Revisiting the coup of July 10 2003
- Details
- Category: POLITICS
- Published on Wednesday, 11 July 2012 21:38
- Written by Arinze Igboeli
Nigeria naturally owing to its years of military rule has had its fair share of coup plots. A litany of these violent and unconstitutional seizures of power by a particular clique is embedded in the tapestry of our nation’s history. A run down from the Nzeogwu coup of January the 15th 1966 to the misguided Counter coup of July the 29th 1966
and up to the Sani Abacha putsch of 1993 are all base points in our national history when issues such as this are discussed .
But Nigerians have largely failed to acknowledge that in this same history of ours, coup plotting hasn't been the exclusive preserve of the military boys as their civilian counterparts have at one point in time or the other dabbled into such an enterprise though unlike the military they have engaged in such acts sparingly. Examples abound.
The first Coup in our nation, that is the first concentrated assault on a democratic elected government by the use violent means and unfair ends to edge out such a lawfully constituted government was indeed perpetuated in 1964 by the then Premier of the Western Region, Sir Ladoke Akintola and his army of supporters in collusion with the Sardauna of Sokoto and the then Prime Minister Sir Tafawa Balewa, where they usurped powers belonging to the Western Region to impose Akintola upon the people of that Region.
Ironically at the same time the likes of Chief Awolowo and his supporters were arrested and tried on trumped of charges of coup plotting for which they received heavy sentences. The rest is history as the crisis largely led to the fall and collapse of the First Republic Another classical example takes an illustrative flight from Anambra State, where a Godfather and his horde of idolaters in connivance with certain powers at the centre did make an attempt at wresting power out of the hands of the Anambra people in the coup of July the 10th 2003.
Owing to the lackluster performance of Dr. Chinwuko Mbadinuju, members of the Peoples Democratic Party, the PDP had expressed reservations about Dr. Mbadinuju returning for a second term, even the jostle for Mbadinuju’s job amongst party faithful took a frightful turn as every Okoro, Ononiba and Okafor jockeyed for that position unlike the trend in other states where the incumbent governor was naturally given unalloyed support from party faithful. Mbadinuju naturally proved a hard sell, as Anambra State under his administration had witnessed a massive collapse of its socio-political cum socio economic institutions; life in the state was simply what the English Philosopher Thomas Hobbes had termed as nasty, shortish and brutish.
Worried by the apparent lapse of our critical and moral faculties, the PDP then began to shop for an acceptable candidate, one who would change the face of Anambra’s politics and bring back the state its days of glory, one man met the bill, one man topped the pack, that man was Dr. Chris Ngige.
In the aftermath of the elections, Ngige quickly moved to restore governance to the state and fashioned a roadmap for that. Integrity and service were the intended hallmarks of his philosophy and from the beginning he sought to get it right, But the evils of backstairs politics soon began to rear its head when a self-styled godfather drunken with arrogance then began to conceive ideas of contrariety of interest against the agreement of all stakeholders in Anambra that it would not be business as usual nor would participants of the old order be allowed to partake in the business of the new government.
The godfather would have none of this, like the nel plus ultra of a gangster he sought certain debatable concessions and threatened to let all hell loose if his requests weren’t accepted. Governor Ngige possessing a first class civil service background with the understanding of the dreadful consequences of failing the good people of Anambra stuck to his guns, yet with the meditative air of a politician hoped that the godfather would sift ground and perhaps sheathe his greed, the godfather chose otherwise, adhering to his maniacal course, the rest is history as the day July the 10th 2003 forever lives in infamy.
But what are the lessons drawn from this sad occurrence? Can it not be said that certain gains were also attained from this gory incident?
Although the coup was defeated and Ngige without any form of
restraints and unchained from the unholy alliance did cut through the
bramble thickets of failed leadership when he launched governance on
an unknown pedestal never witnessed before in the history of Nigeria.
Where roads were built, schools were built, social services on large
scales were provided, pensioners were paid their pensions to the kobo,
teachers who had been on strike for a year were paid their salaries
and no civil servant was owed beyond the 26th of that month. Students
of the state owned university will always recall how the bearded
governor touched by compassion and the understanding that education
was a right and not a privilege as it is wrongly deemed by this
ungrateful generation of leaders reduced their fees by 2/3rds the
original amount and crime was fought to a standstill (vices like
kidnapping and robbery which are prevalent today were unheard of) to
many Ngige simply reinvented the soul of Anambra.
But the godfathers were not done yet as they tried every monkey trick
they could lay their hands on. They engaged the courts with a violent
mutation of the truth and managed to obtain some “Oluwole” judgments
which naturally shocked the bench and all who came across such
pronouncements. When that failed to work they then resorted to
violence hoping that the then President Olusegun Obasanjo( An accident
of history) who was believed to have given the gangsters the tacit
backing they needed , would then declare a state of emergency and
appoint a sole administrator. To their dismay, Ngige skillfully evaded
such traps, maneuvering through the Minoan labyrinth that Anambra is
with the sturdy thread of the nation’s goodwill until tragedy struck
when on the 15th of March 2006 an Appeal Court judgement declared that
Governor Ngige was unlawfully elected paving the way for Mr. Peter Obi
who by and large was never up to snuff, the game plan was 2007 but
then fate and some other factors played their own cards.
Yet truth be told, had Ngige danced as a marionette or had the
godfather had the his way in the July 10th coup it would be plausible
to argue that the biggest beneficiary and unfortunately the biggest
squanderer of the gains of that hard won freedom in the person of Mr.
Peter Obi would never have emerged as governor, to say that he never
knew this is untrue and to deny it would be to accept the fact that
square wheels are better than round ones.
Nevertheless it is my belief that history and posterity will forever
pay tribute to Ngige, in Anambra’s pantheon he will stand as a nel
plus ultra of a statesman, a visionary and a man of immense dynamism.
He will forever be to us the bye word for courage in governance,
vision in leadership and dynamism in politics.
Igboeli Arinze writes from Abuja
