One of the states in Nigeria that has a vibrant, rough and rugged political climate is Anambra State, South-East Nigeria. Known as Home for All, Anambra State has not only produced renowned literary figures, diplomats, business men and women, captains of industry and sports personalities of repute, it has also spawned great leaders that played major roles in the shaping of Nigeria. Among the founding fathers of Nigeria, a son of Anambra, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, was not only among the leading figures in the agitation for Independence from British rule but went ahead to become the first President of the country.
Also, leaders like Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, and Prof. Dora Akunyili are among the generation of Anambrarians that have made a mark in the country. But there is one family which has risen from relative obscurity to being among top decision makers in the leadership of the state – the Uba family from Uga in Aguata Local Government Area.
This family has, within a space of 15 years, loomed large in the political atmosphere of the state and has produced one governor and two senators, with a possible third in the making. Not only have the two senators, at separate times, represented their constituency (Anambra South) in the Senate, they have been credited with being among the ‘godfathers’ that installed a former governor in the state along with all state and federal lawmakers in the state.
Dr. Ugochukwu Uba, the eldest of the three Uba brothers, is a physician, who was practising in Jos, the Plateau State capital before he ventured into politics under the failed Abacha transition programme. He later became a PDP senator from 2003- 2007.
Senator Nnanmdi (Andy) Uba was resident in the United States before being recalled to serve in former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s Senior Special Assistant on Special Duties and Domestic Affairs. He later contested in the governorship elections in 2007 on the platform of PDP and won. He was sworn in as governor but holds the record of being the shortest serving governor in the history of the state and country. He was in office for 17 days before being sacked by the Supreme Court, which declared that impeached Governor Peter Obi of the All Progressives Grand Alliance had not completed his term.
The youngest of the Uba brothers, Chris aka Eselu, is a business man and chieftain of the PDP. He is a self-acclaimed godfather in the political terrain of the state. Though he has never held any political office, he directed the system to deliver a governor, all National Assembly seats in the Senate and House of Representatives as well as all members of the state house of assembly in 2003. He has just won the ticket to run for the Senate in 2015. If he succeeds at the polls, then all the Uba brothers would have held the Senate seat for Anambra South. Unlike the Bush and Kennedy families in the United States that have become famous and built a political dynasty on principle and integrity, the Uba family would be described as having built their political relevance on controversies, opportunism and playing hard ball. These assumed characteristics are not meted out to just their opponents but to themselves.
Andy took over the senatorial ticket from his elder brother, Ugochukwu, after the latter was defeated by Senator Obiorah Ugwu in 2007. The dream of Andy for a second shot at the Senate has been jeopardized somehow with his displacement by Chris, who said he would want his brother to support his ambition. Of the three brothers, analysts credit Andy as being the person on whose platform the Uba family’s dominance in Anambra politics was built.
The Obasanjo factor
Prior to becoming an aide to ex-President Obasanjo, Andy’s wife is said to have been a friend to former first lady, Stella Obasanjo.
On assuming office as the President in 1999, Obasanjo recalled Andy who was resident in the United States to become his aide. His appointment was so powerful that he was described as the President’s right-hand man, and also the gatekeeper for people who wished to talk to the President. He was the last person Obasanjo usually saw before going to bed and the first he met when he awoke. So many insinuations and allegations were made concerning Andy’s closeness to the former president. Also, some incidents that occurred during the tenure of Obasanjo gave some credence to the allegations. In September 2003, Andy was accused of smuggling $170,000 cash into the United States on a Nigerian presidential jet; when he accompanied Obasanjo to New York for a meeting of the United Nations. Though U.S authorities confirmed the case, they cited that it was a civil issue and reached a settlement where Uba had to forfeit $26,000 to the authorities.
In July 2007, Andy Uba was accused by former governor of Jigawa State, Saminu Turaki, of overseeing bribes given to lawmakers to approve the alleged third term bid of Obasanjo; he denied the allegation. While he always wriggled out of the accusations levelled against him, Andy was instrumental in installing his elder brother as a senator in 2003. Ugochukwu was said to be Obasanjo’s choice for Senate President but being a new member of the upper legislative house, he was halted by the Senate resolution that new members would not be allowed to stand for election into its principal offices. He, however, got compensated with the chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Power and Steel. Andy said that there was nothing special about the Uba family other than their being normal Nigerians.
“As for me, or together with my brothers, we are just normal Nigerians who are struggling to actualise ourselves like any other Nigerian…. Knowing the President or someone working in the presidency is normal because it is human beings that are working there. So there is nothing peculiar about the Ubas,” he said.
Chief Chris Uba
While the elder Uba brothers held sway in different arms of government, the younger Uba, Chris, showed his political muscle in 2003 when he singlehandedly installed the government in Anambra State, from the governor to the members of the state assembly. In an interview with a national newspaper, he was quoted as saying: “God merely used me to touch some lives, and mind you, it is not just the governor and his deputy.
There are also three senators, 10 members of the House of Representatives and 30 members of the House of Assembly of the state. I sponsored them. I put them there though only 29 House of Assembly members eventually made it… This is the first time in the history of Anambra State that one single individual would be putting every public officer in the state in power.” But no sooner had his political god son, Governor Chris Ngige, assumed office, than the two fell apart in an episode that can be best described as Anambra’s day of infamy. The July 10, 2003 broad daylight kidnapping of the governor and the Hollywood style announcement of his resignation brought to light the extent Godfatherism had eaten into the Anambra polity. The disagreement between Chris Uba and his estranged godson, Ngige, exposed the secret and illegal dealings the people that had taken over governance in the state were involved in. Ngige, after being rescued from a hotel he was held captive, reportedly identified Chris as the mastermind of his kidnapping for his failure to ‘sign away’ state government fund as secretly agreed.
The Uba group responded in a press conference that Ngige signed an agreement and swore to a secret oath of obedience and loyalty to his group of sponsors of political candidates, even at a deadly fetish evil forest and shrine in Okija, Anambra State, in order to be made the governor. Chris and his associates also reportedly stated that following the rituals which Ngige performed at the shrine during their midnight visit, they then rigged him into office even though he did not win election. Chris produced written agreements signed by Ngige. The spate of destructions and violence that followed the fall out of the row between the politicians was among the reasons given by late Prof. Chinua Achebe for rejecting a national honour awarded him by the Obasanjo administration in 2004. Achebe in an emotion-laden letter described Uba and his gang as a clique of renegades determined to turn the state into a bankrupt and lawless fiefdom.
“I write this letter with very heavy heart. For some time now, I have watched events in Nigeria with alarm and dismay. I have watched particularly the chaos in my own state of Anambra where a small clique of renegades, openly boasting its connections in high places, seems determined to turn my homeland into a bankrupt and lawless fiefdom. I am appalled by the brazenness of this clique and the silence, if not connivance, of the presidency. Nigeria’s condition today under your watch is, however, too dangerous for silence. I must register my disappointment and protest by declining to accept the high honour awarded me in the 2004 Honours list,” Achebe wrote.
The table turned against Chris when his brother Andy, embarrassed by the brazen display of arrogance by his younger brother, sidelined him from government and disrupted his control of the PDP machinery in the state. Chris did not work for his brother during the 2007 election and even after Andy was removed as governor by the Supreme Court in 2007, he was also not part of his 2010 bid for governorship.
But in 2011, both brothers reconciled at the instance of their mother and Andy got voted into the Senate. In November 2013, during the governorship election in Anambra State, both brothers united and worked together to realise Andy governorship ambition on the platform of PDP. But instead of participating in the governorship primaries held by the party state chairman, Chief Ken Emeakanyi, he went ahead to conduct parallel primaries under the chairmanship of Ejike Oguebeogu. His primaries was recognised and attended by officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission. But the PDP sanctioned him for encouraging acts of indiscipline and illegality and he was later suspended from the party after refusing to honour its leadership’s order for the five members to appear before the National Working Committee at its national headquarters.
Andy ended up not being on the ballot on Election Day on November 16, 2013; instead the governorship flag bearer of the PDP was Comrade Tony Nwoye, who was one of Andy’s boys. Nwoye fell out with Uba and found solace in billionaire businessman, Prince Arthur Eze, under whose tutelage Chris grew. Eze’s support for Nwoye was meant to spite Andy, who was said to have connived with Chris to stop Eze from selling the properties of a prodigal aide and recovering debts owed him. The camps of Andy and Chris almost fought during the PDP National Convention held in August 2013 at Eagle Square. That reunion of the brothers is looking like it has cracked with the recent victory of Chris in picking up the ticket for the Senate to occupy the seat Andy is currently holding in the Senate.
Chris is claiming that most politicians detach themselves from the masses after elections, thereby subjecting them to untold hardship, a situation he said he would correct. He has dismissed insinuations that he is at loggerheads with his brother, saying: “It’s not true that I’m at war with my brother Andy, over this bid. But this is politics; everybody has his interests and objectives to accomplish in life. I think I have helped so many people to actualise their ambitions and be great, so that they could help others, but I think most people are selfish and greedy.
“This time, I want to go there myself and help the less privileged in the seven local government areas that make up my constituency and beyond. As I drive past each time, I notice that many people are suffering without hope and this is the time to change the situation,” he said. Though Andy has yet to make a statement about the ambition of his younger brother, the battle between the Uba brothers will be among the contests to watch. This will be the first time the two brothers will test their strength and popularity in the polls, an exercise that will prove between the two brothers who is the real godfather of Anambra politics.
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