BY ROTIMI DUROJAIYE
Maverick politician and former Senator, Francis Arthur Nzeribe, came, saw and conquered.
A statement signed on Sunday, May 8, 2022 by three members of his family, Ojiabu Francis Anyegbu Nzeribe, Anthony Akpati Nzeribe and Ojiabu Oliver Nwedo Nzeribe, on behalf of the Nzeribe confirmed the death of the octogenarian.
The statement said, “The Nzeribe Royal Family of Umudei Royal Village of Oguta in the Oguta Local Government area of Imo State, in total submission to the will of God Almighty and in appreciation of a remarkably worthy life hereby announce the death of our son, cousin, uncle, husband, father and grandfather, Distinguished Senator Chief Francis Arthur Uzoma Nzeribe (Ogbuabu Oshiji, Dimanze, Oyimba of Oguta) on the 5th of May, 2022 at the age of 83.”
Born on November 2, 1938 to Mr. Frank Nzeribe and Mrs. Julie Nzeribe, he hailed from Oguta in Imo State.
Nzeribe was an enigma. He confounded both his friends and enemies.
Nzeribe’s activities since his entrance into the Nigerian political landscape in 1982 were trailed with controversies. His actions in politics were, and would remain, mercurial. Nzeribe was consistently inconsistent. He was a maverick to the core. While alive, some people preferred to call him the real evil genius. With due respect, Nzeribe’s middle name should have been controversial.
During the 1983 elections, there was a lot of rigging and thuggery as the then ruling party, the National Party of Nigeria was bent on securing a landslide victory across the country.
The spectacle in the Orlu Senatorial Zone of Imo State, where Nzeribe’s Oguta falls, was even more intriguing. Nzeribe chose to do his own thing differently.
He hired about 10,000 thugs and stormed the collating center. He equally came with his helicopter. Nzeribe went inside and issued a stern warning to the electoral officers and the security agents: “Look outside; if you tamper with the results, none of us is going home alive.”
As the counting of the votes was going on inside, Nzeribe and his supporters waited outside. Nzeribe, looking haggard like a “talakawa”, slept outside, ate outside, didn’t take his bath and even did his toilet there. Thrice the electoral officers left the center enroute Owerri, thrice Nzeribe hopped into his helicopter monitoring their movements. On each occasion, the electoral officers returned without getting to their destination. Tired of this cat and mouse game, Nzeribe was finally declared winner and he went home amidst cheers from his supporters.
“In 1993, Nzeribe set up the Association for Better Nigeria, with the likes of Abimbola Davis and Tanko Yakassai. The group was instrumental to the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential elections
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Also, Nzeribe was once rumoured to be about converting from Christianity to Islam. The event was to hold in Kano. The then Emir of Kano, Alhaji Ado Bayero, was to preside. Muslim faithful across the country were celebrating the “big fish” in their net. On the appointed day, dignitaries and other Muslim faithful converged. Nzeribe failed to turn up. They went home dejected.
Muslims in the North still held grudges against Nzeribe for this until he died.
In 1993, Nzeribe set up the Association for Better Nigeria, with the likes of Abimbola Davis and Tanko Yakassai. The group was instrumental to the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential elections, adjudged to be the freest and fairest in the history of the country and widely believed to have been won by the late M.K.O. Abiola.
Nzeribe was campaigning for four more years for Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida. In a travesty of justice, Nzeribe’s ABN (though it was not registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission and hence cannot be a legal entity) went to court on the eve of the presidential election (June 11, 1993) and secured an injunction from an Abuja High Court presided over by the late Justice Bassey Ikpeme restraining the National Electoral Commission from conducting the election.
It is instructive to note that the judgment was delivered with candlelight providing light in the courtroom as it was already night, well beyond official working hours. However, Humphrey Nwosu, the then chairman of NEC, went ahead and conducted the election and was in the process of releasing the results when security agents sent by Babangida abducted him.
With the emergence of late General Sani Abacha, Nzeribe was at his pranks again. He established another association by name Union of Democratically Elected Representatives of Nigeria, having been elected to the senate. URDEN also campaigned for the transmutation of Abacha into a civilian president. Nzeribe claimed that Nigeria would be on fire if Abacha did not succeed. By divine intervention, Abacha died on June 8, 1998 and Nzeribe’s pet project died a natural death.
Nzeribe was die-hard. He was not easily deterred. With the emergence of democracy in 1999, he contested and won the senatorial seat for Orlu Senatorial Zone in Imo State for the third consecutive time. Like the Leopard that cannot change its spots, in April 2000, he filed papers for Obasanjo’s impeachment. He was later persuaded to drop the impeachment moves. Earlier on, he had written a personal letter to former President Bill Clinton, urging him to shelve his official visit to Nigeria as tax payers’ money, according to Nzeribe, will be wasted on the visit.
Clinton did not heed his call.
But, in a dramatic volte-face, Nzeribe set up another association in 2001 which he called Movement for National Consensus and Accommodation. This was Nzeribe’s vehicle towards which President Olusegun Obasanjo was expected to get re-elected unchallenged in 2003.
Nzeribe was a negatively ingenious politician, he was a typical spoiler.
Nzeribe was equally independent-minded and a non-conformist. Aside from being blunt and arrogant, Nzeribe was also a pragmatist. It was his political pragmatism that made him realize that the post of President of Nigeria (which he once vied for) was no longer achievable by him.
He acknowledged this much himself: “I cannot be president or even vice-president of my country”. (TSM November 6, 1994). He reiterated this in the interview with TheWeek (August 13, 2001): “Count me out now, forever. Like I have said quite often, I am not presidential material. There are many presidential materials in the country. But there is time for different generations. I am of the opinion that my politics and my generation, the time I arrived and the time I am going, does not make me a suitable candidate for the presidency any more. I am 62 now, I have been around for quite some time, you know, nothing lasts forever. And this is partly one reason why I maintain my sanity all the time. Because I gauge what is achievable. And I have done my analysis and I have come to the conclusion that, you win some, you lose some. You’ve lost the presidency. Look for another achievable target.”
Maybe it was this pragmatism that informed Nzeribe’s quest for the office of the senate president. Nzeribe was instrumental to Evan(s) Enwerem and Chuba Okadigbo’s ouster from office as senate presidents. He used to be a strong supporter of Okadigbo. When Anyim Pius Anyim assumed office as Senate President on August 10, 2000, Nzeribe warmed himself up to him.
On Friday, October 18, 2002, he called a press conference. He accused Anyim of misleading the senate. He claimed that he had already collected over 72 signatures from senators to effect the removal of Anyim and the halting of the impeachment proceedings against Obasanjo. He also indicated interest in the job of senate president. He invited journalists to come to the floor of the house on Tuesday, October 22, 2002, to watch the drama that will play itself out on the floor of the senate.
On Tuesday October 22, in a dramatic turn of events, the hunter became the hunted. Nzeribe was suspended from the senate indefinitely. Moving the motion for his suspension, Jonathan Zwingina, Chairman, Senate Committee on Information, said Nzeribe has by his “consistent and unchanging anti-democratic character has become a chronic, active cancerous cell in the Senate in our democratic polity”.
The condition which the senate gave to allow him return was that “he supplies evidence that he has purged himself of his anti -democratic, anti – senatorial and disreputable conduct”.
He was accused of defrauding the senate of the sum of N22.082m. He was recommended to the police for investigation.
May his soul rest in peace.
Durojaiye writes from Lagos.
CAVEAT: Views and opinions expressed here are those of the writers and are not in any way those of The Point Newspaper – Editor
