Poster is not responsible for the Major Headline outside this page…..Peter Obi Distributes Cars To Senators To Ease Path For Appointment As Aviation Minister...... Peter ObiSaharaReporters April 28, 2014 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.
“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 ₦250 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 ₦250 million and ₦300 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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