With Charles Chukwuma Soludo’s win, it’s all over but the whining. It is second time the rhyme in Anambra State, and the second act as a governor. The first in charge, as CBN chief, of the money of the people. In the next act, he will preside over the people of the money – in his state. He will walk the fine line of reconciling how to figure the people and people the figures.
His first coming was by appointment, the second by election. One man’s fiat, the multitude’s choice. He has come full circle. He is, to quote the novelist Tom Wolfe, a man in full.
As he prepares to govern, he will see himself as a schizophrenic gift, part bureaucrat, part politician, two worlds in a soul to deliver stewardship to the people. He sought the office years ago against a man he now pounced by proxy: Peter Obi. Obi ruled the roost as the helmsman of All Progressive Grand Alliance, (APGA) the only party that has one state and has remained impregnable. Anambra is APGA state of mind.
When Obi lost to Obiano, also by proxy, this essayist described him as a statesman without a state. The comment drew dissonant uproar from his fold. Now slain twice, the feminine-voiced gladiator is now stale. He will do well to fold his tail in peace.
But his story is different from Andy Uba, the man who came with the blessing of the ruling party of the centre. He is a reticent, soft-spoken, sometimes sullen swordsman without a shield. Uba attracted attention in the debate by characterising himself as Soludo’s benefactor. He claimed to have given him his first appellation of governor. Of the CBN, that is. I thought Soludo would have lunged back at him. He should have praised Uba for acknowledging his sterling resume. If it was a marker of Soludo’s brilliance and competence, Uba bowed to his credentials then. It would be worth his while now to bow again to the same credentials for Anambra governor.
Well, after the polls, and his poor showing in the third class, Uba made a drama of congratulating him before he saw the light and then swivelled. He now impugns the victory that sent him crashing like humpty-dumpty. His candidacy died, and was set for burial. But like the bereaved relative in the Booker-winning novel The Promise by Damon Galgut, Uba is asking the morticians to open the casket to be sure it is the corpse of his candidacy. When it is open, it is reeking with putrescence. Its features are so disfigured that he cannot recognise the body in the box. He is promising himself it is not he who lost; it was Uba who won. He probably is getting ready to go to court. He will feather lawyerly leeches to impersonate Christ and invoke Lazarus in his corpse of a candidacy. He awaits a prophecy from the priest of ascendancy, Father Mbaka, as a prelude to a court anointing. He should perish the thought. The opportunism that exploited maggoty technicalities to torpedo a sitting governor in Imo State does not exist here.
The people, not the courts, own this democracy. Not a cabal of wigged men with slander in their tongues for the wishes of the people. As for Mbaka who has converted the pulpit to a stage for deception, he prophesied in an audio recording now virile that the angels of heaven had abandoned Soludo, and he stood no chance to win. Prophet Isaiah has God’s word for him: “Who foils the lies of false prophets and makes fools of diviners…” Jeremiah warned, “He that has my word, let him speak it faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat?” The weeping prophet wept for Mbaka. He says men like Mbaka spew the imaginations of their own hearts. With the crown beside Soludo, what is the prophet saying in his morning mass?
The Anambra poll is a triumph of democracy, but also a cautionary tale. It is a warning to Kanu and his men that ‘Biafra’ is possible within a revamped Nigeria. The nation cries for nations within the nation to realise themselves. It is also a warning that we cannot run a democracy forever that thrives on ten or 12 percent voting strength. If some elders spoke to IPOB to cool its revolvers during the polling day, it is no excuse for triumphalism in Abuja. It calls for humility. As Churchill thrummed, “in victory, magnanimity.” As attorney general Abubakar Malami has hinted, there is room for political solution. Not now any gruff voice of a winner. It is an opportunity no one should let go. Same applies to Igboho. This is an window for statesmen, not carpet baggers.
We all know the nation as it is constituted cannot be sustained. We need democracy for its parts, a control of its culture and resources and its pride. The centre cannot hold until the parts hold their own. As the apostle of liberty, J.S. Mill noted, democracy cannot thrive when one group chokes another. Many groups feel so in Nigeria, those screaming as well as those whose voices grumble beneath the rafters. A pride of identity is as important as how to grow beans and cook it for the dinner table.
INEC made its point in the end, but BVAS also needs a second act. Anambra was a dress rehearsal but it was a poor fashion show until the wardrobe was made over. INEC chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, ever sober and methodical, must be holding meetings and turning his techies to tweak and rejig the portals. They must now anticipate and eliminate glitches.
Soludo comes at a time the meaning of his name resonates: follow peace. At a victory rally, he must feel that from his father, who stood beside him, from the grinning and proud old man who gave him that name. Just like any part of Nigeria, he will have to translate his name into reality. Udo Udo Udo is a worthy refrain for the hour. He may start with his voice. He has a deep bass and I once told him that he might one day consider a stint in broadcasting when he is done with governance and politics. He will be, as he mounts the throne, the voice of the state. With his deep, rich philtre, he is the boom of Anambra orchestra.
He is one of the most qualified men to run for governor in Nigeria’s history. Not because of his first class alone, but it counts. Not because he knows figures alone, but it counts. Not because of his experience, that is a plus. Not also because he was CBN governor alone. Not because he has run and knows how to lose and win, including tweaking the Nigeria currency. Not because he has the emotional stamina and subtlety. But because he has all these, and the hour summons his genius to revive a state of tremendous potential. In a meeting with him years ago, he said three cities showed financial money flow from his experience as CBN boss: Onitsha was one of them. His acumen beckons that wherewithal.
In Touch wishes the “boom of Anambra orchestra” good luck.
– Omatseye, a respected columnist, writes for The Nation