By Cheta Agundu
Chief Peter Obi shocked his admirers and all when he abandoned his parent political party, the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, to join the People’s Democratic Party just lean months after his 8year reign as the governor of Anambra State. Whatever Obi could adduce for the act which many find most distasteful, he has weightier explanations to advance for his hankering after and viciously insisting on an overrule in the affairs of Obiano’s Anambra State, an order he was instrumental to instituting. Obi’s sulky expressions, too soon after leaving power, give him out as one who is ill prepared for life devoid of the executive flair he so warmly craved and cherished while his power lasted. His simulated denials of ensnarement by office pomp make another day’s subject.
Truly Chief Obi failed all those who thought that he would be wise to leave power gracefully when it left him. But the lure of power and the 8year indulgence unfortunately infected the faculties of an otherwise prudent fellow. ‘How art the mighty falling?’ Chief Obi went for a free fall, and has continued to bruise his delicate ego and a promising carrier APGA spelt out for him. It is never in doubt that Chief Obi remained an obscure, crafty and undeniably successful businessman until APGA offered him political baptism. His new PDP tongue is a furtherance of his capitalist lovage which seasons the mind for endless self gains.
Whereas APGA gave its all to ensure both Chief Obi’s ascent and sustenance as the governor of Anambra State, Obi merely saw the party as a platform to achieve his selfish mission of administering the resources of the state, and through the enterprise, he consciously laboured to attain Aliko Dangote’s heights in the business world. Obi should be blamed less, Anambra people share greater blame for their naivety in not grasping Obi’s underlying doublespeak.
Smart Chief Obi saw Anambra as a territory he had conquered, and with a conqueror’s mindset he set to endlessly enjoy the spoils of conquest, but Governor Willie Obiano’s stout refusal to act the script invited resentments which fast-tracked Obi’s infamous decampment, the notoriety of which compares to the hush defiance of a suicide.
Surprisingly, instead of a compunctious demeanour, Obi and his camp have sworn to get the heavens down unless pounds of flesh are extracted from Obiano’s cardiac zone. They have deployed every conventional and unconventional media to fight dirty, without saving a breath. They create fairy enemies in Obiano and begin to punch the wind in futility. But the governor moves on deftly with the obligations of state administration. He understood early enough that his detractors want to do him in by consistently distracting him and wishing that state business will be unattended to. But Obiano’s achievements in just one year in office are confounding.
I am convinced that if these abroad critics, whose sensibilities have suffered reductions by their inflammatory attacks on the government and governor of Anambra State, find time to do a proper random sampling of what Anambra has gained in the past eleven months of Obiano’s administration, they will abandon Peter’s denials and diatribes, and turn Pauls in propagating the good-news that is Anambra’s lot today. Anambra has surely moved on.
