March 28, 2010
The ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is taking its “family affair” matter to comical dimensions that can turn Satan himself into a laughing jackass. It is a fact of recent Nigerian memory that Chief Tony Anenih once served as the Minister of Works in which he left a legacy of wasting all of N300 billion on unconstructed roads, if the deposition of Chief Orji Uzor Kalu is to be believed.
The ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is taking its “family affair” matter to comical dimensions that can turn Satan himself into a laughing jackass. It is a fact of recent Nigerian memory that Chief Tony Anenih once served as the Minister of Works in which he left a legacy of wasting all of N300 billion on unconstructed roads, if the deposition of Chief Orji Uzor Kalu is to be believed.
Now Acting President Goodluck Jonathan has upped the ante in the Anenih family matters by naming the wife of the big man, Josephine that is, as one of the awaiting ministers of Nigeria. It amounts to a great toast to keeping it in the family. What is quite striking in the matter is that while the husband represented a different state, Edo, in his own incarnation as minister the wife is now a representative of Anambra State!
Before you shout Abracadabra, it needs to be recalled that only recently Pa Anenih served as the godfather of the trounced PDP candidate in the Anambra State gubernatorial polls, Prof Chukwuma Charles Soludo. Anenih had said then that he was quite willing to change his state of origin by adopting the Igbo name Anene. Maybe he had second thoughts by getting Goodluck Jonathan to magically make of him a ministerial indigene of Anambra State by way of marriage via his estranged wife! After all, it is a well-worn saying that what a man can do, a woman can do much better. Whence the new day wonder of husband and wife representing two different states and geo-political zones in the same government. Who can beat this feat that deserves a place in the Guinness Book of World Records?
The man Anenih currently serves as the chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), the post that led Chief Bode George to Kirikiri Maximum Security Prison. This fact was recently stressed by Edo State Governor Comrade Adams Oshiomhole who in his heated face-off with Anenih pointed out that it was ominous that the last bus stop on the highway to Kirikiri Prison is the NPA chairmanship! Instead of telling Anenih to beware, I can only make bold to advise Acting President Goodluck Jonathan to appoint Josephine Anenih into the Ministry of Transport so that husband and wife can be working effectively as a tag-team.
In the PDP lexicon of recyclable windbags Chief Anenih has metamorphosed from Board of Trustees chairman to minister and NPA chairman while the wife has graduated from PDP women’s leader to ministerial wannabe.
Who doesn’t know that two geniuses can come from the same family? I am totally against the use of Federal Character or even the charge of nepotism to deny Nigerians the use of their exceptional wonder workers as showcased by Tony and Josephine Anenih. After all, in our Super Eagles two brothers, Kalu and Ikechukwu Uche, are playing in the same team! Heavens have not fallen and our team has qualified for the World Cup! Any Doubting Thomas bringing up the N300 billion wastages slapped on Anenih paterfamilias by the maverick Orji Uzor Kalu as per the uselessness of the man in the first place should be quickly reminded that Orji Uzor is not the EFCC and has not been mandated to speak for the body.
It would have amounted to a colossal waste of talent if a man tagged Mr. Fix-It fails in the task of fixing his own wife, even if an estranged one, as the critics allege. Just like in the nation of Gabon where power shifted from the dead Papa Bongo to the living son Bongo, that is, from Bongo to Bongo, why can’t we in Nigeria have our own “from Anenih to Anenih”? This strikes a chord with the suggestion in informed PDP quarters that the Nigerian presidency should have been kept in the family coffers of the Yar’Aduas by making Turai to act for her ailing husband instead of bringing an outsider like Goodluck Jonathan to surly matters. It is so unlike the PDP in its family affair ways not to have taken the Turai option. It is my strong guess that, being wiser in hindsight, the PDP has goaded Jonathan to put in the name of a nephew of Yar’Adua in the new ministerial list to make up for lost ground. We may yet get to the stage of “from Yar’Adua to Yar’Adua”. Let’s keep our weather eyes open for, as they say in party politics, anything is possible… Alhaji Murtala Yar’Adua, the son of late General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, is well set for grooming to step into the shoes of his uncle Umaru Musa in the PDP spirit of keeping it in the family.
Since the Yar’Adua connection is still at best what the journalists call a breaking story, let’s make progress on the Anenih angle that we started with. Long before former Edo State Governor Lucky Igbinedion got a “family affair” plea bargain that saved him from the gulag for corruption, Chief Tony Anenih had advised him that he ought to have used the resources of his incumbency to develop the facilities at Benin prison because he, Lucky, was poised to end up there! In the current state of affairs that Oshiomhole has suggested that the chairmanship of the NPA is a surefire route to imprisonment, as in the case of Bode George, dare we suggest that Josephine Anenih be appointed the Minister of Internal Affairs so that she can touch up Kirikiri Prison and other prisons in the land in case the old man ends up there? Or even “the two both of them may end up there kpaa-kpaa,” as Zebrudaya Okoroigwe Nwogbo, alias 4.30 would say…
Now Acting President Goodluck Jonathan has upped the ante in the Anenih family matters by naming the wife of the big man, Josephine that is, as one of the awaiting ministers of Nigeria. It amounts to a great toast to keeping it in the family. What is quite striking in the matter is that while the husband represented a different state, Edo, in his own incarnation as minister the wife is now a representative of Anambra State!
Before you shout Abracadabra, it needs to be recalled that only recently Pa Anenih served as the godfather of the trounced PDP candidate in the Anambra State gubernatorial polls, Prof Chukwuma Charles Soludo. Anenih had said then that he was quite willing to change his state of origin by adopting the Igbo name Anene. Maybe he had second thoughts by getting Goodluck Jonathan to magically make of him a ministerial indigene of Anambra State by way of marriage via his estranged wife! After all, it is a well-worn saying that what a man can do, a woman can do much better. Whence the new day wonder of husband and wife representing two different states and geo-political zones in the same government. Who can beat this feat that deserves a place in the Guinness Book of World Records?
The man Anenih currently serves as the chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), the post that led Chief Bode George to Kirikiri Maximum Security Prison. This fact was recently stressed by Edo State Governor Comrade Adams Oshiomhole who in his heated face-off with Anenih pointed out that it was ominous that the last bus stop on the highway to Kirikiri Prison is the NPA chairmanship! Instead of telling Anenih to beware, I can only make bold to advise Acting President Goodluck Jonathan to appoint Josephine Anenih into the Ministry of Transport so that husband and wife can be working effectively as a tag-team.
In the PDP lexicon of recyclable windbags Chief Anenih has metamorphosed from Board of Trustees chairman to minister and NPA chairman while the wife has graduated from PDP women’s leader to ministerial wannabe.
Who doesn’t know that two geniuses can come from the same family? I am totally against the use of Federal Character or even the charge of nepotism to deny Nigerians the use of their exceptional wonder workers as showcased by Tony and Josephine Anenih. After all, in our Super Eagles two brothers, Kalu and Ikechukwu Uche, are playing in the same team! Heavens have not fallen and our team has qualified for the World Cup! Any Doubting Thomas bringing up the N300 billion wastages slapped on Anenih paterfamilias by the maverick Orji Uzor Kalu as per the uselessness of the man in the first place should be quickly reminded that Orji Uzor is not the EFCC and has not been mandated to speak for the body.
It would have amounted to a colossal waste of talent if a man tagged Mr. Fix-It fails in the task of fixing his own wife, even if an estranged one, as the critics allege. Just like in the nation of Gabon where power shifted from the dead Papa Bongo to the living son Bongo, that is, from Bongo to Bongo, why can’t we in Nigeria have our own “from Anenih to Anenih”? This strikes a chord with the suggestion in informed PDP quarters that the Nigerian presidency should have been kept in the family coffers of the Yar’Aduas by making Turai to act for her ailing husband instead of bringing an outsider like Goodluck Jonathan to surly matters. It is so unlike the PDP in its family affair ways not to have taken the Turai option. It is my strong guess that, being wiser in hindsight, the PDP has goaded Jonathan to put in the name of a nephew of Yar’Adua in the new ministerial list to make up for lost ground. We may yet get to the stage of “from Yar’Adua to Yar’Adua”. Let’s keep our weather eyes open for, as they say in party politics, anything is possible… Alhaji Murtala Yar’Adua, the son of late General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, is well set for grooming to step into the shoes of his uncle Umaru Musa in the PDP spirit of keeping it in the family.
Since the Yar’Adua connection is still at best what the journalists call a breaking story, let’s make progress on the Anenih angle that we started with. Long before former Edo State Governor Lucky Igbinedion got a “family affair” plea bargain that saved him from the gulag for corruption, Chief Tony Anenih had advised him that he ought to have used the resources of his incumbency to develop the facilities at Benin prison because he, Lucky, was poised to end up there! In the current state of affairs that Oshiomhole has suggested that the chairmanship of the NPA is a surefire route to imprisonment, as in the case of Bode George, dare we suggest that Josephine Anenih be appointed the Minister of Internal Affairs so that she can touch up Kirikiri Prison and other prisons in the land in case the old man ends up there? Or even “the two both of them may end up there kpaa-kpaa,” as Zebrudaya Okoroigwe Nwogbo, alias 4.30 would say…
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