Anambra 2017: IPAC, APC, Others Slam Obiano Over Transition Committee

The appointment and inauguration of Transition Committees into the state's twenty-one Local Government Areas [LGA] by the governor of Anambra State, Willie Obiano yesterday has attracted wide mixed reactions from across different sectors of the state with the All Progressives Congress (APC) describing it as "a rape on the judiciary, a direct slap on the face of democracy in the state which shall not stand."
But the acting chairman of the state's chapter of the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), Kate Oby Okafor saw it as curious step that the council has chosen to maintain a studied observing distance.
Okafor who is also the state chairman of the Advance Congress for Democrats (ACD) noted that, "we have before now made repeated appeals followed up with discussions to Gov Obiano on the need to organize council elections.
Progress was being made before this new development and since IPAC is not in any way an opposition party, we can only advise.
"So, we have to watch and observe what goes on", she noted.
In his reaction the state chairman of Hope Democratic Party (HDP), Chief Sam Oraegbunam saw the governor's action as "the dimension of the series of circles of political deception of citizens of the state."
According to him, "it has become a pattern for the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) led state administration to usually pull a stunt of political deception on the citizens of the state whenever a major election is around the corner.
“So his is just a continuation of such condemnable act. But history will judge them in due time."
In their reaction, the Mega Progressives People's Party (MPPP) saw the new Transition Committee as being for another incoming administration other than the Obiano's.
The MPPP deputy National chairman (South East), Chief A K Opia noted that "it could also be for Obiano's next term".
According to him, such transition committees manage the affairs of governance between an outgoing and incoming administrations, pointing out that if so, "then he believes there is no vacancy in Anambra Government House."
Vacancy in Government House, he noted, "is dictated not by the governor but by the leaders and citizens of Anambra state; which they shall collectively do on Nov 18, 2017.
Besides, what is on the front burner now is the governorship election. So why Transition Committee at the Local Government level now?, he wondered.
Chief Opia noted that there are two types of leaders- those who address the challenges and problems that confront the citizens as opposed to leaders who run around challenges and problems they themselves created for the citizens.
I hope the creation of Transition Committees at the Local Government level is not another challenge and problem that shall keep the Obiano administration in Anambra state busy for the terminal days of its life."
According to him, "the Local Government level is the third tier of government in Nigeria.
“We hope the Transition Committee antics is not aimed at subverting the Nigerian Constitution and the rights of Anambra citizens to be governed by their elected representatives and thereby put state resources in the hands of political traders and labourers.
“If so, then the state of affairs in Anambra state has moved from governance to gangsterism.
The MPPP chieftain emphasized that "governance is for the citizens while gangsterism is for the gangsters".
The APC through its state Publicity Secretary, Okelo Madukaife noted that, "Obiano is fully aware of, and the government of Anambra State which he heads is a party in a suit filed by APC Local Government Candidates in the botched 2015 Local Government polls which ought to be subsisting at the moment.
The party alleged that "Section 208 of the 1999 Anambra State Local Government Act, which ‘empowers ‘ the governor to appoint LG Chairmen and enables the State House of Assembly to approve them ‘whenever it is not possible to hold local government elections’ is being challenged in that suit for which judgement is deliberately being preempted by the governor.
"It is a timely reminder that Anambra State cannot afford to re-elect a despot who demolished all the democratic structures he met, killed all the checks and balances he inherited, took advantage of the created loopholes to hang suffocating debt on the state, launder LG funds and still beat his chest about erecting three structurally defective obstacles on the Enugu Onitsha Freeway.
"Anambra State requires leaders who can be respectful to judicial proceedings and obey the laws of the land to avert chaos.
"But beyond that the 21 characters illegally and hurriedly nominated, and hurriedly and illegally rubber-stamped by a sitting duck of a one-party legislature headed by an incompetent woman are portray the real intent of the eleventh hour dry joke from Obiano.
“Their illegal appointment, illegal rubber stamping, midnight swearing in, building up to illegal assumption of office shall not stand."
In his words, "This is the view of Ndi Anambra and APC will see it through. Our great party will have more to say about these sad developments in the coming days and weeks."
He therefore urged the Judiciary in the State to assert their independence.
However, it was not all hallelujah moment even within the ruling APGA, the governor's political home base as most stakeholders who pleaded for anonymity expressed anger at the list and timing of the inauguration.
They believed that it was either an afterthought from an unwilling democratic neophyte or a desperate face-saving move from a sinking office seeker who had to make the move to pacify a negligible few, having ignored them for so long or both.
But some saw it as a last minute measure to hang on to the new council helmsmen to attempt to reach out to most councils and communities that were hitherto neglected, at this critical moment of governorship election.


Chuks Collins