Letter To
President Obasanjo On Anambra
By
Arthur Nzeribe
December 24, 2004
Your Excellency,
May I seize this opportunity to wish the president a merry Christmas and a happy
new year. I write, however, mostly in an attempt to contribute to the national
discourse on a matter that affects all Nigerians in general and the Igbo in
particular. I am referring to the Anambra crisis, which has been in the front
burner of our national polity.
In making my contribution, I will endeavour not to manifest my bias no matter
how justified or correct I think they are. You know I have a position on the
Anambra matter; which I hold to firmly, more firmly as the crisis develops and
the situation deteriorates daily. May I at this juncture state that I agree with
every line in your letter to Chief Audu Ogbeh, in response to his.
Contrary to the views held in several quarters, I cannot see the rationale
behind the attempt to ridicule the contents of your letter. Having read your
letter with all the attention I could afford, my honest view is that Nigerians
should rather show appreciation for you frankness in responding to the issues
raised by the national chairman the way you did. In my view, it takes only a
leader with courage and honesty of purpose to admit the much you know about the
Anambra crisis, publicly. As far as I am concerned, those who have been making a
fuss out of your letter are not themselves honest, because I believe they are
assessing its contents with a mind set. This certainly does not help matters.
An unbiased reading of your letter would certainly reveal that the no-holds-bar
approach your employed – which is, of course, characteristic of your style – for
the first time brought to the public knowledge things hitherto never known by
Nigerians, generally, since the crisis erupted about eighteen months ago.
Personally, I felt relieved with certain revelations you made in your letter
because they make me a more informed commentator or even mere on-looker on the
Anambra matter. In my view, the major significance of your letter to Chief Ogbeh
is that it demonstrates, once more, that the Anambra crisis is of concern to
you, contrary to the belief in some quarters. Therefore, I believe that we
should do everything to encourage Your Excellency to internalize the problem in
all its ramifications; in order words to see it as a problem that does not only
exist but for which a solution must be found without further delay, albeit
politically.
Let me, however, hasten to add that I do not believe that the Anambra crisis
poses any threat, of whatever nature, to your administration or to the present
democratic setting. If there are those who try to paint such a scenario, I
believe it is out of sheer exasperation of the curious nature the crisis is
taking even under a democratic setting where parties to political disputes of
this nature have a good opportunity for dialogue. Nigerians marvel at the fact
that a matter which was initially viewed as a “family affair”, is snowballing
into a full-blown war. Clearly, it is obvious that such initial responses were
out of a gross under estimation of the problem. From the content of your letter,
it is possible that those whose duty it was to intimate you with the facts of
the matter fed you with conclusions that were either hastily arrived at or
based on sheer ignorance or mischief. It must have been under such faulty
premises that you went ahead to give nod to the previous attempts at resolving
the crisis.
First, there was the Adolphus Wabara /Achike Udenwa-led peace committee that
came up with the Owerri accord. Your Excellency, that effort yielded nothing.
I was a participant. The peace agreement was never respected and things merely
worsened as the entire nation witnessed recently. Perhaps, more intriguing is
the Sam Egwu committee, which you inaugurated after the last mayhem in the
state. As things stand, the committee has not succeeded yet.
Your Excellency, the thrust of my contribution is to plead with you to discard
the idea of sending emissaries to the warring factions in Anambra. That approach
has failed. What I am saying, in other words, Your Excellency, is that you have
to do the legwork yourself since you are desirous of seeing an end to the
crisis. As I noted above, I do not believe that the crisis is capable of hurting
your administration, but the crisis is hurting a lot of people who believe that
you are the only one capable of bringing an end to it. And I stand on their
side, since they are in the majority. Your Excellency, don’t you rather feel
flattered that there exists one problem, which every body in Nigeria and even
beyond believes that only you have an answer to. For the avoidance of doubt, I
have a similar belief. Your Excellency, ask your handlers to bring you media
update of the last twelve months on he Anambra matter. You will see an
avalanche of angry commentaries on the crisis, all tending to portray you as
either a collaborator or a conniver. This is in spite of the fact that there are
no evidences yet linking you to the crisis.
As far as I am concerned, the only reason there are such interpretations, that
is why you are so accused, even without any substance, is that Nigerians believe
that you could stop the crisis with a snap of your fingers, even where
constitutionally, it might not be as simple as that. But once they watch as the
situation deteriorates daily, they have no other alternative but to conclude
that their president, whom they believe has the powers to stop the problem, is
up to something or has a vested interest
Your Excellency, I did not take more than a cursory look at Chief Ogbeh’s letter
when I saw it in the newspapers; the reason being that I saw nothing new in it.
The proprietary or otherwise of the letter is not my concern here but I believe
that the thrust of it had been touched on before by several other Nigerians even
in a more vehement, if not vitriolic manner.
Your Excellency, I appeal to you to limit your anger on Ogbeh since, inspite of
being the chief executive of the ruling party, he acted human to believe, like
the majority of Nigerians, that you hold the ace card to the Anambra crisis. I,
myself, am also of that view. As I said earlier, I believe in the contents of
your letter which revealed certain things Anambra people, themselves, must have
been shocked to hear. The letter exposed both parties. But having got that far,
I think what to do, Your Excellency, is to go ahead and bring an end to the
crisis. That is what Nigerians, especially Anambrarians, are looking forward to.
And that is what you should do. Mr. President, wave the ‘magic wand’.
Let me at this juncture state that I do not support the idea that Mr. President
has done nothing, at all, on the Anambra crisis. As I noted earlier, you gave
nod to the Wabara committee and more recently constituted the Egwu committee I
was touched the day I read in the news that you personally presided over a
security meeting you summoned following the three-day mayhem unleashed on t he
state, allegedly by one of the factions to the dispute. It is also on record
that following that incident; you ordered the restoration of “limited” security
to Governor Chris Ngige. This, you did despite the fact that there was a
subsisting court order barring the Inspector-General of Police from according
Governor Ngige such paraphernalia of office. And when the order was lifted
recently, the Inspector-General wasted no time in restoring in full the
Governor’s security details. Right now, reports have it that of all the State
Governors, Dr. Ngige probably has the highest number of policemen officially
attached to him. There is a saying in Igbo that when you praise a man for one
accomplishment, he would be encouraged to do more. If Mr. President could do all
that, I strongly believe he could do much more, by waving the magic wand.
Before now, the matter looked as if it was something sacrosanct. But your letter
punctured all that. You have demystified the matter by having the courage to
publicly say that both parties do not have their hands clean, as per your
metaphor of two criminals sharing their loot. I believe that makes the search
for a solution easier. Any such solution must be moral and political. It must
also be in the context of what the majority of the people of Anambra State in
particular want and need-- peace. Happily, you have said over and over again
that the problem requires a political and moral solution. This in effect means
that something or someone has to give. A political and moral solution is beyond
the reach of legal manipulations, time wasting exercise or corruption. It is a
solution that is within your ambit and constitutional powers. It is prompt and
less painful on the long run. It will bring everlasting peace, fast and embody
justice above all. It will be in tandem with the major pegs on your epistle to
Chief Audu Ogbeh. Mr. President, in the name of God, act now
Your Excellency, I need not bore you with rhetorics. I believe the ball is in
your court. You know what to do. Stop hesitating. To my mind, there must be
peace in Anambra at all cost, no matter whose ox is gored. My fear is that if
not decisively brought to an end now, politicians in the state will employ the
crisis as the basis of their politicking towards 2007; in which case it may
never really end till the end of this dispensation of which you are the Chief
Superintendent. Sir, I believe you would loath to have a portion of your hand
over notes in May 2007, refer to “this intractable crisis in Anambra that has
defied solution”. Indeed, my wish for the President and the rest of the over one
hundred and thirty million Nigerians whom he leads is that the crisis should not
see the new year. And it is not impossible.
As you heed this advice to begin to take urgent and deliberate steps towards
resolving the Anambra crisis once and for all, I wish Your Excellency the best.
•Nzeribe is a Senator of the Federal Republic
