Thursday April 27, 2009 |
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Hand it to Andy Uba, a domestic aide
to former President Olusegun Obasanjo: the man has a certain viral
persistence, a refusal to take no for an answer.
On June 14, 2007, the Supreme Court removed Uba from his ill-gotten
perch as governor of Anambra. In a ruling that drew nation-wide cheer,
the court roundly rebuked the electoral commission for conducting
gubernatorial elections in Anambra when the tenure of incumbent Governor
Peter Obi had not ended.
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Allergic to being told no, Uba
hired a new set of lawyers and approached the same court.
He asked a seven-member panel of the nation’s high court to
recant its earlier judgment and return him as governor in
Awka. In another unanimous verdict, the justices told him, hell
no. |
He comes
across, instead, as a cynical man determined to make relays to
the high court until he’s handed a panel of sympathetic justices. |
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Emerging from the court, Uba’s lawyers
vowed that the last had not been heard. They soon made good on this
improbable boast by asking a court of appeal to find that Uba’s
so-called mandate was secured in a legitimate election. In one of the
bizarre twists in the country’s recent judicial history, the appellate
justices gave a muddled judgment that Uba’s camp then held aloft as
proof that their man was “a governor-in-waiting.” In the face of fierce
legal criticism, the panel that allegedly gave that verdict beat an
untidy retreat.
Even so, Uba was far from done. Late last year, he set out on another
adventure to the Supreme Court. His singular wish list is for a court
that twice turned him back to contrive some legal contortions to impose
him as governor of Anambra.
In entertaining this case at all, the Supreme Court is in danger of
leaving its reputation in tatters. Mr. Uba seems to have served notice
that he plans to harangue the court until he gets an indulgent panel
willing to do his bidding.
Many Nigerians already suspect that their judiciary teems with too many
men and women with a profound deficit of shame and integrity. The
nation’s highest court cannot afford to leave the impression that its
hallowed chambers are permanently open to the fancies of any client with
a huge treasury of inexplicable wealth.
It’s doubtful that Mr. Uba’s persistent wheedling has anything to do
with respect for the rule of law. He comes across, instead, as a cynical
man determined to make relays to the high court until he’s handed a
panel of sympathetic justices. It’s an ill-disguised belief in the rule
of money.
Mr. Uba’s judicial round-tripping should trouble any Nigerian who wishes
to see the enthronement of a fiercely independent judiciary, at once
incorruptible and committed to the highest ideals of judicial ethics.
Of course, whenever justice is transparently miscarried, it’s the duty
of a court to redress it. But in the case of Uba, it is hard to picture
how he’s been ill served by the apex court.
Uba’s latest judicial adventure has everything to do with political
calculations. One of the closest confidantes of Obasanjo, Uba was eased
into place as the PDP’s governorship candidate. He was subsequently
declared “winner” of a gubernatorial contest that Human Rights Watch
categorized as illustrative of electoral fraud. Here’s how ludicrous
Uba’s so-called election was: the electoral commission initially awarded
him more votes than there were registered voters in the state.
When the Supreme Court removed Uba on June 14, 2007 – a mere two weeks
after he usurped office – their decision elicited widespread
celebration. A man rang me from Kaduna to say that it was not just a
victory for the people of Anambra but a triumph for all Nigerians.
There was good reason for the celebratory air. Uba epitomizes the worst
tendencies in many Nigerians who occupy elective or appointive office. A
man who has not been able to authenticate that he earned a first
academic degree, Uba’s campaign website misled people with the
information that he holds a PhD. When The News, a Nigerian weekly
magazine, published a cover on his academic fraud, virtually the
publication’s entire print mysteriously disappeared.
Prior to joining Obasanjo’s administration, Uba ran a middling
“healthcare” services operation in California. Yet, in 2004 U.S.
officials seized cash of $170,000 that Uba had taken into New York City.
The cash, concealed from U.S. authorities, was then handed over to a
Loretta Mabinton. She used most of it to buy a Mercedes Benz car for Uba,
and $45,000 to buy equipment for Obasanjo’s farm in Otta.
Confronted on the smuggled funds, Obasanjo blithely stated that Uba was
a wealthy man prior to working for the presidency. It was – let’s be
blunt – a blatant lie.
There’s little question that Uba is in possession of a stupendous amount
of cash, the source of it a question that Nigerians must raise. It’s a
mark of the monumental dysfunction that’s Nigeria that this man is in
court asking to be crowned governor rather than in the dock explaining
how he accumulated all that wealth.
Uba’s imposition on Anambra would amount to a war on the people’s will –
to say nothing of the taint on the name of justice.
