By Odimegwu Onwumere, 2348057778358
Among Ndigbo, it is a belief that a man does not say at a go, all that are on his mind. This is what Senator Chris Nwabueze Ngige (Onwa), representing Anambra Central Senatorial district in the Senate, has done in a conference he had with select of journalists. He said that
he would soon make known his concordat on Anambra governorship race, which is billed for 2014.
It would be grandstanding if the former governor of Anambra State, contests in the election, especially now that the major opposition political parties are blending together, to form a redoubtable force
that would give the big-headed ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) a fight it had never fought before since it came to power in 1999.
Senator Ngige has increasingly been and stands a desirably preference for the governorship race in Anambra State, most especially, now that major faction of the ruling All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in
the state, is on itinerary for the merger, which the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), All Nigerians Peoples Party (ANPP), Congress for
Progressives Change (CPC), Democratic Peoples Party (DPP), are in the forefront.
A former practicing medical doctor, Dr. Ngige is typically the people’s choice whether he gives a nod to contest in the guber race or
not, having been Anambra governor from May 29, 2003 to March 15, 2006, being 33 months. In his alluring way, he would say that during those 33 months, he had blueprint on reconstruction, on agriculture, on
education, on health, on transportation. Just name them.
Dr. Ngige did many works as governor, and these are un-disapproved facts by distinguished disapprovers of anything good in the political arena in the name of politics.
Some persons who are afraid of Ngige in the race are saying that the 2014 governorship in Anambra State is zoned to Anambra North and that Ngige who is from Anambra Central promised to support the zone in the
election. Propaganda is dangerous!
Ngige has however described this as a white lie oozing out from neo-politicians from that zone. From exploration, it can be confidently said that Ngige never made any promise of such to any zone in the state. He described the persons making such a statement as just returnees to Anambra State. Ngige is rather of the confidence that there has never been any agreement on whether there would be zoning formula in the three senatorial districts in the state, since civil rule was restored in 1999; hence politicians from the three zones have been contesting in the guber elections.
Ngige to-a-certain-extent said that the present government in the state should devoid itself of any politics of segregation in the name
of ‘politics of zoning’. He said that he had asked a salient question during the 2010 governorship election in Omabala forum. His question was if there had been any guber elections from 1999 to date in which the people of Anambra North said that they would not contest in order to pave a chance in the next turn for their emergence as governor.
As once the president of a Pan-Igbo organisation known as Aka-Ikenga in Lagos, Ngige has been a man of his words. While in office as governor, his administration organised an investors’ forum for the today’s booming Orient Petroleum and worked with the Board of Directors that was put up, in making sure that the project was a success it has become. For the love of his people, Ngige as governor acquired the land where Orient Petroleum is currently operating and also gave them the Certificate of Occupancy.
While he has refused to assess the present government in the state after he did in 2009, Ngige has not shied away from directing the government on any observed angles it is derailing. Being a politician with the heart of sportsmanship, Ngige has not notwithstanding hidden his voice to commend the present government of his state and review it whenever he deemed it necessary.
One of Ngige’s commendations of the government in his state was on the
day that the dream of Orient Petroleum became-visible. He commended the government for its contributions to the success of Orient Petroleum. This is the way the affably Senator Ngige and other South-East senators made a case on the second Niger Bridge, believing that their people wouldn’t forgive them if this bridge does not work as expected.
The senators told the Secretary to the Government of the Federation about this. And Ngige would say that they have agreed on the 2020 plan which was brought to them in that regard, but his worry was that those
concerned with the work on the bridge were doing so on Public Private Partnership (PPP), which meant that there would be toll gates where the South-Easterners would be duty-bound to pay.
As a social democrat, Ngige frowns at anything that is undemocratic. He does not see governorship as Ichieship or Kingship hereditary, consequently he asks anybody be the person a King or Nze canvassing for the governor of Anambra State to pick his successor to eschew such notion, because Anambra people should be free to make
their choice of who the next governor should be.
Dr. Ngige will ever receive the endorsement of any Anambra person that does not play politics of bitterness. Ngige is gargantuan in his expeditions, character and intelligence. His admirers have always likened him to a man whose soft voice is an irony of the forthright and fearless Ngige, who is a radical and have always said that he so much believes in positive radicalism. Ngige loves his people with a passion and sharp, hard-hitting strength as a concrete seasoned politician. It will worth the salt if Dr. Ngige contests in the Anambra 2014 guber election, because he has paid his dues as a politician who has been threatened, scandalized by traducers, abducted, and so on, but he refused to derail. It is on record that before Ngige took the fortress of Anambra seat of power at Awka as governor, a journey between Nnewi and Awka took over an hour, but when he treated the road, the journey
now takes fewer than twenty minutes, likewise in other roads. Dr. Ngige has been a transformative leader. At the senate where he represents the Anambra Central Senatorial district, his voice resonates like a musical amplifier. He has solved a lot bumpy issues, but he is not bumpy himself. This is a man who would have used the state’s money as governor to form rings of thugs to fight his battle
when thugs were after him, but he did not. What a polished man! Anambra people have not forgotten that Dr. Ngige sacrificed his political prospect for them and the state. They see this as the bottom-line of all the contentions, which no other politician had done in the political imbroglio in the state that Ngige once found himself as governor. Many Anambra who were staying abroad and came home when Ngige was governor, were shocked with ecstasy on the ground works that his administration had put in place.
Dr. Chris Nwabueze Ngige (Onwa) has been celebrated and to date the celebration has not settled, because he first celebrated his people and encouraged Anambra State. He is one man who performed creditably as governor and, if all the governors in the country had towed his line of action, all the rofo-rofo, hues and cry in different quarters about underdevelopment of the country would have been a thing of the past. Ndi-Anambra are very much awake today. They have tasted good governance under the administration of Ngige. He gave them the type of governance they are yarning to taste again. He had been tested and trusted. And the confidence is that he is the only one ndi-Anambra can trust in the 2014 elections. He saved Anambra State from fake bankruptcy. Ngige understands the politics of his state and shows that charity, not charlatans, begins at home. He is held in very high esteem by Nigerians of accountably milieu.
Dr. Ngige Nwabueze Ngige (Onwa) is an indisputable leader that Anambra State has had since the creation of the state; therefore a caller tune was set with his name thus: Ngige ka ayi ga eso. He is believed to be the Onwa Anambra and no doubt, he proved his determination. He performed very well as governor and the talk on the lips of the people of Anambra State is that it is Ngige that they will follow or nobody.
They trust him because he first trusted them, they love him, because he first loved them, they’ll vote for him again in 2014 if he contests, because he first voted that his administration as governor would take responsibility of the infrastructures in Anambra State and, he did not disappoint.
