CNN International interview with President Olusegun Obasanjo and USAfricaonline.com Founder Chido Nwangwu on democracy, security issues and impeachment tangle

Good riddance to a loose cannon called Senator Francis Arthur Nzeribe!

By DOZIE IKEM EZEIFE

 Special for USAfrica The Newspaper, Houston
USAfricaonline.com and NigeriaCentral.com

"Basket mouth don bigin to talk again", apologies to the late Afrobeat music legend Fela Anikulapo Kuti.  

The suspension of Senator Nzeribe bodes well for the Senate.  It has proven that politics is not a circus show and that our leaders are not performing bears in a ring put in political positions merely to entertain the press and the public.  When Senator Jonathan Zwingina (an ally of Nzeribe's foe and Senate President Anyim Pius Anyim) moved his motion to suspend Senator Nzeribe, all 68 Senators present voted in favor.  So much for Nzeribe's fictional supporters in the Senate.  The so-called "political strongman" of Orlu (Imo State, and recent ally of Obasanjo's troubled presidency) in the final hour did not even have the guts and decency to stay in the chambers to see and deal with his political reckoning and peer discipline.  What a spineless coward.  I am often amused by these self-proclaimed political heavyweights, who when the chips are down prove to have the political savvy and experience of a president of a high school debating society. Only a mental retard will go to the floor of the Senate with no single supporter on a day he plans to sponsor a motion to defeat the impeachment of the President.  Only in Nigeria can that madness take place.  Only a half-wit like Senator Nzeribe will pull a stunt like that.  And the man has the temerity to regard himself as politically relevant in Nigeria.  What an air-head! By suspending Senator Nzeribe, the Nigerian Senate has managed to rid itself of a destructive cancer that was wrecking havoc on its reputation. Nzeribe was a ticking time bomb and his suspension and hopefully, his recall by his constituency, will send a message to the rest of the political clowns out there who think that they can play games with Nigeria and Nigerians, that the time of reckoning is at hand.

Francis Arthur Nzeribe, Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria representing Orlu (Imo State), covets being called a maverick and prides himself as an astute politician and a relevant Nigerian.  Also, he has been variously described as controversial, a loose cannon and a double-edged sword.  He Recently the bubble burst and the coward showed his true stripes.  By taking on his colleagues in the Senate, he bit more than he could chew.  He apparently decided to bail out of a jet at 35,000 feet above the earth without first arming himself with a parachute.  The result of that senseless folly obviously was sure political demise.

 The "maverick" cut his political teeth in 1979 when he bulldozed himself into political limelight by "donating" a decrepit jet to the Owelle of Onitsha for his presidential campaign.  The plane reportedly made only one flight before it was scrapped.  That stunt earned him a senate seat in the Second Republic and catapulted him into political prominence.  He circulated the rumor that he had inexhaustible cache of foreign currency and gullible Nigerians lapped up that con.  The con man found a pedestal from which to fleece the nation.  During his entire stint as an NPP senator, the party caucus could not predict which way the erratic senator would vote.  Nobody had the guts to rein him in.  He delighted in reeking political havoc and pulled all manners of stunts at the drop of a hat.

Following the Buhari/Idiagbon coup of 1983, the maverick faded into temporary oblivion from which he will emerge in 1992.  In 1992 he colluded with the military establishment to scuttle the democratic exercise and consequently denied Chief MKO Abiola his mandate.  It is sickening to hear him claim credit for this perfidious act.  What a guy! 

Soon after he took on another client.  He became late General Abacha's choirboy.  Upon the inception of the Abubakar transition program in 1998, he joined the APP and eventually emerged as the Senator representing the Orlu Senatorial District of Imo State.  True to type, within a few months of coming to the Senate, he attempted to move an impeachment motion against the President.  His colleagues rebuffed him. 

Following the depletion of the leadership ranks of the PDP Southeast caucus in the Senate by the Presidency, Senator Nzeribe saw a silver lining in the horizon and decided to jump ship in order to improve his chances of someday becoming the Senate President.  The man has the morals of an ant.  Soon after abandoning his party for the ruling PDP, he dusted off his choir gown and went to work for President Obasanjo, the man he attempted to impeach a few months back.  He derided the call for a President of Igbo extraction in 2003 and vowed that Obasanjo will win again in 2003.  He was a prominent fixture at the jamboree in Ottah in April of last year and the subsequent charade in Abuja.

Senator Nzeribe's appetite for corruption is gargantuan.  He has proven time and time again that he is an unrepentant opportunist.  No price is too high for him to pay in order to score a quick buck or to attract cheap publicity.  His selfishness is celebrated and his capacity for doublespeak unparalleled.  The man is completely without conscience or compulsion.  He will do or say virtually anything so as to appear politically relevant.  Nzeribe through his nefarious activities and unguarded utterances have wrecked havoc on the reputation of the Senate and had made the Senate the butt of ugly jokes.  Joseph Ushigiale in his "End of the Road for Mr. Maverick?" published in This Day of October 10, 2002, very succinctly articulated the character of and person Senator Nzeribe is in the following words:

 "Nzeribe established a reputation as an enigmatic politician who thrives in stewing from one political and intriguing controversy to another... Nzeribe introduced what many today described as money politics because of his monetized campaign approaches... Nzeribe has attracted the toga of a politician who revels in endless webs of intrigues and schemings and is largely viewed as very very inconsistent and unreliable... Nzeribe has carved a niche for himself within political circles as a highly ambitious and insatiably greedy politician with scant regard for decorum.  He is believed to be motivated by the craze to make money than the conviction to sustain democracy and is described as capable of reaching whatever length to make money."

For several weeks Senator Nzeribe has boasted that he will spearhead the filibuster of the impeachment moves against President Obasanjo in the Senate.  He also told whosoever cared to listen that he has the necessary votes in the Senate to dethrone Senate President, Pius Anyim.  He emphatically announced that he would make the Senate drop the impeachment exercise this past week.  He claimed he had 74 senators on board for this project. 

Typical of the Nigerian press, nobody sought from him the names of these phantom 74.  What pipe dream it turned out to be.  When it was time for a showdown, it turned out he had zip!  His war chants wet our appetites and we eagerly awaited an epochal political showdown on the floor of the senate.  What we saw was a political spanking by the Senate inflicted on the wimpy urchin.  Instead of a manly firefight, the noise bag tucked his frazzled tails between his spidery legs and scurried out of the senate chambers and hid inside his senate cubicle.  What a despicable exhibition of cowardice. 

When Senator Jonathan Zwingina moved his motion to suspend Senator Nzeribe, all 68 Senators present voted in favor.  So much for his fictional supporters in the Senate.  The "political strongman" in the final hour did not even have the guts and decency to stay in the chambers to see and deal with his reckoning and peer discipline.  What a spineless coward.  I am often amused by these self-proclaimed political heavyweights, who when the chips are down prove to have the political savvy and experience of a president of a high school debating society. Only a mental retard will go to the floor of the Senate with no single supporter on a day he plans to sponsor a motion to defeat the impeachment of the President.  Only in Nigeria can that madness take place.  Only a half-wit like Senator Nzeribe will pull a stunt like that.  And the man has the temerity to regard himself as politically relevant in Nigeria.  What an air-head.  The suspension of Senator Nzeribe bodes well for the Senate.  It has proven that politics is not a circus show and that our leaders are not performing bears in a ring put in political positions merely to entertain the press and the public. 

Rabiu Ibrahim in his "Insight Nzeribe: A Maverick's Meltdown" published in the Weekly Trust of October 25, 2002 surmised Nzeribe's disappointing performance on the senate floor on the day of reckoning.  He said: "Nevertheless, this particular day was supposed to be his day of glory, when by his deft or daft calculation, he would lead a majority of the members of the senate to first proclaim distaste to impeachment proceedings of President Obasanjo.  And secondly, turn the game on the Senate President by roundly voting to impeach him.  The culmination would have been the anointing of his very self, seen as gadfly of Nigerian politics, as the new and third Senate President in the spate of four years.  It was not to be.  The day could well be described as his waterloo, as his colleagues clamped an indefinite suspension on him until he purges himself of 'anti-democratic and disreputable conduct."

 Arthur Nzeribe made a career of shooting down fellow Igbo men and women and working against the interest of Ndigbo.  Like the old lady in Osita Osadebe's "Agadi nwanyi na inine", Senator Nzeribe is currently battling running stomach.  I shudder to think that some people rank Arthur Nzeribe as one of the Igbo political leaders. 

Evidently we have so lowered our ethical, moral and intelligence scales as to allow such a decrepit clown to scale through.  Nzeribe's demise and the number of Senators who nailed shut his political coffin is an indication to those who believe that the Senate cannot muster enough support to impeach the President, that their optimism is rather misplaced.

By suspending Senator Nzeribe, the Nigerian Senate has managed to rid itself of a destructive cancer that was wrecking havoc on its reputation.  Nzeribe was a ticking time bomb and his suspension and hopefully, his recall by his constituency, will send a message to the rest of the political clowns out there who think that they can play games with Nigeria and Nigerians, that the time of reckoning is at hand. 

Senator Jonathan Zwingina in moving his motion for Nzeribe's suspension said that Nzeribe has by his "consistent and unchanging anti-democratic character has become a chronic, active cancerous cell in the senate and in our democratic polity."  I agree.  Now that "Basket mouth" has been put in this place the National Assembly should hasten to make a decision whether or not to proceed with Obasanjo's impeachment.  They should do so immediately.
Attorney Ezeife, contributing editor of USAfricaonline.com and USAfrica The Newspaper, is based in Oakland, California. He plans a series on the 2003 elections on USAfricaonline.com and NigeriaCentral.com

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