The comic relief provided by Mrs Ebele Obiano, wife of the immediate past governor of Anambra State, and Mrs Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, widow of Dim Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, at the inauguration of Professor Charles Soludo as Anambra State governor last Thursday, was a tragedy for three main reasons.
The first is that it was an anticlimax to the build up to Soludo’s inauguration. Shortly after his election, Soludo had put together an 80-member transition committee headed by Mrs Oby Ezekwesili. The team comprised of highly cerebral people like Professor Pat Utomi, Professor Chidi Odinkalu and Chief Osita Chidoka. This was a departure from the style of loading transition committees with politicians and acolytes, whose interest for serving on such committees is to jostle for appointments. According to Ezekwesili, in her reaction to her selection, Soludo put together the team to build solid groundwork for governance.
Soludo, through his transition committee, also introduced a novelty in the country when the committee came up with a talent databank, which made it possible for interested Anambra citizens to pitch for political appointments or career in public service. The importance of this is that it has made political and public offices open to all Anambra State citizens, while also enabling Soludo to assemble the best possible team and align tasks with skills and competences.
All of these gave clear indications that Professor Soludo was bringing a refreshing difference to governance in the country. Consequently, many Nigerians were looking forward to an inspiring and illuminating inauguration ceremony. But instead of that what we had was a situation in which a badly scripted and poorly directed Nollywood movie starring Ebele Obiano and Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu eclipsed the sublimity of Soludo’s speech.
Then, though it was Soludo’s inauguration, the event was actually Willie Obiano’s commemoration. Soludo is Obiano’s preference as a successor. The All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), the party on whose platform Soludo won the election, was fationalised ahead of the election with two groups; the Victor Oye group and the Jude Okeke faction, laying claim to the leadership. It wasn’t until October 14 last year that the Supreme Court affirmed Oye as the party’s national chairman and Soludo as its candidate. So, not only did Obiano govern Anambra State for eight years, he was also able to produce his own successor. So, while Soludo might have been the groom at the inauguration, Willie and Ebele Obiano were the groom’s parents. Consequently, it was supposed to be their day of glory and honour. So, why would the groom’s mother engage a relation in fisticuffs on her day of celebration? Why would Ebele want to cast a pall on her husband’s accomplishments over the past eight years in Anambra? Why would she want to be remembered across the country as a fishwife whose final action in government was a public fight?
Finally, but sadly, the most tragic part of that ugly development was the fact that the two dramatis personae are highly placed; one a former first lady, the other daughter of a former governor, wife of an illustrious man and a former ambassador of Nigerian to Spain. Ordinarily, these are supposed to be models to young girls and other women. To think that Mrs Ebele Obiano, whose husband had been involved in statesmanship in the last eight years, would surrender to the urge to attack another woman at a state function is very disconcerting. How could Mrs Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, a former diplomat, have thrown caution to the wind and engage another woman in a brawl publicly. How could Mrs Obiano, who served as First Lady of Anambra State for eight years have thought of using derogatory terms on a fellow woman? How could these two women who have had the unique opportunity of operating at the highest stratum of the Nigerian society behave like uncouth, poorly trained and poorly groomed women? What happened to decorum? What happened to decency? What happened to dignity?
What kind of counsel did Ebele give her husband when he was at the helm of affairs in Anambra? Any wonder that Obiano ran into problem with many of those who facilitated his election? What manner of leadership has Bianca been providing for APGA, which her husband founded? With the attitude put up last week, is it a surprise that APGA is not exactly wholesome?
But the real tragedy is that the two women’s behaviour at that state function is commonplace among those who rule Nigeria.
Last Tuesday, during the televised inauguration of Community Secondary School, Omuanwa, in Ikwerre Local Government Area, Rivers State governor, Iyesom Wike, took on Edo State governor, Godwin Obaseki, and called him names.
Wike, who was replying to Obaseki’s response to his initial tirade against Obaseki’s deputy, Phillip Shuaibu, said, “If you check the DNA of Obaseki, what you will see is betrayal, serial betrayal and ungratefulness.”
In his reply, Obaseki said, he would not surrender to a bully.
Similarly, Governor Rotimi Akeredolu was so peeved with his fellow APC governors, who did not share his views on the management of the party, that he referred to them as ‘Yahoo Governors’.
Now, when state governors, wives of governors and ambassadors engage in open attack on one another what does that say about the nation’s leadership quality? How can those who are saddled with manning the affairs of the state be so idle that they have time for pedestrian issues? How far have both Wike and Obaseki gone with transforming their states that they made attacking and reducing each other a goal? What value is there in a governor derogatorily labeling his colleagues as ‘Yahoo Governors?’? What virtue is there in those in high places dragging one another in the mud?
The fact is that more often than not those who occupy high offices in Nigeria are way below the offices they occupy and this is evident in their conduct and the quality of their deliveries. The office of governor is for serious-minded people, it is not for those who thrive in trivialities. But the Nigerian case is that those who occupy leadership positions trivialize and trample on the serious matters of state, thus subjecting everyone to substandard existence.
No society can get better than the quality of its leadership. So, for as long as we keep having as leaders those whose goal is to worst their fellow leaders and not to better the lot of the people, Nigeria will continue its ballroom dance; one step forward and two backwards.
A country led by minions cannot be a giant.
and then