The looting of Anambra State - The Obele Chuka Bombshell!


*OBI IS A VERY PIUS FRAUD

*REGULARLY LIES THROUGH HIS TEETH

*AWARDS SENSITIVE CONTRACTS TO FRIENDS

*WIFE WASTES N1.7 BILLION ON SECOND TERM TOUR

*STATE FUNDS IN FIDELITY BANK WHILE MASSES SUFFER

*ELEVATES DECEPTION AND BLACKMAIL TO GOVERNANCE TOOLS



ukpakareports.com presents the much talked about interview by renowned Human Rights Advocate, Barrister Chuka Obele Chuka, carried by SCROLL Magazine in their 2nd February 2009 edition. The revelations were so accurate that the trio of Peter Obi (The Fraudster in Chief), Chima Okafor (Peter’s lackey and Commerce Commissioner) and Dubem Obaze (Peter’s Chief Enforcer and Local Government Commissioner) sent their henchmen to buy up all copies from vendors to stop the magazine reaching SCROLL regular readers. Yes, killing Peter Obi stories is now where Anambra funds are now being committed instead of paying the state’s civil servants who already are on meagre wages and are the worst paid in the country. The salary structure recommended by the Federal government in 2006 has been implemented in every other state except Peter Obi’s Anambra that prefers to bank our money in Fidelity Bank while creaming off the interest on that deposit personally to the tune of 365,000,000 Naira monthly (as at October 2008), paid to Mr Peter Obi every two weeks in dollars by the bank. Since his brother and business partner Mr. Ndibe Obi no longer has the capacity to launder the money alone due to the size of the loot, Mr Obi has recently enlisted the services of a Port Harcourt based Ozubulu businessman to help him launder the serious cash his Orange Juice business is generating from the Governor’s office in Awka. They have now acquired the cinema at The Palms in Lekki, Lagos, with our dough. Further revelation on this new money laundry relationship will be brought to you very shortly but in the meantime, please have a good read of the Obele Chuka Interview.

Q: Sir, from your antecedents you have been at the forefront of human right activism in the country. So how would you assess the state of human rights in the Nigeria, particularly Anambra State?



ANS: Well, I can say that we have had some remarkable improvement with respect to the right to life. Better than what we had during the inglorious and murderous regimes of Obasanjo and of Dr. Chinwoke Mbadinuju, when unlawful termination of people’s lives was the order of the day. There were several genocidal invasions in Odi and Zaki Biam, invasion and burning of properties in Anambra by gangsters backed by federal police. People were cannibalised in a most gruesome manner in the name of fighting armed robbery in Anambra State. That period represented a dark era in Anambra State. These remarkable improvements could be traced to a combination of factors. In the country, to what I want to describe as the laisser affair policy of the President. In Anambra, it was a combination of many variables. One was the supreme sacrifice paid by my Chairman, B.C Igwe and his wife Amaka, and I know they are in paradise, who were murdered by the State as a result of their principled stand against the Mbadinuju mal-governance of the time. Their refusal to be compromised to abandon the resolution of the Bar Association cost them their lives in the hands of Mbadinuju’s Bakassi Boys. Another factor was the manner in which the NBA Onitsha branch, supported by our national body took the battle to those who murdered them ensuring that those who procured the killings never had a night sleep and were brought to book! Another was the manner his political godfather, Emeka Offor battled him to abort the government’s killing spree and to terminate his misgovernance of the State. All these culminated in the truncation of his projected 2nd tenure. It became unattractive for subsequent governments to have resort to violence like Mbadinuju did. Again the good governance that Ngige gave during his illegitimate reign as Governor coupled with his lawful use of vigilante groups reduced crime. And currently the commendable role of the Police in confronting the armed robbery menace.



But looking at it from a broader perspective and taking into cognisance the provisions of the Constitution of the land and the African Charter, I would say that the rights of our citizens have become worse in the sense that their living conditions have become most miserable. In Anambra, the present government did not only embargo employment, it is not also creating jobs it covenanted in his campaign brochures to use to fight crimes. The only attempt at creating jobs is the purchase of few mass transit mini buses and the terror machine known as Anambra State Traffic Agency (ASTA). Stop and ask any of them, and they are always in yellow on green uniform, whether they have received a dime as salaries since they were employed in January 2008. The government’s idea of paying them is to unleash them on hapless citizens to extort with menace sundry illegal levies and thereafter require them through their coordinators to pay a certain percentage of the sum extorted to the government. ASTA and other Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) agents have constituted themselves into what I consider monsters which employ Gestapo tactics to terrify the citizens in the name of generating and hitting the N1billion monthly revenue benchmark set out by the State government. Healthwise, the situation is alarming. The doctors in Anambra are on strike, the second time in 9 months. Our Governor says he does not why they are on strike. Only God knows the number of persons who have lost their lives as a result. Primary health care in the State have virtually collapsed and that is part of the reason the doctors went on strike. People are trapped daily in horrible traffic snarls as a result of the total uninterrupted neglect of our roads networks or shoddy rehabilitation of roads by both federal and state governments. The lives of Anambra State citizens have become, if you do not mind, miserable, nasty and brutish. On education, it is in a parlous state. Even Agulu Boys in the Governor’s hometown, the St Joseph’s Boys Secondary School in Aguleri, are in a terrible state. Agulu Boys was the best in infrastructure some years back. Please take a visit there and you will shed tears. Number of students per class is averaging 55. No government worker was paid his salary this December 2008 and the Governor had boasted several times that he will resign if workers were not paid by the 26th day of any month. Anambra State was the only state in Nigeria where workers spent Christmas without money. Workers had to explain to their poor children that we have a Governor who prefers to save our money for us, than pay workers their monthly salaries. Water Corporation staffs are yet to be paid since the Governor came into office and they are starving to death. Over 40 have already died. Over 20 bedridden by stroke. ANSEPA staffs are owed over 22months. Awka, Nnewi and Onitsha are dirtier than he met them. No pipe borne water in the state. This is a record in this country.



Q: Why attack a Government you risked your life to recover its stolen mandate and to enthrone. I remember in 2003 you led a citywide protest in Awka during which you miraculously escaped being killed by soldiers guarding the INEC office at Awka. In 2006, you dared over 350 heavily armed police to confront and object to the former C.J’s inauguration of the impeachment panel. Why the turn around?



ANS: I am a strong believer that one is a true friend if one looked you in the face and tell you where you err. All that I am saying now, I have told the Governor in private. But when I walked out of his work plan presentation at Sharon hall Onitsha in 2008 and told him to leave Ngige alone and go to work, immediately it was published he sent emissaries who came to my office and those who called on the phone – all to arrange a meeting with the Governor, for settlement, my response was consistent: please ask him to go to work and use our money to give us quality development, I was getting embarrassed on a daily basis everywhere I go by glaring evidence of wishy washy jobs being celebrated as achievements. But I must give him credit for listening to me when he imposed a weekly sanitation exercise of 7am to 2pm duration. Although the reversal came after I gave him notice of my intention to mobilize our people to defy his executive proclamation which I told him had no force of law. I never knew Peter Obi or even heard his name in any circle until he entered the Governorship race in 2002. But I was never his friend in the real sense of the word. What perhaps brought us together was the false declaration made by INEC that Ngige won that election and my personal resolve as I did during the annulment of June 12 election, not to allow that false declaration stand.



Respond to the allegation by the government that you are attacking the Governor because he refused to make you the Attorney General as compensation for your role in fighting against his impeachment.

The Governor has never said this in 2007 when I took a walk during his presentation of his work plan at Onitsha as he began his usual diatribe on his predecessor. He never said it when I went to the house of assembly and urged for his constitutional impeachment of his fraudulent transactions with Water Corporation funds. It is sure sign of a jittery and drowning person. Everybody knows me that I do not seek favours. I am an iconoclast of some sorts. No doubt, Obi was always courting me, labouring always to tell people that I am his friend because he was the direct beneficiary of my modest struggle along with other activists and well meaning Ndi Anambra to reclaim the stolen mandate. Then I was a huge role model to him and whose integrity was unimpeachable and he never sponsored me and my integrity rubbed off on him. Today I have become little Chuka, that is how the advertorials he sponsored against me in the papers described me, because according to him Ngige is sponsoring me. I do not blame him because it shows how petty he is and that explains the pedestrian level he has brought down governance. I had rejected gifts he offered me including cash before he became Governor. On one occasion, he gave the ex chairperson of CLO some gifts with instruction to drop them in my absence in my office knowing that I would throw him and the gift out of office. I gave Obi a text thanking him for the gifts but called CLO boss to take them back. When he sought to persuade me otherwise, I gave them out to acquaintances.



I must say that I started noticing some defective character traits of the Governor before the impeachment saga. 3 months in office I called him and expressed dismay over his abandonment of roads started by Ngige. He claimed he knew what he was doing. But the notice of impeachment was a turning point. When I saw the items of offences listed by the pro-impeachment lawmakers and met the Governor I told him that he was guilty of all but one, because most included what most of us who stood for the people’s mandate had been telling him in private; do not abandon the roads started by your predecessor, stop giving preference to Fidelity Bank. Do not save our funds in the banks while our people suffer, release the allowances of the members of House of Assembly, 3m Naira approved by his predecessor, stop awarding sensitive contracts to your friends who have no capacity to execute them, stop smearing your predecessor even on church pulpits, cease eulogizing Obasanjo to high heavens. In fact during the church service for the late justice Egbuna at St. Mary’s Catholic Church Onitsha burial, this was before his impeachment, I stood up to leave the church when he mounted the pulpit and started bad mouthing Dr. Ngige inspite of my advice. It took the intervention of a senior colleague in the Bar who is his lawyer to hold me back even as he also said he had advised him against it. I remember. I reminded him of his campaign vow to do 100 km of road annually. In fact a Coalition of human rights groups under my co-leadership had sent him a comprehensive memo detailing our misgivings with what we thought was an unacceptable slow pace of governance. I ensured the memo was delivered to him personally, because had it leaked we would have been accused of supplying the ammunition for his impeachment. I told him pointedly even as I rejected a suspicious N500,000.00 he offered me as a condolence token for my father burial in the night of October 16 2006 the day the notice of impeachment broke, that he was the one who provided the ammunition for the enemies of the State to annul our mandate and that he should fight the battle alone. He assured me he had the total support of Obasanjo which made me to laugh. The same night I pondered over my decision not to be involved in the looming skirmish and told myself that our posterity will never forgive me if I stood by and watch the lawmakers who had ulterior motives succeed. I threw the N500,000.00 back at him in the presence of his private driver who brought it in a bag and other persons including a right activist who accompanied me. I told the Governor it was a bribe to help him fight against his impeachment, because when he paid his condolence visit the previous day, he never gave or promised to give me any such token. I pointedly told him off for thinking he could cheapen and reduce my decision to fight against the impeachment in Naira and Kobo. I believe he was embarrassed. In fact, I was so angry that I stopped taking his calls. So it is surreptitious for the Governor to sponsor his party chairman to do an advertorials in newspapers claiming that I rejected the N500,000.00 because I considered it too meagre for what I did at inauguration of the Kangaroo panel. Or that I became angry because the Governor refused to make me the A.G as compensation for what the government described as my unsolicited grandstanding during the inauguration of the panel. My father was buried on October 13, 2006 and the rites ended on Sunday October 15 2006. The Governor paid his condolence visit on that last day being October 15 in company of even your colleagues and he never gave me a dime. A day after, October 16, the impeachment notice was initiated by the house. It was the same Monday that the Governor called me after the solidarity rally and offered me the N500,000.00 which I rejected as constituting a bribe. Even the Governor knows that I have a wider interpretation of the words bribe and gratification. The Kangaroo panel was inaugurated on October 30. It was therefore absolutely impossible for me to have rejected the 500,000.00 as being insufficient for an unsolicited act that took place about 2 weeks later. Again, by the time the panel was being inaugurated there was a sitting A.G., who had been appointed with my decisive support because the Governor called me to make a choice between two candidates, while I chose one, the Governor preferred the other but latter accepted my choice. And this A.G. was performing the duties of that office well for only 4 months by the time impeachment saga broke. The Governor was removed about four days after my so-called grandstanding. So the question is, would I have expected the Governor to dissolve his about 4 months old cabinet to remove his A.G. whom I proposed and insisted on his appointment, for the Governor now appoint me into the same office? Or would I have been expecting a Governor who was impeached about 4 days after my grandstanding and who remained in political wilderness until Feb the next year to have appointed me his AG. in exile? Even by the time I set out to filibuster the inauguration of the kangaroo panel I was not on talking terms with him as I discovered gradually that he was always talking ill of people around him. If I tell you what the Governor said of certain persons including current members of his cabinet and his legal team you will never respond to salutations from them. He was literally painting all black only to deny it if confronted in the presence of his victim. At one time after his return he invited me to Agulu and I went with my former partner who was to contest for the house of Assembly election, he flaunted a document claiming to be evidence of Etiaba’s embezzlement of 38b he saved, and employment of more than 2000 Nnewi indigenes into the government in her 3 months as Governor and solicited our organization’s support to convey the information to Anambra people and to publicly support for his tenure determination suit, When I requested for a copy, he merely read out typical Nnewi names and said it was a sensitive document, I simply dozed off leaving my colleague who did not know him well to strive to impress him. Even when my colleague tugged my trouser that it was discourteous, I told him what I would do if I raise my head from the table will be worse. Because I would leave both of them. The Governor never complained though because he knew that I discovered he was lying and was no longer ready to listen further unless he released a copy of the document from which he was reading and he knew what I was capable of doing.



During a particular period, I stopped taking his calls because I was growing weary of his dishonesty, and as a result of my growing concern of his capacity to deliver on the huge expectations of people like us. It took the call made by the Governor through the cell phone of his friend who was then my client, Chief Chris Emoka, and the latter’s pleas, for me to talk to him after a long while. This was during the impeachment saga. By that time he was broken physically, spiritually and emotionally and had discovered that Obasanjo and Andy Uba were behind the impeachment. That was when he made another wrong move by reaching out to the pro-impeachment lawmakers to offer them money to avert the impeachment. I advised him, when he sought my view, against it knowing that it had gone beyond the lawmakers demand for their 3m entitlements, but he said the lawmakers interest was money and their demand was 20m each, an that he had also settled the C.J with N60m which the C.J. demanded. My brothers, about 4 days after delivering the second and last instalment of 20m per legislator, our Governor was impeached. When I visited him in his hotel he was weeping and apologizing that he never heeded the advice of well meaning persons like me. He swore in the presence of a friend I took along, but who is now working and he is now using to purport to malign me, that should he return that he would depart from his old ways. He broke down in tears. Sadly when he returned he persisted in his old ways and in fact grew worse day by day. When he continued to sponsor stories that Ngige was behind the impeachment, I became worried because here was a man who knew that Andy Uba procured his impeachment yet was busy accusing another man. Yet he never said a word against Uba and Obasanjo during and after the impeachment but kept castigating Ngige while embracing and calling Uba in public his good friend. The same man who asked his deputy Ma Etiaba to take over to avoid the then Speaker from taking over as Acting Governor, turned round to accuse the old woman of betrayal, and went on to sponsor stories in the papers that she embezzled 38billion he saved before his impeachment. He also refused to file the tenure determination suit as soon as he took office. I only discovered the reason when I learnt that he had entered into a pact with Andy Uba and Obasanjo to have Ngige removed through the courts with an understanding that he will serve for the unexpired residue of that four year term and make way for Andy Uba in 2007.



How can our Governor who claimed in a meeting and in the presence and shock of many persons and has until date pretended that he never saw nor read of the said confrontation, offer me N500, 000.00 as compensation for the action? It is laughable for the Governor who gives all his security details N200.00 daily for their meals and who is alleged to be pocketing the entire so-called monthly security vote of N150m to his personal account to claim that he gave me N500,000.00 as condolence token for my father’s burial. A Governor who has refused to award scholarship to the B.C. and A.B Igwe orphans in spite of many reminders but is interested to pose for a photograph session with them at the NBA NEC meeting at Onitsha. In fact any Governor who makes a N500,000 condolence donation should be made to refund it and ought to manage our affairs. What I did was to raise a valid objection to the performance in breach of a constitutional duty imposed on C.J. I knew he would not allow me to canvass the objection which would have taken me not less than 10 hours to fully argue, but I had prepared myself not only to be bundled out but to be shot by the over 600 heavily armed mobile police stationed in and around the premises. I was determined to expose to the world the illegality of the C.J.’s action even with my blood. I AM HAPPY that the Court of Appeal vindicated my action on that day when it ruled that the inauguration of that panel was not an administrative, but a constitutional duty which performance was done in violation of the constitution and reprimanded the C.J.



How could a Governor offer me money for the grandstanding when upon his return to office once said that I was always “shining with his causes”, I did not give a damn and it never affected my lifelong principle to fight injustice at all times. The struggle was far too beyond Obi as to cause people like us to abandon it. It was a battle for the soul of our State and I sincerely saw Obi as the rallying symbol but which was not indispensable. That is why my heart went out to him when I saw the advertorial he sponsored against me to blackmail me. He has played his part, like Ngige did, in the battle for the redemption of our State. He has performed his last act when the Supreme Court swept away Andy Uba. But it appears he is yet to realize that he has finished the business which our Heavenly Father wanted him to undertake. How can a Governor fall so low as to sponsor adverts that I belong to secret societies and occult church, when he attended the opening of our church branch in Awka. Let me tell you, each time I hear people discuss of the Governor’s alleged membership of The Ogboni Fraternity as the cause of his poor governance, I rebuke them on the ground that there is freedom of association and religion and second that I know of members of Ogboni who were honest and competent administrators, Governors and Premiers.



The much he did upon his return from his unlawful removal was to call me on the phone offering N5m to be a plaintiff in a suit he wanted filed to have Andy Uba disqualified from contesting. I felt insulted and you know me, I told him off. He told me he had arranged and paid Abuja based lawyers who would file the papers in my name because his lead lawyer Dr. Onyechi Ikpeazu was campaigning for Andy Uba to become Governor and that he does not trust him. He called the President of ASA–USA and top APGA leadership to persuade me which also failed as I told them that I do not run errands for people, neither am I a political mercenary. I do not want to say, for now, the many ugly propositions of the Governor which I rejected. It is my hope that the next Governor will probe and determine who burnt the Governor’s lodge at Onitsha. But one thing is certain; the Governor’s allegation that it was burnt by Andy Uba is absolute falsehood.



When the Water Corporation pensioners brought their predicament to me I wrote the Governor but he gave no heed. But when I heard his argument on the matter on tv, it flew in the face. I suspected he was playing pranks. I took the matter before the house of assembly for investigation. I was shocked to learn that the house had approved in 2006 the sum of N805m Naira for the payment of all arrears of salaries and pensions of the affected workers and retirees in 2007. To my greatest shock, on the floor of the house, the Governor’s Special Adviser Engr. Nick Obi admitted that the N805m was kept in the bank since and that the Governor was arranging to give out the money as a loan to a private federal contractor to revive the Water Corporation. My brothers, it will surprise you to learn that till date that money is still lying in the bank accumulating interest and the loan is yet to be given and the workers are dying everyday. And the interests are yet to be accounted for. And the bank is trading with this money. Over 40 staff and pensioners have died since 2006. A woman staff starved to death in her room. Over 14 are bedridden lacking money to buy medication.



There was a case of the woman shot by soldiers who were ordered by the Governor to shoot and kill members of MASSOB for which the Governor on t.v. said the Government would pay compensation. I wrote him but he started playing pranks after replying my letter. It became apparent that he wanted to create the impression to the widower that I was the cause of his non-payment.



As months went into years I observed the propaganda inclination of the government. Let me put it on public record that the only demand I made of the present government when it took office were four, namely, Good governance, comprehensive take over by the State of the upkeep and education of the 3 orphans of my Chairman, B.C. and A.B. Igwe, re-naming of the street where they were butchered to death by Mbadinuju’s Bakassi Boys, and recommending them for a posthumous national award. This was in March 2006 when he sent an emissary inviting me and then Chairperson of CLO Emeka Umeagbalasi to the lodge to make an offer of appointment, I turned it down. In fact, I had also requested him to empower the CLO Chairperson whose business had virtually collapsed as a result of his commitment towards retrieving the stolen mandate. Prior to this, in fact 3 days to the Court of Appeal Judgment, the Governor sent his confidant to sound me out on taking the A.G. appointment. I flatly rejected it and gave my reasons. The man asked me to recommend who the A.G would be. My question on how MR Obi knew he was going to win even before the day slated for judgment was never answered to my satisfaction. The same reasons I gave to his confidant was accepted by the Governor when we met him in the lodge.



I am hugely disappointed because everywhere I go I am embarrassed by our people who verbally assault me for what they consider as my sin in contributing to the emergence of the present government. Although I have never regretted any action I took between 2003 and 2006 to confront what I saw as an unacceptable onslaught on democracy and rule of law. I am indeed prepared to defend our Governor again should such circumstances as the unlawful declaration of a loser of an election as the winner or his unconstitutional impeachment arise again. It is the system that we seek to defend and protect, but there must always be beneficiaries of such struggle to sustain our democracy.

Is the withholding and the lodgement in a bank of the 805 million Naira approved in the 2006/2007 Appropriation Law for the payment of water corporation staff and pensioners one of due process or his Special Adviser’s declaration in the hallowed chambers of the House of Assembly in late 2007 that Mr. Governor was planning to loan the sum to a private contractor working for the federal government part of the due process?



Let me tell you that I am equally happy that the Governor is throwing mud on me. At least my strident criticisms forced him to rehabilitate, even though poorly, some federal roads as the MCC- Borromeo section, to award contracts for the upgrading of his Pentium 1 Pcs to Pentium 3, to reverse himself that he would not pay water corporation staff. But we must watch him on the water corporation matter so that it will not be a conduit for any diversion of Anambra money.



Even his Agulu people have vented their spleen by destroying one of his campaign billboards and completely defacing another all located in the heart of the town. This government is an unmitigated disaster. My greatest worry is that this government is becoming a huge fraud. Why did I say so? Not only because the government is not performing. This government is elevating the art of deception to a tool of governance. How will this government package itself as performing when it is not? And use our hard earned money and scarce resources to project achievements that are un-existing or at best, white elephant or wishy-washy projects.

The 2008 budget approval generated a lot of heat between the Governor and members of the House. Did you feel that members of the State House of Assembly were trying to frustrate the Governor as was being alleged by him?

Well that was Peter Obi at his blackmailing best when he accused House members of sabotaging his efforts to develop the state. He invited the Elders, Traditional rulers, Religious leaders etc to intervene and these people took a look at the issues and rebuked the Governor for telling lies. It is a very serious matter for a Governor to lie frequently. The House eventually gave him the approval he sought and today, he has only been able to implement 29.8% of the approval given to him. That is the man’s capacity to spend and as I speak to you now, he is busy trying to spend out of that 2008 budget, while falsifying and backdating documents to accommodate the extra expenditure. Here is a man that has no clue about governance.



Q: Gov. Peter Obi has always prided his administration as following the due process and the rule of law. So how would you reconcile the abuse by his agencies and these instances you have mentioned?



Ans: Let me correct you. The Governor has never prided himself as one whose governance is predicated on the rule of law. It is Yar’Adua who claims and in fact trumpets that. It is beyond dispute however that the present Governor is a beneficiary of the rule of law. But in the three years of his governance, it has done the opposite. Where will I start? Let me start from the markets. Please go to all the markets and their associations, which in the main are Non Governmental Organisation (NGOs), the Governor, has directly interfered and ensured that elections are not conducted in the market associations under the flimsy, lame and provocative excuse that the conditions are not conducive. Even where the elections are held by way of delegates, where chairmen and secretaries of lines constitute the electorate and in spite of the Police and the State Security Service (SSS) reports and clearance for these elections to hold, and notwithstanding even the Governor claim that Anambra has become the most peaceful and stable State, the Governor until date threatens to unleash brim stone and fire on the market leaders. Why? He is so unpopular that any time the elections are held, his preferred candidates whom he hopes to use for his 2nd term campaign would be trounced. So like in the case of Local Government Election, he has imposed interim Committees on all the markets. As I speak the situation is very tense in the markets. I believe any moment from now the markets may close down in protest of the Governor’s direct interference with the markets. How can the government be claiming to be running on the rule of law, when an agency, which he is sponsoring into law, the ASTA is everywhere terrorizing and haranguing the lives and property of citizens under the direct supervision of the Governor and his Commissioner for Special Duties, Emeka Ojukwu. When he invaded the Niger Bridge area and stopped the market association know as Abada traders Association from carrying out construction works on the land legitimately and legally acquired from the Federal Government, in spite of a subsisting court action and injunction restraining the Governor from interfering with the traders rights to use the land? I have lost count of the number of court orders which directed the government to hold Council Election and restrained his appropriation of the Council funds. I must be frank, I am hugely disappointed by the Governor. The same Governor who trumpets the State as the safest and most stable as one of his achievements would turn round to claim that Council and market Associations cannot hold on ground of insecurity in the State. A government which has directed that the Anambra Broadcasting Service (ABS), even against National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) code of conduct, not to carry opposition view. He has turned every government institution into his personal estate. The other day I went to ABS and demanded for an interview to show Anambrarians that what ABS is dishing about government achievements are patent false hood. The demand was rejected. But those sponsored by the government who tout the his so-called achievements are everywhere on ABS. Infact, the Governor uses more than one third of the air time campaigning for a 2nd term in office without paying a dime to ABS. Are we not the same taxpayers? So tell me if these are how the rule of law runs in the state? Is there any due process in a Governor who uses all the state apparatus and resources personnel and properties of the State to campaign for his 2nd term in office? At Anambra State University Campus in Awka North, find out yourself why other banks save Fidelity Bank was refused permission to operate a branch in spite of their mouth watering offers which would have generated revenue for the University. The other day it was reported that his wife spends about 10m Naira from the budget of the Ministry of Women Affairs on each of her tour of the 177 communities. She spots from head to toe apparel bearing the Governor’s photograph pictures, distributes clothes, headscarf, wristwatches bearing the same photographs apart from bags of rice and salt. The question , which I would want the EFCC to immediately move in investigate if such expenditure of public funds by one who is neither elected nor appointed into a government is allowed under the law. If not, the tour and the attendant expenditure must stop and a refund made. Multiply 10m by 177, it gives us over 1.7billion wasted on 2nd term tour. This is one reason I had always campaigned for just one term for all office holders. The incidents of such gross abuse of office and waste will be stamped out. Let me, in the manner of speaking, be frank with you, EFCC needs to investigate the now notorious allegations of round tripping of government’s fund between contractors some top government officials and Fidelity and Intercontinental Banks. EFCC should investigate the flying allegations of massive embezzlement of local government funds by the executive arm.



Q: But on infrastructural development, both human and social, Governor Obi has improved on what he met on ground. At least you’ll concede that to him?



Ans: Very good question. The other day the Governor was at Nri community in the state and in the course of the welcome address, the President-General of the town union begged the Governor most passionately to tar and rehabilitate the rural roads in their community. What was the Governor’s response? You wont believe it. The Governor who was visibly agitated, in fact angered said he was shocked that Anambra people do not know the level of development he has brought to the state and begged Nri People to visit the United Nation (UN), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank so that these international organs would reveal his landmark achievements to us. I was to say the least taken aback when I saw the story on Channels T.V. And I ask, are we to go to these bodies to ascertain if our dear Governor has performed? If the government has done over 300 (ghost) kilometers of roads? Computerized the entire secondary schools? It won’t lie in the recess of these bodies to furnish our rural and urban dwellers, motorists, students, of these achievements. I am shocked at the level of falsehood being dished out by this government. This government lives in advertorial; in pamphlets; in gigantic billboards; in calendars and almanacs. This government does not live in the heart of Ndi Anambra. The response of our people on this government is unanimous and deafening; this government is a combination of the incompetence of Mbadinuju and the fraud of Enugu’s Chimaroke Nnamani in elevating dishonesty, and deceit as a tool of governance. I am certain it will soon thread the murderous path of these two former Governors as it seeks to elongate its tenure. The signs are already there. His agents have started threatening me. I will address this later. A government that said it has performed on road construction and rehabilitation, by doing over 300 (ghost) km roads, go to every town in the State, people are trapped in nasty traffic jams. The cause is dilapidated road network. In all the over 60 communities so far visited by the 1st Lady, the recurring decimal in the addresses presented by her hosts are passionate pleas for her husband to fix their roads, hospitals and schools. These visits are telecast on the State ABS T.V. Look at the roads he did, they are collapsing. Look at the MCC by Army Barracks in Onitsha, which this government did as part of the 2007 Christmas show, which he is now doing again. It was reported in 2007 that portion cost us 850m. By February 2008, that same portion collapsed and gone with it was our 850m Naira. And don’t forget that Ngige did the dualization of the Bridgehead to Lagos Park of the expressway five years ago and that road stands as it was done. Not a single pothole on that portion until date. Throughout the year 2008, our dear Governor first went to town telling anybody that cared to give their ear that all the dilapidated roads in the State were federal roads and that it is federal government duty. To underscore his position he led some Governors who did not realize his agenda, to make a public show of his demand on federal government to fix the roads. When people like us put pressure on him by going public to remind him that Ngige did federal roads with over 6b Naira of the State funds even when we had a hostile federal government that could be said to be at war with our state, our dear Governor shifted ground and now claimed that Mr President has refused to grant him permission to do the federal roads inspite of his several written requests. When we demanded for the copy of the Mr. President’s refusal and sensing that campaigns for the January 2010 Guber Election will start early 2009, he made another sommersault and started flagging off the construction of the same federal roads. The question people ask is where are the 600km roads he claimed to have constructed? Remember that Mr. Governor admitted that his predecessor did only 180km. Are his purported 300km roads in Planet Jupiter or Mercury? If 300km he claimed he did are in Anambra state, people will see them. My brothers, the truth is that this government has done few roads under pressure and these roads have virtually collapsed. They are of such poor quality that you will be swearing and cursing the government which did the roads as you ride across them. Few instances of these wish washy jobs will suffice. I urge you to pass through there you will see the patchings. The road started by Etiaba in Agulu which passed through the Governor’s ancestral home which the present Governor abandoned immediately he returned to office from his unlawful removal but which took a march on the government house by Agulu Town union to demand for its continuation. The same with the Agulu – Agbu road. You will weep for our people. No alignments, No drainage. After only 2 rains in two weeks the road virtually collapsed. That poorly done road has become a curse to the Uhueme Village and St Theresa’s Catholic Church in Agulu. The Church and the village have repeatedly called on the Governor to do drainages on the roads only for the Governor to tell them he was done with the road and that they should be grateful to have had it done at all. The Nnobi – Ekwulobia road which Ngige started and was abandoned till this year. You will shed tears immediately you leave the portion done by Ngige and step into what the present government is doing. A UNN-trained Civil Engineer told me that even the roads graded by a Philanthropist in Isuanioma is of a far better quality. The same with the roads done in GRA Onitsha, including the one leading to his so-called Stock Exchange. Nkpor - Obosi road, Nise-Nibo road. How would these roads not collapse when even children and wheelbarrows are employed and deployed for the jobs by the contractors awarded the jobs. Ozubulu – Ihembosi road is a no-go area. It is my prediction that the completed part of the Nise Nibo road will collapse before the remaining part is done. In fact the entirety of the projects done by this government is of such a poor quality that they can be described as a fraud. The annoying angle is that he claims the roads done by Ngige, e.g the Onitsha – Nkwelle Ezunnaka By-Pass.



Ndi Anambra who live in Enugu have been urging him to visit Enugu to behold what governance is. That young man in Enugu has transformed Enugu and without anybody hearing him or seeing his adverts. Ngige never engaged in advertisements. He never printed any leaflet or pamphlet or almanac or calendars to advertise his achievements. Nor created fictitious email and websites and amorphous organizations to praise himself. All the works done was a case of res ipsa loquitor, speaking for themselves. Is human development achieved by buying cars, buses and painting them with the Governor’s photograph pictures, painting schools and health centres that are not functioning? On some of the government buses and his almanacs, and over 500 billboards our Governor celebrates his building of a computer village in Onitsha. Please I beg you to come with me after this interview to see what I call a modern hut built near the Onitsha Library which he calls a computer village. It is the size of three times my arms span. Not a single unit PC. That modern hut which cost cannot be up to 300,000 Naira has been a safe haven for rodents, reptiles and other creeping things from day of completion till now. I am happy that our people are not buying into these frauds. In fact I pity the Governor because this was a man who enjoyed an unprecedented goodwill across the State and country to make him imprint his footsteps on the sands of time, yet he blew it by himself. All on his own. No opposition contributed to it. My brothers, am also ashamed that a government we called our own turned out to be one huge fraud that even school children mock our Governor each time he appears on t.v. It is as bad as that. If you were in Adazi or Isuanioma and other places last Christmas at occasions where the Governor and Ngige met, you will pity the Governor. He was thoroughly humiliated by Ndi Anambra over this festive period. At Nnewi on the evening of the 29th of December 2008, he became the first sitting Governor of our state to be humiliated publicly at a private function for non-performance. On the 3rd of January at Adazi Enu, he was booed by a mammoth crowd while attending a wine carrying that he was not even invited to by the celebrants. What an embarrassment.



Whatever the government is doing now is geared at hoodwinking us that he is doing something. He could not do any thing in the first three years of his government. Now at the last lap, he wants to deceive us that he is doing something because I have put him under critical searchlight. Even the roads started by Ngige and Virgy Etiaba when she was Governor were abandoned. Remember that when Etiaba came in, she continued with the roads Ngige awarded but when Obi came back he re-abandoned them. Road constructions and road maintenance are the most pivotal indices for accelerated development in a merchant economy like Nigeria and Anambra state in particular. If you don’t have roads, you have not started any development. We are not interested in who is the first to do this or that but what is on ground and look at the few ones he had done. They have shown so much poor quality. Obi now tells us that he lived in England and that over 55% of the roads in England are not tarred. This is a man given to quoting bogus statistics. The so-called Stock Exchange complex had to be completely reconstructed by the lessee banks because of poor quality. I met the contractor awarded the rehabilitation contract by one of the Lessee banks. In fact, the wall fence of the complex gave in to the first rain that hit it. It is taking this government 4 years to complete an 18m Naira sports complex contract, while it takes a private person a year to do a 4-storey building which is two times the cost of the stadium. The other day, the Fegge so-called stadium collapsed and work started anew. Visit the famous Nwangene, which the government claims in several adverts that it has dredged, you shed tears. Apart from the fact that it was awarded to an incompetent contractor, the contract was abandoned almost as soon it was awarded. When I visited the site to verify the claims of the government that it has dredged the Creek, I was told that over 6 citizens of Enugu and Ebonyi States origin who were employed at different times by the contractor perished in the Nwagene as they were made to all the work manually. The contractor, to the knowledge of the government disappeared. Yet the same government spends our money to mount gigantic billboards celebrating the Nwangene dredging feat. The litany of underdevelopment, of deception, of blatant falsehood of this government is too numerous for an interview such as this. It is my hope that a book will be authored in not too distant time to expose them.



This Governor believes that it is by radio, t.v newspaper, billboards, calendars, almanacs, brochures and pamphlets, or by claiming to have giving 5m to each editor of all the national newspapers, or appearing on the front pages of these newspapers climbing a tractor or receiving ambassadors, or by starting to attend burial ceremonies or being among the hearse bearers and attending traditional marriages of people or every birthday parties or child dedication ceremonies of even infants uninvited or visiting drinking parlours or distributing cows and hampers to the Chris Ubas, or squeezing himself in a bus with his aides that will endear him to the electorate to vote him in 2010. This is a man who swore he would govern for only a term and he would turn Okpoko into an industrial city. Even the Governor knows his deep-rooted unpopularity that his appointees will not even vote for him in any secret ballot. I do not see him emerging as the Chief Victor Umeh’s APGA guber candidate if a secret ballot primary is held. Any party that gives the Governor its ticket would have lost the election before it is conducted. Sample opinions of any person in the State. Not those in government, the president generals of towns union whom he gives 2.5m Naira, or the traditional rulers he dashes brand new 406 Peugeot cars and heads of State University or departments or agency of government, or any of his court jesters.



I have one message for the Governor, I am ready to take such campaigns of calumny against my person so long as the governance by deceit comes to grief on or before March 16 2010. The struggle to free Anambra from his misgovernance is far too altruistic and sophisticated for such characters as the present Governor and his foot soldiers to even appreciate or comprehend, much less derailing me. I am happy to say that everywhere I go that his campaign of calumny is having a boomerang effect. They are considered cheap, spurious and tragic. The entire world knows I do not have a price and the Heavens know it too. Peter Obi has come, and like Mbadinuju, will pass, only leaving behind him bad memories for Ndi Anambra. My other worry is that this con man will end up worse than Mbadinuju. What a tragedy. I believe we have not done anything to unmask this monster which confronts all of us and posterity will never forgive us as Anambra will be finished. I prefer living under an incompetent leader to living under a fraudulent, dishonest and lucifer-driven leader. This regime would become murderous in no distant time as cases of assassinations masked as armed robbery will become the order of the day. God be with us.

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