Zik Zulu Okafor
4 November 2009
opinion
Lagos — In the last two weeks, I have read with a chuckle and sometimes sarky smile the series of pungent articles and advertorials on the Anambra State political question. The unmistakable target of these writings is His Excellency, Dr. Andy Uba. The crystal goal is to blackmail the five-man Appeal Court panel sitting over Uba's appeal seeking a consequential order/declaration on the appellate court's initial ruling.
The first salvo was fired by a certain group with the nebulous name of Anambra Rennaissance Group. This group made wild allegations of how attempts were made to compromise the Appeal Panel. It also sent a petition to the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) and the National Judicial Council (NJC).
The climax of these caustic articles and propaganda-inspired writings however came with Simon Kolawole's "Constitution on Trial at Appeal Court (THISDAY, Sunday, November 1, 2010) and Ikemba Ojukwu's hollow war mongering comments (The Sun, Monday, November 2, 2010).
I will start with Ojukwu. It is indeed a matter of utmost gravity that a highborn like Ojukwu, an Oxford University graduate, a man with his political pedigree and exposure could allow little men on purely inglorious, self-centred mission to confuse him and muddle up his once famed incisive mind. How could an Ikemba, a political scholar, make those gory statements about a case that is subjudice; a case before a highly experienced and most respectable justices? Ojukwu himself has confessed the devastation and horror that war could bring.
How could he then begin to preach a tragic prognosis and outright war about a constitutional matter that is already before a court of competent jurisdiction? This is simply pathetic. But let me remind the Ikemba of what the late Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu, a hero, told him before he declared his war in 1968 and which was carried by the BBC and it is that fighting war is not about grandstanding. Seeing Ojukwu's rhetorics before his declaration of the state of Biafra, just like he (Ojukwu) is talking now, Nzeogwu warned: "I have not seen actual preparations for war. What I have seen is grandstanding". Ojukwu never forgave him and not a few people still accuse Ojukwu of betraying Nzeogwu and knowing more than a little about his tragic end.
But how could Ojukwu or anyone at that, ever think that Uba could influence the appeal panel? Here is a man that has lost most of his cases in court, some even controversially, yet he has maintained an icy silence, never criticised any of the judgments, never joined issues with the judges.
Even Uba's character traits point to the fact that interfering with the work of judicial officers is not in sync with his persona, not to mention boasting that he will win as alleged by the Anambra Rennaissance group.
To begin with, Uba is not a noise maker. Most Nigerians can truly attest to his reticence. In a country where people with little political influence flaunt it oppressively, Uba remained a sharp contrast. Taciturn, almost shy and avoiding publicity, Uba, with all the power ascribed to his office as Senior Special Assistant to former President Olusegun Obasanjo for eight years, never made his voice heard, so much so that in his first four years in office, Nigerians never knew there was a soul called Andy Uba. As one of his close friends put it, "Andy just does not like noise. He is quiet by nature, very humble and has a very simple attitude to life."
The peace and serenity that delineated Uba's life gave way when he declared his intention to run for governorship of Anambra State, an election he won on Saturday, April 14, 2007.
However, on July 13, 2007 with Uba barely a few days in office, the worst happened. The Supreme Court based on the tenure interpretation appeal of his predecessor in office, Peter Obi, ordered Uba to vacate his office for Obi to complete his tenure. As if this political blow was not enough, the Election Tribunal sitting in Anambra State on July 19, 2007, annulled his election based on the Supreme Court judgment.
Uba's crucible thus began. And within a flicker of two years, he would come face to face with Anambra's political Pandora's box and the whole panorama of intrigues, corruption and betrayals that accentuate the instability in his state.
But Uba is made of the sterner stuff. As the controversy of his removal sizzled and simmered, he maintained a cold silence. Even if the pain of a fractured dream was ravaging his soul, he remained stoic. As one of his close associates put it, "Andy does not believe that he is a victim of any sort. He believes that our judiciary is too advanced to involve itself in any form of vendetta. Or to be induced by anyone. His confidence in the judiciary is just unshakeable."
Based on his unwavering conviction and faith in the judiciary, Uba held a press conference in Abuja in which he accepted the judgment that ordered him to vacate the Anambra government house and reaffirmed his confidence in the Nigerian judiciary.
Naturally endowed with a resilient and irrepressible spirit, Uba on three occasions went back to the Supreme Court seeking to get a fair shake of the dice but lost in each case. Still his loud silence persists, not even reacting to some pungent attacks against his person for exhaustively exploring the legal options available to him.
However, reprieve came the way of Uba on 18th February 2008, when five justices of the Appeal Court upheld his appeal and set aside the judgment of the tribunal including the nullification orders made by the lower tribunal on 19th July, 2007.
It is Uba's return to the Appeal Court to seek consequential order for the above judgment that spurred the barrage of acidic attacks on his person and the justices of the Appeal panel in the last two weeks and heavily accentuated between Sunday November 1 and Monday, November 2, 2010. I have been told that the champions of these unslaught against Uba and the judiciary have more surprises, even if shameful, still coming.
I am however shocked that my good brother and friend, Simon Kolawole, a writer's writer, could allow these absurdists to penetrate the carapace of his analytical mind. I dare to say that Kolawole remains, for me, one journalist that will not allow gifts, material or otherwise, to shape his perception of issues. I once asked him, "Ol' boy, the way you write so strongly about everybody that is somebody in Nigeria, who will you run to when you are in trouble?" "My brother", he said in his comic style, "I will run to God".
This is why his Sunday article seems to me, a betrayal of his often courageous carriage of professional convictions, a betrayal of his incisive mind that never ceases to obey the mandate of his conscience.
I could not help but ask, "how could Simon comment so strongly about a case in court, aware it is subjudice? He even went awfully further to lace his comments with threats of the fate that may await the judges. This undoubtedly borders a little on extremism and certainly unSimon.
While I will not be guilty of constituting myself into a juror, let me remind Kolawole who I hold in utmost respect, Ikemba Ojukwu and others that have become justices on newspapers that Chief Nicholas Ukachukwu and his lawyer, Nwafor Orizu, only last month went to the Supreme Court asking it to compel INEC to organise election on February 6, 2010 and to declare that Uba's case at the Appeal was an abuse of court process. The Appeal Panel which was to hear Andy Uba's appeal in Enugu on realising that the Supreme Court was giving its judgment on Ukachukwu's case, on the same day it (Appeal) was sitting, adjourned till the next day to hear the Supreme Court ruling so as to avoid judicial crisis. And what was the judgment? The apex court ruled that it had nothing to do with Uba's case at the Appeal, adding that ordering Uba to vacate his office as governor was the outcome of a strictly tenure interpretation appeal by Obi to the final court. To check further judicial rascality in the dimension of Ukachukwu's, the Supreme Court fined him N100,000 for abuse of court process. See the irony?
The robust fact is that Andy as he is fondly called is freezing with fear over what may be the outcome of this case. But he has chosen to be stoic even as he faces a seeming gulf, aware that his voice will change nothing. And his quiet is not born out of sterile passivity. It is just as he puts it, "when a case is in court, there is nothing you can do. In court everyone is powerless. In this one, I still pray and I believe that the panel will see the merit of my appeal. I have prayed to my God in the earliest hours of the morning and the darkest hours of the night, begging him to hear my voice and give me justice. There is nothing else I can do. I have no time to respond to those who attack and malign me. I leave God to judge".
Okafor wrote from Lagos.
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