Happy Birthday Senator Chris Ngige, Let us Sing And Dance

Love him or detest him, Senator Chris Nwabueze Ngige remains a classic to be deliberated in the annals of Nigerian politics. And yet more volumes flood in as he continues in his crusade to liberate the state of Nigerian politics from its condition of desuetude, to one where politicians and leaders seek and invest in advanced ideas to salvage their people from the artificial restraints of inequality and poverty.

This has surely earned him great foes, vicious and mean men in high places. Yet he has as well a place in the hearts of the ordinary man and this is proven by the fact that he never rents a crowd, but has charmed the people with his past works, native intelligence and simple way of life, his heartbeat is in synch with that of the farmer in Anam and Anyamelum areas, the trader in Onitsha and Nnewi Markets, The Corn Sellers in Ekuke, the Nursing Mother in Abagana, the student population in Uli, Igbariam and Awka, the Pensioner in Ebenebe, Awba Ofemili and Otogo Nnewi. He surely feels their pains and has vowed to lift such weights anywhere they are found.

Unlike certain demagogues who like to announce to the whole world their harebrained projects as indubitable achievements, for it is only in Anambra that a government announces with shameless hilarity and animation that it has carried out immunization in the state! Or given out ambulances, to non functioning clinics, spending millions of Naira on bill boards, leaflets, TV and radio advertisements in self praise, using many gifted in the art of the spin doctors as Mephisto to this Faust, that even when they fart, they immediately claim it has a wonderful deodorizing appeal.

Dr. Ngige needs no spin doctors, as an Ex Governor and savvy administrator his works as governor reveal dimensions to the man, his philosophy goes beyond windy platitudes and political banality. Whereas he spent only 33 months as Governor amidst iniquitous sallies from the Obasanjo government, a determined Chris Uba and his acolytes and even the Anambra Electoral Petitions Tribunal, Ngige managed to work, performing excellently. This is even acknowledged by his strongest foes that despite their astringent thoughts about him, they still look at his projects with admiration and unconsciously mutter, Chi Gozie Nwa Ngige! In English Language it means, God Bless Ngige's children. This trend alone nullifies out rightly one of President Jonathan's strong arguments for tenure elongation.

Now as a Senator one has no fears that we will once again be exposed to his joie de vivre in the Senate, a Senate lacking in vim and vigor since the days of the late Dr. Chuba Okadigbo. In Senator Ngige, there can never be a dull moment, for the people of Anambra Central, Igbo land and Nigeria as a whole, President Goodluck Jonathan's transformation agenda may obtain a speedy vehicle with his likes in the Senate.

Let me state that the cause for celebrating Senator Chris Ngige today, is not limited to partisan politics, nor tribal sentiments. Ngige's fan base cuts across the four cardinal points of the Federation, reaping the respect and the admiration of millions of Nigerians at home and abroad. His trademark beard and jaunty cap remain symbols of his struggle for emancipation amongst the youth.

But how can we forget Ngige's labours, it is with us even when we seek at other things, pushing back, obtruding our inner most thoughts like a flood turning into a torrent or a breeze becoming a gale. Such a situation is hardly surprising, for Anambra state had in the years past been bereft of any semblance, even a pretence to good governance by past leaders, bad governance was a like a norm, a way of life an inclination before he came on board. Even his coming as governor was simply viewed as the continuity of such an ugly trend, many dismissed our diminutive hero as a prisoner in the Chris Uba scheme to continue the hemorrhaging of Anambra state, Senator Ngige's rise from such an invented prison and his capacity in overcoming the trials and tribulations unleashed on him, even in the face of unsaid defeat proved them wrong. In his 33 months of governance we were reminded of our heroic reaction to the triple onslaught of war, starvation and blockade engineered against the Igbo people and other ethnic minorities during the Biafran war.

Senator Ngige is compared to our avowed Igbo leader, General Emeka Ojukwu. Senator Ngige built 44 Inter Local Government, State and Federal Roads, spanning all Local Government Areas in the State, 14 township roads in Onitsha, 10 Township roads in Awka, 8 at Nnewi, with a dualisation of the Nnamdi Azikiwe Avenue, thus when a spin doctor like Val Obienyem accuses Senator Ngige of building roads which led only to his Alor country home, one is immediately taken aback at such an attempt at tactless revisionism. It is again a fact that when Senator Ngige's administration came onboard, they met an empty treasury, yet when he was leaving, the state coffers boasted of 12.8 billion Naira in its accounts, an act unprecedented in our state or national history, yet such a noble act was irrationally described by Victor Umeh the APGA National Chairman as a landmine of sorts!

It was Ngige who cleared the backlog of pensions, paid striking teachers and members of the civil service arrears of salaries owed them by the Mbadinuju administration.

It was Ngige who asked the University administration of the Anambra State University to reduce the tuition fees from N30, 000 to N18, 500 and also refund the N5, 000 collected from the students in order to have the University accredited. Today the fees in ANSU have been increased by 110 percent a gesture by the present state government to show that it loves education. This governor even had the audacity to mock the students, saying that university education was for only those who could afford it and that if they really wanted to attend ANSU; they ought to tell their mothers to sell their wrappers as he claims his mother did. Pray my most learned reader, how many wrappers would your mother sell today to raise 130,000 annually for school fees, asides books, accommodation and other financial involvements.

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While religious tensions are gradually rearing its head in Anambra state, we remember with nostalgia how meritocracy was built as an altar in Anambra State under Senator Chris Ngige, here a catholic governor in Ngige had more Anglicans in its cabinet.In other sectors, despite the mantra of developing all sectors simultaneously of the current state government, the Ngige Legacy in Anambra thumps whatever Mr. Obi presents, in style, planning and delivery. Such great achievements will build a monument which shall endure until the sun grows cold. I am unstinting in my judgement of him

As Ngige clocks 59 today being August the 8th 2011, let us celebrate the man whose greatness is essential to the hopes of Ndigbo and Nigeria as a nation, let us roll out the drums, sing and dance. Happy Birthday Sir.

Igboeli Arinze Napoleon writes from Abuja.

Dr. Chris Nwabueze Ngige chats with SIMON EBEGBULEM of Saturday Vanguard

Former governor of Anambra State and now the Senator representing Anambra Central District, Dr Chris Nwabueze Ngige, was in Benin City last week for the retreat organized for governors in the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) controlled states.

In this chat with SIMON EBEGBULEM of Saturday Vanguard Ngige speaks on the ongoing legal battle between him and the former Minister of Information, Prof.Dora Akunyili, the 7th Senate and the issue of Boko Haram. He warns that with the prevailing security situation in the country, the nation is sitting on a keg of gun powder.Excerpts:

We hear you may abandon the governorship election legal battle since you are now in the senate.

Dr Chris Nwabueze Ngige:

No no no!. I have not abandoned the gubernatorial legal battle. As you know, I went to court to challenge two things. First, I said that the man declared winner did not meet the constitutional requirements. He has majority of the votes cast quite alright but he did not score 25 per cent of all the votes cast in 2/3rd of all the Local Governments in Anambra state. Anambra state has 21 local governments and 2/3rd of 21 is 14. He has that in 13 but they are claiming that what we are talking about was all the votes cast, not valid votes cast.

In the INEC manual, they defined all these things. That is the first leg. Then the second leg is the voters’ register. 17 per cent of people in Anambra state were alleged to have voted and that 17 per cent translated to about 203,000 voters. Out of it you have 1.8million voters. The issue of whether that register was valid, that is the big question. Can we start to go for an election? INEC has partially answered it. When after their retreat in Uyo, they declared that Nigeria’s voters register was faulty and in particular that of Anambra and Akwa Ibom.

So the question becomes when you deprived people of voting, people who registered and they turned out on election day and their names were not seen, and the people are in the majority, about 83 per cent, can such an election said to be in compliance with the Electoral Act? We are saying no, it should be nullified and a fresh election should take place. So the case is still on. As a matter of fact, the Court of Appeal sitting in Enugu, delivered judgment two days ago, saying that we should go back to the Tribunal, that a new tribunal should be set up for us to try the case de novo. So we are waiting now for the Court of Appeal to give us a new tribunal to try the case.

It seems you enjoy having political battles with people. Recently, it was Prof Dora Akunyili. How do you feel always battling?

Prof.Akunyili is my family friend. I don’t want to discuss her but it is good that we are in this political logjam now and it affords one the opportunity to re-appraise relationship you had in the past and know whether the relationship was blossoming because one is gaining from you or the other way.

It is unfortunate that we found ourselves in this situation. Unfortunate, in the sense that at least she came to solicit for my blessing as former governor of the state sometime in October last year and she came again in December. That time, I had not made my interest known because my party had not told former governors that we were the ones that would carry the party’s flag in the senatorial elections so that we could make our party alive. And that was what I did.

What is your focus in the senate?

The 7th Senate will be the best Nigeria will have. As a matter of fact, the 7th National Assembly will be different. We have many former governors there and apart from that, we have people who came from the House of Representatives. We have also some senators coming back for third term and fourth term like the senate president. So the membership is already a qualitative one. Again Mark as senate president is very experienced; he went to school and vast in many ways. So he knows the politics of the place.

So we have good leadership. And when Senator David Mark wanted to come back, some of us voiced our apprehension about the image of the senate. And we know that one of the cardinal things that made the image bad was the so called jumbo pay. And before we came in, we surveyed that issue of jumbo pay and we discovered that actually it was not a question of salaries and allowances of senators that was called the jumbo pay, it was a misconception. Whatever they took in terms of allowances and salaries were as prescribed by the Revenue Mobilization Commission, so it constitutional.

It is this same commission that fixed the salaries of President, Vice President, Judges, senate president and National Assembly members. So National Assembly members did not breach that. What people misconstrued as jumbo pay was the running cost of the National Assembly. And that was what Sanusi was alluding to that it was gulping 25 per cent of the national recurrent expenditure not the entire budget.

Over head cost, which includes refreshment, fuel, stationeries and others, so this is what is called recurrent expenditure. So in order for the National Assembly to feel the pain of the ordinary Nigerians, we advised that they must be slashed. And the Senate President being the chairman of the National Assembly, consulted with former Speaker Bankole before we were sworn in.

And they agreed that the money must be slashed. And after we were sworn in, he informed us that some of those things we were talking about before swearing in have been taken care of. 40 per cent slash of the recurrent expenditure. And it is a very big sacrifice because it means that even the travels and tours funds were slashed.

And from this recurrent expenditure, you take care of your own constituency offices and sometimes it is actually very expensive because you have to open constituency offices in your area, like I am planning to open seven constituency offices which I will furnish and employ people there.

Boko Haram has been holding Nigeria hostage. How do we tackle that?

It is a socio-political religious problem. We need jobs for these people to keep them busy. We need skill acquisition centres. When people apply skills, they will discover that they will make more money than those working in the offices. With that, they will stay out of trouble. This is the social aspect of it. If you go to the political angle, the politicians use them during elections.

We have some big people backing them. Those people also believe that they can destabilize the government. Then the religious aspect of it, this is where the Imams, Mallams who teach the Holy Koran should come in. These people have been brain washed that they are fighting for Allah. That everything Western education is bad. So we must re-orientate them.

The Islamic scholars have big job in their hands now for this country. If they are patriotic to this nation, they should move in now. I know that other Mallams are afraid to go into the matter seriously because of the dangers involved. The security agents must rise to the occasion. It is not enough to start playing politics with security now. I as a matter Chief Executive of a state noticed when I was governor that the SSS and the police hardly collaborate. This is not the time for it.

The office of the National Security Adviser must stand up and be useful. And the job of that office is the coordination of all the arms of security. The enforcement of all security laws is very necessary. The politicians who are doing this should be fished out because they want to destabilize both the state and federal governments. Again, schools, skill acquisition centres should be opened everywhere. If you go to the South East, that is why you see kidnapping everyday. They recruit them because they are idle.

Above all, the government and the elites should know that we are all sitting on a keg of gun powder. If we do not do something to make majority of Nigerian people happy, things will go bad, we might lose Nigeria and we don’t pray for that.

Government must encourage education, it is a weapon against poverty, it is a weapon against ignorance. Once you have gotten education, you have fought poverty, disease, ignorance. So this is the cardinal thing. People should be treated for malaria free of charge. Pregnant women the same. These are social security issues we need to tackle.

Credit: Vanduard

Ngige secured 69,725 votes to defeat Prof.Dora Akunyili 69,236 votes

Dr Chris Ngige of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has been declared winner of the Anambra Central Senatorial election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). His rival and challenger   Prof. Dora Akunyili of the  All Progressive Grand Alliance(APGA) was defeated by Dr Chris Ngige, a former governor of Anambra State.

"The exercise was dogged by hitches in some of the polling units. At Obosi and Nkpor in Idemili North Council Area, election materials arrived late while accreditation and voting started late, despite a low turn out. At Aguata, Igwe Dr. Martins Eze called for the cancellation because of the hitches.As at 2:30p.m. yesterday, members of both ACN and PDP were still protesting at the INEC office at Aguata, threatening a showdown over harassment of their members," reported by The Nation Newspaper.

Ngige secured 69,725 votes to defeat Prof.Dora Akunyili of  APGA  who got  69,236 votes in an election held Tuesday in nine wards of the senatorial district to

finalized  the election held on April 9 in the area.

The defeated senatorial candidate Prof. Dora Akunyili of the  All Progressive Grand Alliance(APGA)

This Day reported that "on Wednesday morning, the result of the Osun state House of Assembly poll held on Tuesday was released with the ACN winning all the 26 seats state assembly seats. The state Resident Electoral Commissioner , Mr Rufus Akeju who announced the results in Osogbo, the state capital  said the ACN also  won the re-scheduled House of Representatives election for Ife federal constituency."