By Michael Chibuzo
Peter Gregory Onwubuasi Obi is a man of many parts, and a politician, who through a combination of factors has managed to become the leader of a popular movement populated mostly by disgruntled Nigerians. Most of these disgruntled Nigerians bear one grudge or the other against either their country, Nigeria or the ruling political party or some individuals in government at the federal level.
It is therefore safe to say that Mr. Peter Obi, a two-term former governor of Anambra State has become the leader of a kaleidoscope of grudge bearers and angry fellows. They named this movement, the Obidient Movement. This is perhaps why the movement appears to be a place to find the angriest set of Nigerians who hate their country passionately with many even labelling their motherland a zoo. It is not surprising that they have been described as a mob, because of the manner in which they move.
The ironic part however is that majority of these fellows who do not love their country nor think twice before denigrating their motherland, somehow strongly believe that a new Nigeria is ‘Possible’ if only their leader, Mr. Peter Obi were to become Nigeria’s President. The Obidient gang members in trying to prove Obi’s suitability as the messianic president Nigeria needs always point to Obi’s various personal accounts of his stewardship as Governor of Anambra State.
It is common to hear Obidients talk about Obi’s presumed legacies in Anambra State and how he would replicate same across Nigeria if he becomes President. The popular areas they harp on is his alleged transformation of the educational sector, which all of sudden made everyone in Anambra State intelligent overnight, his alleged saving culture, his ‘investments’ in MDG projects in Anambra State among other claims.
For the purpose of providing proper context to these claims as well as giving those who are not from Anambra State a more nuanced view of these claims of super-performance by Obi, I have decided to write this lengthy piece in which I intend to closely look at Peter Obi’s ideology, scorecard as Anambra State Governor for 8 years and his politics. I will start with his ideology or ideologies.
PETER OBI’S IDEOLOGY
Political ideologies are something not particularly entrenched in Nigeria when you look at it on the surface. However beneath the surface, you will realise that many Nigerians hold one form of ideology or the other even if they are not cast in stone. Majority of Nigerians, without knowing, share many left-wing ideologies. For example a lot of Nigerians want free or very cheap education and health services, social welfare (or free grants), subsidised fuel, cheap electricity and other freebies from the government. Nigerians generally hate market forces but funny enough, Nigerians also want lower or no taxes at all, which itself is an ideology associated with the right wing.
By analysing Peter Obi’s actions as Governor and his governance template, it becomes obvious that he holds many ideologies that leans to the right wing. For example, Peter Obi, contrary to what many believe, is not really interested in cheap education, which can be guaranteed by government total ownership and funding of schools. He prefers limited government intervention – a classical right wing ideology that shaped many of his policies as Governor across many sectors in Anambra State. Under Peter Obi, school fees rose drastically across the state from primary (mostly illegal fees) to secondary to tertiary institutions.
Peter Obi is more of a capitalist (right wing), himself being a businessman who deals primarily in buying and selling to make as much profit as possible. He is always tilting towards profit making, which explains his investment of over $150 million (around N26.5 billion then) of Anambra State funds in three banks. In comparison, Buhari for instance, is more of a moderate Socialist and it shows in his lifestyle and inclination to business. To Buhari, the idea of free market is exploitative to the poor and vulnerable, this is why he was pro-government intervention where possible.
Peter Obi is also anti-labour, an irony in itself considering the fact that he is presently in a Labour Party. Why do I say so? As Governor, Peter Obi hated the idea of wage increases or employing more public sector workers. In fact in 2011 he even wanted to sack many workers when civil servants were on strike over non-payment of minimum wage of N18,000 by his government. Obi prefers a small wage bill. Sometimes I consider him a minimalist in the sense that in trying to portray frugality, he ends up sacrificing both quality and efficiency and in the end it is the people that would still suffer. During his term in office, Peter Obi had running battles with labour unions in Anambra State including University lecturers, medical doctors, judicial workers among others over wage-related issues. He basically scrapped Anambra Water Corporation and refused to pay the workers and pensioners in that agency. Probably he sees that as waste or to borrow his favourite term, consumption!
Peter Obi as Governor also had a very distorted view of the role of infrastructure in an economy. Before his famous, “infrastructure does not grow an economy” gaffee in 2021, Peter Obi had already shown his lack of enthusiasm as Governor to build infrastructure in Anambra State. Many Obidients will tell you that under Peter Obi, Anambra had the best road network in Nigeria (I will address that in the scorecard section), however, many who are not from Anambra or reside in Anambra between 2006 to 2014 won’t be able to tell you that whatever it is that Peter Obi did in road infrastructure happened in his second term in office.
In his first term, Peter Obi was not particularly interested in road construction. He was always telling ndi Anambra that his ANIDS programme is meant to address all sectors simultaneously. Unfortunately for Obi, Gov. Ngige in less than 3 years had already set a record on road construction that captured the imagination of Ndi Anambra and that did not prevent Ngige from also touching other sectors. So, Anambrarians were not buying Obi’s excuse for not continuing with the road construction revolution Ngige had started. In the 2010 election, Obi nearly paid for this miscalculation. If not for the presence of Soludo, Andy Uba and Nicolas Ukachukwu on the ballot, Ngige would have won the election. Peter Obi won with just 34.39% of the votes. In fact in his Agulu town, his people were so angry with him over his lacklustre performance that he had to promise them that once he wins second term he will remember road construction. Unfortunately, when Obi decided to construct roads, he gave ndi Anambra “China roads”.
PETER OBI’S SCORECARD AS ANAMBRA GOVERNOR
I will breakdown Peter Obi’s scorecard into various sectors. For want of space, I will highlight his scorecard in the sectors I would list below and point out any exaggeration of his performance or inaccuracies being peddled by both Obi himself or his Obidient folks in each of these sectors:
1. Education
2. Infrastructure
3. Housing
4. Agriculture
5. Health
6. Revenue generation and accountability
7. Security
8. Youth and Sports development
9. Industrialisation
10. Democracy and rule of law
Education
Peter Obi and his supporters always tout education as the biggest legacy of Obi’s 8-year administration in Anambra State. To be fair to Mr. Peter Obi, he performed averagely in the education sector. He went ahead with Dr. Chris Ngige’s plan to hand over many schools back to their missionary owners. Ngige as at 2005 had returned 51 primary schools and 13 secondary schools to the missions paid UBE counterpart fund of around N1.6 billion to kick start classroom renovations across many schools including mine at the time. Peter Obi also tapped into the UBE funds by providing additional counterpart funds required to unlock UBE projects in public schools in Anambra State. He provided borehole and generators to some secondary schools especially those with boarding facilities. In collaboration with Microsoft, he provided computer sets to 110 schools and few months to the end of his administration, he provided Innoson buses to around 400 public and private schools in the state.
But the question is, did these things done by the Obi administration amount to transformation of the educational system in Anambra State, which made Anambra to allegedly move from number 26 in WAEC to number 1? The answer is NO! Of course I will give you reasons. First and foremost, WAEC has never ranked states in Nigeria using any indices whether exam performance or being best in education. So, Anambra never ranked 26th in any WAEC assessment and therefore couldn’t have moved to number 1 either. This is one of those propaganda Obi enabled to exaggerate his achievement in education.
Anambra State has always produced academically gifted students. I graduated from a secondary school in Awka in 2005 during the tenure of Dr. Chris Ngige. Prior to my exam year, one of our students scored 8As and got a scholarship to study in Russia. I did not get parallel As in my WASSCE but I did well, same with many of my classmates. Exam malpractice was also minimal as at 2005 thanks to the work of the Exam Ethics Committee established by Ngige and for which Anambra got a national award. I represented my school at the award event at the Nicon Hilton Hotel (now Transcorp), Abuja.
Why am I enumerating all these history? It is to point out that before Mr. Peter Obi came into office in 2006, Anambra has been doing well in educational performance when compared to other states. We had top schools that churn out both brilliant students and the not so brilliant students. If there is anything that happened in the educational system in Anambra during Obi’s tenure, it was the reduction in the general quality of education in the state. Exam malpractice became rife, even public schools had to subtly key in to avoid losing most of their SS3 students who always run away to private schools after finishing their SS2 in public schools.
To be clear, the handover of more schools to their missionary owners by Obi was a good move and it gave these missionary organisations the freedom to improve these schools through a combination of government support, fundraising from church members and parents via high PTA levies and other sources. It therefore becomes disingenuous for Peter Obi and his supporters (aka Obidients) to be showcasing the modernisation of these schools as if it was the Anambra State Government that funded their new looks. In fact some of the schools being advertised as Obi’s legacy were built long after Obi left office as Governor. Meanwhile, a visit to the majority of schools that are still under full ownership and management of the Anambra State Government under Peter Obi such as community secondary schools littered across the state, one will be greeted with dilapidated schools and classrooms that are a stark contrast to the missionary schools.
It is also necessary to point out that the computer sets Peter Obi’s government distributed to many schools were never used in a lot of the benefitting schools because of no provision of logistics such as a space to serve as computer lab with electricity supply. So, beyond the photo ops, the computers never really served their purpose in many schools. Equally, the school bus donation to many schools, though a commendable gesture, must however be situated in proper context. These buses are 18-seater buses, which were more or less used by the principals of the benefiting schools as official vehicles. It was never meant to convey students to and fro school. The only time students use the bus is if they are going for an external competition like Children’s Day celebrations or quiz competitions outside their school.
On Peter Obi’s legacy in education, it is equally necessary to affirm as I have stated before elsewhere that his government in 8 years did not build a new primary or secondary school in the whole of Anambra State despite the expanding population and development especially in the cities and towns within the 8 years. Teachers were also not recruited by the Obi administration (remember I mentioned he is averse to increasing State’s wage bill) leading many schools to employ teachers that are paid low wages by the PTA of these schools. They also used NYSC Corp Members and College of Education students on Teaching Practice (IT) to fill some of the gaps. How do you expect to get quality education from this kind of environment.
Meanwhile, the PTA levies that were paid by primary school pupils and secondary school students invariably meant higher cost of public education through indirect means. Obi did not really care about these extra costs or the burden on parents. These are the facts that many Obidients either don’t know about or pretend they don’t matter.
The truth is that Ngige laid a solid foundation for Obi to continue and the modest achievement of Obi in education is thanks to that foundation even though he did not implement entirely what Ngige had in store. For some that would doubt this assertions, let me briefly back it up with indisputable facts. Ngige came in 2003 with public secondary and primary school teachers owed between 18 to 24 months of salaries (teachers were on strike for close to a year under Mbadinuju). I don’t want to state that of other civil servants and pensioners. Ngige came and started the restructuring of the Civil Service, began clearing of the backlogs of salary arrears, started training of teachers and recruited fresh teachers. Ngige’s Education Commissioner, Prof. Leonard Muoghalu spearheaded the war against examination malpractices and indiscipline as well a campaign to enrol more boys in school.
Chris Ngige also began the revamp of the Anambra State University located at Uli by securing accreditation for 35 courses. This is a popular area where Obi and his supporters usually exaggerates his achievements in the Anambra State University. It is important that I straighten the narratives here. It was in 2000 under Gov. Mbadinuju that ANSU (initially called Anambra State University of Science and Technology) was established. In the establishment act of ANSU, two campuses were provided for namely – Uli main campus (former Anambra state Polytechnic) and the Igbariam Campus (former site of the College of Agriculture).
The law establishing ANSU repealed the law that established the Polytechnic at Uli and ANSU inherited its assets and liabilities but the law failed to do so for the College of Agriculture in Igbariam and ANSU and the College in Igbariam existed side by side. It was Ngige who truly carried out the decentralisation of the University by carrying out an amendment of the ANSU Establishment Act in January 2006 (two months before Ngige was booted out of office).
Ngige through the Anambra State University Amendment Law No. ANHA/LAW/2006/01 of 26th January, 2006, changed the name of the University to Anambra State University and provided for a three-Campus structure for the University comprising: Uli Campus (Faculties of Engineering, Environmental Sciences and Science plus the Pre-Science Programme), the Igbariam Campus (Faculties of Agriculture, Arts & Social Sciences) and the Alor Campus (Faculties of Law and Management Sciences, College of Health Sciences and the University Teaching Hospital.
The Alor campus was meant to house the main administrative building of the University because it is located at the center of Anambra (Alor is in Anambra Central Zone), Uli campus is in Anambra South while the Igbariam campus is in Anambra North. Ngige in the 2006 amendment also formally transferred the assets and liabilities of College of Agriculture Igbariam to ANSU and created a new College of Agriculture at Mgbakwu. Peter Obi came in less than two months later and made sure Alor campus never took off. Instead he moved Management Science and Law to Igbariam campus and later in 2010 converted the already existing Amaku General Hospital in Awka into the ANSU Teaching Hospital (now COOU Teaching Hospital) and made it the third campus to house the College of Medicine and Surgery.
Ngige, who is a medical Doctor also started the accreditation process for College of Health Technology Obosi, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Obosi and Nkpor and to Peter Obi’s credit, he completed the accreditation process but you will never hear Peter Obi give credit to Ngige for this critical foundations he laid across many sectors. Ngige inherited a collapsed state but handed over a state, which was a huge work in progress to Obi in less than three years – this fact is not appreciated enough by history revisionists who want to unduly exaggerate Peter Obi’s legacies in Anambra State.
Well, I will end part 1 of this piece here. In the next part of this series, I will proceed to x-ray his scorecard in the remaining 9 areas that I enumerated at the beginning starting with infrastructure. Dissecting Obi’s politics and tactics will then take up the concluding part.