According to SAHARA
Former Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State has handed car gifts to
key senators, including Senate President David Mark, in order to ease
his path to appointment as Nigeria’s new Aviation Minister.
President Goodluck Jonathan has promised the post of Aviation
Minister to Mr. Obi who in mid-March finished his second term as
governor. Mr. Obi, a leader of the All Peoples Grand Alliance (APGA), is
in line to be rewarded with a cabinet post for his political loyalty to
the incumbent president.
But Mr. Obi has been handing out cars and cash to senators after
discovering that there was significant opposition to him within the
ruling party.
After his exit from Government House, Awka, Mr. Obi’s name was touted
as a potential government appointee, first as a replacement for Pius
Anyim, a former senator and current Secretary of the Federal Government
who is believed to be seriously weighing a governorship race in Ebonyi
State. But several political heavyweights within the PDP moved against
Mr. Obi, two sources in the party said. One source disclosed that
several of the PDP’s top members, including its national chairman,
voiced their stance that an original member of the party, specifically
Jerry Ugokwe, should be tipped to take any post for which Mr. Obi was
being considered.
READ MORE AFTER THE CUT........................
“It is true that Chief Obi helped us in the presidential election,
but he is still a member of another party,” one source told
SaharaReporters. “Why should we bypass somebody like Ambassador [Jerry]
Ugokwe to give a plum job to a man from another party?” he added.
Our sources revealed that Mr. Obi also faced opposition from many PDP
and non-PDP figures from Anambra because of what they termed the
divisive politics he introduced in his home state during his eight-year
governorship. The former governor was seen as the arrowhead of a toxic
kind of politics that pitched Roman Catholics against Anglicans, Anambra
South against Anambra North, and some traditional rulers against
others. In addition, Mr. Obi was criticized for manipulating ethnic
sentiments in Anambra State, even though the headquarters of his
business group is in the southwest, specifically Apapa, Lagos in Lagos
State, and he used his years in office to build one of the biggest malls
in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.
Our sources said the combined efforts of PDP leaders and Mr. Anyim
may have made President Jonathan to shelve the nomination of Mr. Obi as
minister.
Wary of political intrigues that were threatening to sideline him
completely, Mr. Obi launched his counter-move. He started giving away
several Ford SUVs he had bought in the last few months of his
governorship and which he carted away from the Anambra State Government
House after he stepped down. A reliable source said Mr. Obi first gave
one car each to senators from the southeast, one to the Deputy Senate
President, Ekweremadu, and two to the Senate President, David Mark.
The gifts, which our sources portrayed as auto-for-minister bribery,
are aimed at softening senators whenever Mr. Obi’s name is submitted for
approval as a minister.
Mr. Obi publicly portrays himself as a miser, but insiders in Anambra
and Abuja say he is a big player in corrupt deals. In June, 2009, one
of his closest aides, Valentine Obienyem, was caught in Lagos along with
police officers attached to Government House, Awka as they hauled N250
million in cash in a government vehicle that traveled by road from Awka
to Lagos. A former commissioner in Mr. Obi’s administration told
SaharaReporters that the former governor transferred between “security
vote” funds of N250 million and N300 million each month from Anambra
State to the Apapa headquarters of Next International, the ex-governor’s
company.
Embarrassed by the police interception, Mr. Obi and his aides could
not offer a tidy explanation of the source of the funds. A top political
source in Anambra disclosed that Mr. Obi evaded prosecution by
operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)
because of his close ties to then President Umaru Yar’Adua. In addition,
he went unpunished by massively bribing the former Inspector General of
Police, Michael Okiro, EFCC chairperson Farida Waziri, members of the
Anambra state legislature, and many of Nigeria’s editors and reporters.
President Jonathan and Mr. Obi developed a close personal friendship
and political alliance because of the former governor’s habit of
befriending any president in power. Mr. Obi sang the praises of former
President Olusegun Obasanjo at a time when most Nigerians were very
critical of the Obasanjo Presidency. When Nigerians were disappointed in
President Umaru Yar’Adua and called him “President Go-Slow,” Governor
Obi ran to the defense of the ineffectual and ailing man. Mr. Obi stated
that he and the now deceased ruler had a similar style of governance,
claiming that Mr. Yar’Adua was first devoting time and energy to making
solid plans as a prelude to implementation.
A source close to Mr. Obi told SaharaReporters that the former
governor promised President Jonathan that APGA would not field a
candidate in the 2011 presidential election. “The governor made sure
that APGA focused on securing decisive victory for Mr. President in
Anambra and the entire southeast,” said the source.
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