Impeachment: How Buhari’s Victory Saved Obiano

Before the 2015 general election, the mood in Anambra State cut the picture of the peace of the grave yard following stories making the round that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state has concluded arrangement to impeach Gov. Willie Obiano.
This was coming despite the prevailing alliance All Progressives Grand Alliance the (APGA) had with the PDP all along.
According to a reliable source who spoke with Daily Times then, the faceoff between former Governor Peter Obi and his successor was fast getting to its climax and Obi was no longer comfortable with the style of Obiano’s administration.
Besides, the alleged rude manner Peter Obi was literary frustrated out of the APGA by some loyalists of its National Chairman, Sir Victor Umeh did not go down well with Obi’s supporters who are not in the PDP.
With Obi out of APGA, aggrieved party members and some PDP stalwarts in the state began the scheming of how to unseat the incumbent governor after the general election.
Indeed, before then, some executive council members of Obiano’s administration were allegedly leaking sensitive secret government information to the governor’s political foes.
These information were said to have been packaged as impeachable offences of Obiano which would be contained in the proposed impeachment notice to be served at an appointed date.
When Obiano’s opponents discovered that the current State Assembly members were not ready to play ball, they resorted to their Plan B.
The second game plan was to return all the 30 PDP State Assembly members into the Legislature thereby having a strong majority to unseat the governor after the general election.
To further remove elements of resistance from any quarter, the party made sure that the 11 House of Representatives seats in Anambra were won by the PDP; though the party lost just two seats to APGA.
Similarly, it returned the three senatorial seats of the State to the PDP apparently creating a good ground for Obiano’s ultimate impeachment.
Ironically, the alleged cabals lost sight of the dynamics of Nigerian politics and when they had run away with the belief that the coast is clear, the unexpected happened. President Goodluck Jonathan lost his second term bid to Gen. Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) hence, creating a fresh confusion within the ranks of the cabal.
The body became apprehensive in the belief that any move of impeachment may be counter productive as the new party that would soon assume power may not be disposed to their antics.
Besides, most PDP chieftains in Nigeria are now seating on the edge oblivious of what the Buhari led government is capable of doing when it assumes office.
As the State Assembly election in Anambra was ongoing, the desperation of the cabal was made manifest when top PDP chieftains and major financiers allegedly condescended to the level of thuggery. Ballot boxes and sensitive electoral materials were being snatched at every corners under the watch of security operatives.
The show of brigandage and the display of irresponsibility against democratic principle led to what the APC in Anambra State called a rape of peoples Jonathanwish and aspirations.
According to the State Chairman of the party, Barr Emeka Ibeh who spoke to reporters “We commend INEC for cancelling the so called elections in Ekwusigo State Assembly Constituency. It is the right thing to do. Hopefully, when the election eventually takes place, the security agencies will guard against the breach of the law and the constitution which led to the stalemate. We expect that Mr. Ifeanyi Ubah for security breaches perpetrated in the super RAC and Mr Emeka Offor should be arrested for hosting INEC materials in his house in Orifite, which is neither a super RAC nor a polling unit, where the materials should be at that time” he added.
With the plot to return more PDP candidates to the State Assembly, Gov. Obiano had to take on the fight as it came. Several meetings were held within APGA circles on how to beat the PDP in their own game and the governor came out with what observers described as a master plan.
In a state-wide broadcast, Obiano noted: “Fellow citizens, I want to assure you that the dubious victory of the PDP in the National Assembly Elections of last Saturday shall not stand! We have assembled the necessary documentary and material evidence that will expose the bare-faced lies of the PDP and retrieve the mandate that you graciously gave to all APGA candidates from the law courts. We shall do everything humanly possible to ensure that justice is done to our people and we shall not relent until victory is achieved. Please, don’t lose hope!” he assured.
Not surprisingly, Obiano’s words chimed in with the outrage of the people. It began to suddenly dawn on Ndi Anambra that the cheeky manipulation of their electoral power should not go without a challenge. It began to occur to them that silence was not a virtue where outrage was required and that if they did nothing, the invading army would be emboldened to move in and finally crush their collective will. So, spontaneous reactions ensued. Prominent citizens of the state came out to openly condemn the results of the March 28, 2015 election.
A coalition of Igbo youths took to the streets, fanning out across the Awka, Nnewi and Onitsha to register their displeasure. Groups of independent observers of the election addressed press conferences and discredited the results of the election. A war of words ensued between the invaders and the innocent citizens whose only wish was to be allowed to lick their electoral wounds in peace. It was upon these troubled waters that Governor Obiano made his second broadcast, rising like an astute general to calm the waves and restore the confidence of the people in the capacity of his administration to maintain the peace.
“We have once again come to the crossroads of history. A time comes that rarely comes in life when a people who are desirous of a lasting change must say so in a profound way. Ndi Anambra; that time is now! The time to secure our future with our votes has finally come…We have demonstrated that when government is sincere, open and honest, our people will heed the clarion call for greatness.
“We have shown that power belongs to Ndi Anambra and that together we can build a prosperous state…Ndi Anambra, anyi bu ife! (We are the light).” Such words that were intended to pull at the strings of the people’s heart and stir them to full consciousness. He said.
According to an APGA source which pleaded anonymity, ‘’The security formations were built up for the state and governor, who is the chief security officer had to impress all the security personnel to be alive to their responsibilities.
“Even those of us in APGA had to be mobilized so that those people will not come up against our governor. You saw what happened on that day, how the PDP people were lamenting and accusing us of rigging the election. But that is not true because all their plans failed because we were proactive,” he added.
In his frustration, immediate past governor of the state, Obi, who was visibly unhappy, called for the cancellation of the election, alleging irregularities in the conduct of the exercise.
Similarly, the federal might of the Army, civil Defence and the police were not there to assist the PDP in manipulating the electoral process due to the victory of Buhari of APC.
Also embattled by the turn of event is senator- elect Uche Ekwunife who accused Obiano of using thugs.
‘’What happened today is shocking and very undemocratic. A lot of hoodlums and thugs have been recruited by the APGA government to rig the election. This shows desperation and it is not good for the polity. They have been going about spreading falsehood that the PDP wants to impeach Obiano after election and I wonder why they are doing that.
‘‘They are talking about impeachment and I ask why the governor is afraid of impeachment, He is the governor and he has the choice of running a populist government that would impact positively on the lives of the people, if he does that, he will become a hero but if he fails, he has himself to blame. If he commits an impeachable offence, he will face impeachment, as far as I am concerned nobody wants to impeach him,” she said.
Interestingly, the plot for Obiano’s impeachment was said to have been endorsed by top PDP members in Abuja and according to our source, the plot would have been climaxed by the conduct of a bye election in Anambra to elect a new governor that would certainly be a PDP candidate.
Though it was not clear who the next governor would be, three persons had already been penciled as alternatives in the event of Obiano being impeached.
In what appears to be a twist of fate against the PDP, its Presidential candidate did not win the said election, instead, Buhari emerged victorious hence the impeachment plot appears to have failed at the moment.
President-elect Buhari, who is known to be the uncompromising type it was gathered has warned against over heating the polity insisting that the due process of government business must be followed.
“So those who want to remove the governor with trumped up charges of committing impeachable offences have failed. Their party is no longer in power and the confusion in PDP is much that they are only interested in their safety and political future rather than destabilizing Anambra State”, an inside source told Daily Times.
Political watchers are of the view that Gov. Obiano owes his survival of the impeachment plot against him to the victory of APC in the last general election.
They posited that if not for that development, his opponents in the PDP would have over ran the state and throw him out like a villain.
A top civil servant in Anambra who spoke with Daily Times noted: “The crisis and the confusion that Anambra would have experienced had President Jonathan won his election would have made the 2003-2006 political crisis look like a mere child’s play. This state would have experienced a nose dive to the detriment of the common man on the street who have so far found the governor as one that is determined to give governance a human face’’.