1st April, 2014
By Kanayo Esinulo
Nigeria’s most celebrated maverick politician is not in Abuja for the National Conference that kicked off two weeks ago. Was it that no one remembered to include the name of this very special man who loves to describe himself as ‘a direct political fighter’ to be part of this important national gathering? Chief Francis Arthur Nzeribe was my senator for so many years. The Dimanje, Ogbuagu, Oyimba of Oguta, the Osinji himself, the only senator who saw tomorrow, the man who ensured, through his Association for Better Nigeria, ABN, that June 12 1993 was fought and defeated. I can go on and on. Chief Nzeribe is too quiet for our comfort. His season is here with us, a period when he should be pulling stunts from his bag of political tricks that would have put participants at the Conference on their toes.
In fact, Nigeria may soon begin to feel the absence of Nzeribe’s voice in Abuja. In his place to represent the largest (in terms of local governments) senatorial district in Nigeria is Dr. Ezekiel Izuogu, the man who always won the governorship of Imo State, but would never be announced the winner or sworn in. Izuogu, I hear, has taken to his laboratory perfecting and improving on his latest scientific invention called ‘Emagnetodynamics’, a perpetual motion machine that some frontline American scientists are discussing and which, I am told, attracted positive review and presentation by the renowned Professor of Physics at the UNN, Alexander Animalu. So, as I write this, a scientist is representing my zone at the Conference, in place of a hardcore political wizard and magician who could have made things difficult for both the good and the bad at this Conference. So, why is Nzeribe inactive in a season that his political theatrics would have made all the difference at this forum?
Let me say this more forcefully: Arthur Nzeribe is missing in action. But why? We pray he is well. The last time we heard from the senator was when a popular national daily insinuated that Nzeribe had gone to meet his ancestors. Nzeribe fired back: “I am hale and hearty, not dead. I pray God to give the entire staff of . . . newspaper which is hell-bent on seeing me dead, despite God’s intention to the contrary, long life and good health. It is my wish also that God will make it possible for you people to attend my 90th birthday on earth.” He ended the matter there. But Nzeribe may have felt uncomfortable with the goings-on in his Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. As some of its governors took on their National Chairman, his intervention came through a press statement: “The PDP must clear its desk including Bamanga Tukur, if it must get it right,” he said. Again, despite criticisms and castigating insinuations, Nzeribe went ahead and married a beautiful Benin lady, Princess Joan Osula, the ex-wife of Singer Harry Moscow Agada, at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, Oguta in December 2007. I recall that many years ago, Nzeribe dutifully gathered thousands of Muslim faithful in Kano to witness his conversion. He never showed up and just couldn’t be bothered. The aircraft he loaned to Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and his NPP for political campaign ended with some controversies.
But nearer in time, when his monopoly of our senatorial seat at the National Assembly was becoming unbearable, particularly when the thinking fraction of Orlu constituents just couldn’t point at anything Nzeribe attracted to or personally established or initiated in the zone, our people began quietly to search for a replacement. Not long afterwards, the ‘Dimanje’ fell out with the governor, Achike Udenwa, also called ‘Akpu-nwa Amaifeke’, himself from Orlu Senatorial zone also. Eventually, Mr. Osita Izunaso became the anchor man in the imminent political battle to unseat Chief Arthur Nzeribe. His legendary threat of matching naira for naira, okporoko (stockfish) for okporoko and rice for rice was no longer enough to contain the calculated efforts to dislodge him from turning our senate seat at the National Assembly into his personal property. In the face of the onslaught, Nzeribe was routed, and like the democrat he always claimed to be, he conceded victory to someone he repeatedly referred to as ‘a small boy’. Orlu senatorial zone was extracted from Nzeribe’s stranglehold.
Nzeribe’s primary miscalculation, in my view, was his inability to know exactly when to stop ‘contesting’ for elections, and quietly retire. When the Resident Electoral Commissioner in Cross River State, Mike Igini, said in a television programme that ‘there has been no election in Oguta from time, Nzeribe just wrote the results’, Igini was saying what was common knowledge. What Nzeribe electorally did in Oguta, he also inflicted on the entire senatorial zone. I will volunteer this coda: During the political campaigns for the 2003 elections, I travelled to the village for something I cannot immediately remember. In the evening, I got into a conversation with my father who was then approaching 90 years and an Nzeribe fan. I asked him, as if I didn’t know what his answer would be, whom he would vote for in the elections that were only three weeks away. My dad said he would vote for ‘Atta Nzeribe’. ‘Why Nzeribe? And why Nzeribe every time?’, I asked the old man, pretending to be angry. Papa shocked me. He said: ‘Whether you vote for Nzeribe or not, he would win. That small radio there that you people bought for me (pointing) will be telling us he won. So why don’t I vote for him and stop wasting my time’. ‘Besides,’ my father continued by way of conclusion, ‘his messengers know how to see us with something.’
Later, I understood the full meaning of that phrase: ‘see us with something.’ It simply meant bags of rice and stockfish for the villagers, mostly retirees, to share. In pre-civil war Nigeria, Papa voted ‘NCNC and for ZIK’ from the 40s. But Zik never sent rice, stockfish or pounds, he educated me later in the day, but ‘his grammar and the courage to challenge white people drew us close to him and his party, the NCNC’.
While Chief Francis Arthur Nzeribe was still our senator, a committee was raised in my community with the sole mandate to visit our senator with the complaint that NEPA supply to our people’s homes was worse than a quarter current and therefore useless. Could he please raise the matter with the appropriate authorities? Nzeribe never saw the team. The security men at his massive country home refused them entry, apparently on instructions. We then decided to write him a polite letter stating our case against NEPA and our concerns on the pollution that daily result from oil exploration in nearby Egbema oil fields. The letter was respectful, responsible and well-worded. It was neither acknowledged nor answered. Why should he, when they have feasted on his bags of rice and okporoko. He owed them nothing! Yes, often friends innocently ask me: Are there changes in your people’s situation now, on good and effective representation, amenities and accessibility to the people by those that succeeded Nzeribe – that is, Osita Izunaso and now Hope Uzodinma? Are they, like Nzeribe, still feasting on your people’s ignorance? My answer is: ‘No Comment!’ What I keep asking is: where is Ogbuagu, our Dimanje? He is missing in action.
—Kanayo Esinulo, [email protected] , www: kanayoesinulo.com