also big fans of Obasanjo, from whom they have enormously benefited in politics and business.

Their affection has been demonstrated in many ways, notably through the brazen rigging of the last general elections in favor of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the South-East. With Chris’ adept use of thugs and money from Abuja, the PDP swept everything before it. Uba installed Dr. Chris Ngige as governor in Anambra State and when they fell out, launched an illegal bid to remove him by abduction.

 

From the South-East, the Ubas have recently moved to the national level, where they are frenziedly working to accomplish Obasanjo’s tenure extension project via the controversial constitutional amendment. According to sources, the Uba brothers, in tandem with Anenih, are in charge of recruiting federal lawmakers to ensure smooth passage of the bill meant to prolong Obasanjo’s tenure.

 

Ugochukwu, the senator, has been unleashed on the senate, while Andy and Chris have been handed the license to roam the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Not known for their persuasive skills, the Uba brothers have been using money and blackmail to get legislators to support the extension bid. Sources told TheNEWS that the bribery scandal rocking the National Assembly is the creation of the Ubas. With the approval of Aso Rock, the three brothers have been going round the President’s friends in the corporate sector, taking money to federal lawmakers. Each senator has been promised N50 million, while each member of the House of Representatives will get N40million as first instalment for their support.

Already, some have received and pledged their support, while many others have rejected the offer and the extension plot.


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