ANAMBRA - A perfect bumper sticker for Governor Willie Obiano’s campaign stomp should read, “Recession out, investors in”!
This is stating it as clearly as former American Vice President Joe Biden did on the re-election campaign trail back in 2012 when he proclaimed to a crowd of cheering supporters in Detroit, Michigan, “Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive”
As far as bumper stickers go, Governor Willie Obiano has a compelling catalogue of achievements on the security and economic fronts to adorn the colourful profile of a thousand bumper stickers. But his re-election is not expected to be half as tough as Obama’s 2012 summer run against Mitt Romney.
Obiano’s record has placed him beyond the optimistic aspirations of the most ambitious opponents in the forth- coming election. His vision and creative policies have saved the state from economic recession and in the process foisted some sort of political recession on the state that has left the political landscape starved of formidable opposition.
But politicians are creatures of habit, and like the Bourbons that ruled most of Europe centuries ago, the political actors in Anambra seem to have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing from the past. So, the race is on, and following the same familiar pattern of intra-elite war with little or no bearing on the real issues of concern to the electorate.
In its current form, the race to the polls is simply a battle between progressives, swept along by the discernible outcome of Obiano’s strong ideas and transformative vision and those die hard traditionalists stuck in time with nostalgia about the fading era of strong men like Peter Obi.
This divide has made the race primarily a contest between Governor Willie Obiano and his predecessor, Peter Obi. It really could have been a tripod but for the fact that Tony Nwoye of the APC is generally perceived as bereft of meaningful political capital. His antecedent is a troubling chronicle of political thuggery and the fact that the APC as a political vehicle is anathema in the region.
And things couldn’t get any worse than recent revelations by the World Bank that President Buhari’s declared obsession is with developing the North at the expense of the rest of the country.
All of a sudden, whatever little merit there was to Nwoye’s dangling carrot of linking Anambra to the centre has been completely pulverized by this revelation. Successful political campaigns are scarcely built on such parochial vision in a plural society, except of course you’re running under the moniker of Trump or Buhari. The party was over for Nwoye long before it started.
In reality therefore, besides ceremonial opposition by other contenders, Obi’s stooge, Oseloka Obaze has emerged as the main opposition candidate. The intrigues and drama that thrust Obaze into the fray created deep disaffection within the state PDP structure but cleared the coast for the former governor to embark on his most impossible political task yet---that of finding a replacement for his high performing successor.
It is a self-imposed task and one that may eventually define the final stages of an uneasy journey to self a demystification. Without doubt, Peter Obi had woven a larger than life myth around himself in his two terms as governor. He was widely regarded as the strongman of Anambra politics and chief political strategist of the South East. Those who could read the crystal ball predicted a brilliant future for him as a statesman, post governor’s lodge.
What with the invaluable backing of the late Ikemba of Nnewi as founder and backbone of the APGA dynasty and the determined leadership of the politically astute Chief Victor Umeh to steer the party through the intrigues and rough-hewn paths of partisan politics. Obi was raised on goodly political heritage.
This reputation prompted former president Goodluck Jonathan to snap him into his strategy team as soon as he vacated government house Awka. His inexplicable defection to the PDP was considered a major victory for PDP strategists and the president’s head hunters. With soaring ratings, he was revered as the potent talisman that would ensure that GEJ got re-elected. The rest they say is history.
Overnight, his questionable ratings collapsed even as he moved from the centre to the side lines of politics in Anambra. Unwilling to accept his diminished political fortunes, he has emerged from the margins of state politics to test his weight against the tide of public opinion in the ongoing race for the guber crown in November.
His latest move signifies a major misstep in a series of catastrophic political miscalculations since he wandered outside the shadows of the party that brought him to fame and political relevance. Isolated at the periphery, and opposed to the disposition of well-meaning citizens even in his own divided party
Source
James Agaji Atah
(African Profiles USA)
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