Like most Nigerians, I knew Chris Ngige in 2003, following the Anambra political whirlwind of that era. I don’t know why, but whenever a David-Goliath scenario occurs, I always side with the David even though I may later call him to order. This is in line from our peoples” saying that the best thing is to save the cock from the kite before blaming it for straying into the danger zone.
In those days of political madness and chicanery in Anambra State, I was fully on the side of Ngige, and I deployed my writing skills, the only instrument available to me by the grace of God. I did several analyses on the Anambra-Ngige-Uba affair. In the first one (Him whom the gods want to kill, BusinessDay, 16/7/03) I wrote on the first governorship abduction in Nigeria, when “After a fierce battle bordering on direct and indirect “resource control” the godfather struck. It was a coup achieved through civilian-police collaboration. I argued that it could only have happened in Anambra State “where the men of timber” always look the other way while the rest are busy chasing containers, where the civil servants’ loyalty is as cheap as that of Judas and where there is always a good supply of mercenary politicians; and in the PDP which is always its own opposition, where nothing is ever done transparently and where there is always a leader in addition to a chairman.
I concluded that, “Ngige fought a good fight; he displayed intelligence, courage and tact; but he who must go to equity must do so with clean hands. He is standing with a wooden leg because of the big question mark about his mandate. He also appeared to have forgotten that he who dines with the devil should use a long spoon and that the devil always gives with the right hand and retrieves with the left. This incidence has shown once more that it is easier to give water to the monkey but very difficult to retrieve the cup, that sharing the loot always puts the thieves asunder”. And that The Governor is between the devil and the deep sea. On the right side, there is the electoral tribunal and on the left there is Chris Uba and his hirelings.
I further analysed the internecine war between Ngige and his traducers (Ngige vs. the allied forces, Round 2, BusinessDay, 21/1/04), which I started by calling Kwame Nkrumah as a star witness by quoting him thus: Whenever there is a battle between powerless conscience and conscienceless power ,the later will laugh first while the former will laugh last, and blamed the whole crises on “the PDP as a party, the National Assembly [controlled by the PDP] the police hierarchy led by an Inspector General who is simultaneously fast and slow depending on whom the piper is; some pay-as-you-go members of the judiciary (judges of the night); Enugu State which is providing critical logistic support and all those who are in a position to act and speak but have chosen to adopt the say nothing and do nothing strategy”.
My 3rd outing , which I wrote in “tears, sorrow and unimaginable mental agony” bemoaned the invasion and burning down of Anambra State during which thugs were hired, paid ,armed and given a simple and single assignment: to destroy everything that belongs collectively to the people of Anambra State [including the perpetrators]. I concluded that “The structures and equipment destroyed do not belong to Nigige; they do not belong to the Government[and by the way, who is the Government?]; they are the commonwealth of all Anambrarians and other stakeholders in the State” ( Anambra, Alu Melu, BusinessDay, 17/11/04).
In my final intervention done 14 years ago I prophesied that Ngige would bounce back( Ngige: out but not down; BusinessDay, 22/3/06). In the concluding part of that intervention, I stated “Ngige won all the cases he instituted against the federal government; he won all the cases he instituted against the PDP; all those who participated in the various legal/political ambush warfare against him are now gnashing their teeth or telling their stories on the other side; he came in through the window but through effective management of the situation, he turned himself into a darling of the people; he has a lot of physical projects to his name and he has even left something for the Governor to take off with. And he did this in a state that has not had real taste of governance and a country where governors talk more and do less. He has tried; the people are happy with him and he should be thankful to God. But now, he has to go; he has to go because he stood on a wooden leg-the fraudulent manipulation of the peoples will by a fraudulent party. But, Ngige will not be forgotten in a hurry. He is Out, But Not Down” That was 14 years ago, when Ngige left the Government House Awka and took a lonely walk into an uncertain and unknown future; into the political wilderness.
Today, Ngige has bounced back, to the surprise of those who doubted my prophetic capabilities. He is back and in government, where he is highly visible, even if for controversial reasons. Today, I don’t want to prophesy about his political future and I am not writing in solidarity with him. I am just telling him to “mind your sef. This is also in line with my prophetic responsibilities: to call those in authority to order”. Prophets of old like Nathan, Elijah, Elisha and Amos, toed this line. Unfortunately, I am not so sure of the prophets of today!
Other matters: Spousal wickedness
In the past two weeks, this segment of my weekly epistle focused on parental wickedness (12/2/2020) and on the wickedness and selfishness of the children (19/2/2020). Today, we are focusing on spousal wickedness; acts of wickedness perpetrated by spouses against each other, which at times also adversely affected the children. As you go through this brief intervention, ask yourself why people who voluntary agreed to get entangled with each other, with the support and in the presence of family and friends “till death do us part”, will suddenly so hate themselves that they do the unthinkable to each other. We start from Kastina where Samaila Musa, chained his two wives Fatimah Salisu, 25, and Hadiza Musa, 20, in a room for 10 months and did several unthinkable things to them.
According to Hadiza, “He shaved off my hair and pubic hair. He also cut my fingernails and ground them together. He mixed them up with my food and ordered me to eat it. He also put pepper in my eyes and private parts”! Is this a normal human being? There is the story of this foreign based Nigerian who came in to take his family along, did a DNA as a requirement for a visa and discovered to his chagrin that his 3 children were not actually his! He lost it and brutally restructured the wife’ s facial and dental configuration. The wife’s inconsiderate infidelity and the man’s raw brutality make me ask two of them, was there love before? There was the case of Stella Peter who murdered the “husband” for failure to finance the daughter’s first year birthday party. She had demanded for N30,000 but the man, a phone repairer could only afford N3000. There was also the case of a woman who faked her own kidnap and demanded a ransom of N15 million from the husband while another followed the same route (Faked Kidnap) to force her husband to relocate her to America. There was also this Malawian woman who set her husband and two children together with their house on fire after her husband caught her in their matrimonial bed with another man.
So, what went wrong? How did the love go so sour that spouses defraud, batter and even murder their spouses? Are they no longer “one”? Was there love in the first instance? Have they forgotten the promises they made to each other? What actually is happening to the marriage and family institution?
IK MUO
