By Ikechukwu Amaechi
At last, the November 18, 2017, Anambra State governorship election has been conducted and Anambrarians are ululating. They have every reason to be joyous. What many thought was a tinderbox about to explode turned out, perhaps, one of the most peaceful and transparent elections in the country to the extent that nobody is threatening, at least not yet, to challenge the outcome in court.
Then, fortuitously, on Sunday, a day after the historic poll which positively rebranded Anambra, one of the state’s most illustrious sons, the pride of the Igbo race, and Nigeria’s democracy beacon, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, former Vice President, died in a London hospital three weeks after he suddenly took ill at his Enugu home and one week after he was flown abroad for qualitative medical care.
On hearing that Ekwueme was gravely ill, President Muhammadu Buhari ordered that he be flown abroad. I have the draft of an article on the president’s “kind gesture,” and the fact that almost every Nigerian “big man” who passed on in the last ten years died abroad, but discontinued for fear of being misconstrued. Human life was involved but now that Ekwueme is dead, it is high time we examined a very disturbing, albeit humiliating phenomenon, that has become a fad here – dying abroad. But that will be an issue for another day.
Dr. Ekwueme was a quintessential democrat, an intellectual in politics, a national icon. His, like the late Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim, was politics without bitterness. The gentleman and patriot that he was, he amply demonstrated by his actions both on and off the political arena that politics is not a dirty game played only by grimy characters. Instead, he proved that politics and integrity can and, indeed, should be soul mates. For many years, Ekwueme was a bridge-builder and stabilizing political force in Nigeria who brought his enormous intellect to bear on the country’s politics.
As Editor of Weekend Examiner newspaper in the early 2000, I remember interviewing him in Lagos. And what a humbling experience it was for me. He was a teacher, a historian, a philosopher. His candour was disarming. He never parried any question. His understanding of Nigerian politics and the actors was fascinating. I left him not only grateful that I got my dream interview but also the fact that in the 50 minutes the interview lasted, I learnt a great deal about Nigeria.
But my fondest memory of Ekwueme was his political sagacity at the Jos Township stadium in late 1998 where the then newly formed Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had its first national convention to pick a candidate for the 1999 presidential election.
Having led the G34 that not only metamorphosed into the PDP but also stampeded the military out of power, Ekwueme was in a pole position to pick the party’s ticket until the military establishment led by the then head of state, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, and his Minna Hilltop neighbour, former military president, General Ibrahim Babangida, stepped in and anointed one of their own, General Olusegun Obasanjo, who was in General Sani Abacha’s gulag when the PDP was formed.
To foist Obasanjo on the party, all the rules were changed in the middle of the game. One of such rules was that an aspiring candidate must deliver his ward. But Obasanjo lost not only his polling booth but ward, local government and state. The defunct Alliance for Democracy (AD) locked down the entire Southwest.
Yet, Obasanjo was anointed by the military cabal. That was the beginning of the impunity that ultimately ruined PDP. Obasanjo used his eight years in office to worsen the matter, making impunity and disregard for due process a statecraft.
On the convention night, Babangida’s boys led by General John Shagaya were in town to direct operations and ensure that nothing went “wrong.” The Jos residence of Alhaji Yahaya Kwande, Nigeria’s former ambassador to Switzerland and a PDP chieftain then, was their operational headquarters from where the strings were effectively pulled.
Ekwueme was aware of the conspiracy and the odds against him but fought gallantly.
I remember confronting Chief James Ibori, whose Sunday Diet newspaper I was editing then, when he was leaving the convention arena after casting his ballot. Many states were yet to vote but Ibori, who had just won election as governor of Delta State, had a meeting that morning with the outgoing military administrator, Navy Captain Walter Feghabo. I told him he couldn’t leave because the election was too early to call but he said matter-of-factly that Obasanjo had won. When I insisted there could be a run-off, he dismissed the idea. “Ikechukwu, abi you no get my number again? I beg, make you call me if una get a run-off.”
Of course, there was no run-off. Obasanjo won and Ekwueme immediately mounted the rostrum to concede defeat and pledge his support to the chagrin of many of his supporters who felt that he conceded too easily without any conditions.
But Ekwueme was not the typical Nigerian politician. Having fought to throw off the yoke of military dictatorship, he was not about to do anything that would truncate the fledgling democracy even if the major casualty of the treachery of the political elite was his own ambition. For him, it was not about self. It was about the country.
When Obasanjo, having won the presidency, altered the zoning arrangement for political offices and gave the Senate Presidency to the Southeast so that Ekwueme could take the position, he declined. For him, it was not about power, influence and wealth for their sake. He knew why he wanted to be president and if he was not going to get that opportunity, he was not going to be in the power loop just for the sake of it.
At a much younger age, he was one of the major financiers of the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN), and he left the presidency after General Muhammadu Buhari’s coup of December 31, 1983, poorer.
In December 1985, Justice Sampson Uwaifo, who headed a judicial tribunal set up by the military junta to try some Second Republic politicians on corruption charges said that much in his ruling.
“Dr Alex Ekwueme’s wealth, in actual fact, had diminished by the time he was removed from office as Vice President via a military coup. I see no prima facie case being made here to warrant his trial for any offence known to law; and were he to be put on trial on the facts available, it would be setting a standard of morality too high even for saints in politics in a democracy to observe,” said Uwaifo in discharging and acquitting Ekwueme.
That cannot even be said of those who arbitrarily sacked a democratic government, locked him up in Kirikiri Prisons while his principal, President Shehu Shagari, enjoyed the luxury of a house arrest.
That is Dr. Ekwueme, the man who died on Sunday at the age of 85. The tragedy of the Nigerian situation is that with his death, the clan of those with his political pedigree who see politics and political office as a call to service rather than an opportunity to amass wealth has depleted further and there are no replacements.
Ekwueme died a day after the Anambra poll in which his daughter, Alexandria Chidi Onyemelukwe , was the PDP deputy governorship candidate. If he had lived, he would have congratulated the winner, Governor Willy Obiano, and the good people of Anambra for making the Igbo race proud.
He would have been as pleasantly surprised with the poll’s outcome as everybody else.
For an electoral umpire that is known for “inconclusive polls,” this particular election was almost flawless. No reported cases of violence! No thuggery!
Yet, it speaks ill of us and the health of our democracy that in an era when, even in some African countries, elections are conducted seamlessly with voters dropping off their children in school, then going to the polling booths to cast their ballot, and going back to work, a state as economically important as Anambra, the gateway to many other Southeast and South-south states, had to be shut down, literally, for two days – Friday and Saturday – just to hold a standalone election.
It is instructive that Obiano won in all the 21 local governments. It was an emphatic victory. The people made a forceful, unequivocal and loud statement with their votes.
It is left for him to reciprocate the people’s goodwill with good governance. Anything short of that will be unmitigated betrayal.
As for Ekwueme, Ide Okoh, he must be very proud of the incredible political feat achieved by Anambrarians in particular and Ndigbo generally on Saturday.
May his soul rest in peace!
