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A Toast To Willie—Dissecting Anambra’s Gubernatorial Politics

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4 years ago

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Governor Willie Obiano’s direction of Anambra’s affairs will end on March 17, 2022. But his imprint on the state for eight straight years will endure. Not only endure but also assume legendary proportions with the passage of time. Historians will wax lyrical on his double tenure and ascribe to him the quotable, poetic words Julius Caesar uttered in celebration of one of his famous war victories: “Veni, vidi, vici.” Willie Obiano came. He saw. He conquered.

The man’s story is the stuff of epic fiction. Born on August 8, 1955 to a catechist father (Philip Obiano), and a fish-seller mother, Christiana Obiano (Mama Willie), he took to banking after earning an honours degree in Accountancy in 1979, and a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Lagos. His banking career started at First Bank Plc in 1981. Leaving the bank, he joined Chevron Oil Nigeria Plc as an accountant and rose to become its Chief Internal Auditor. He returned to banking as the Deputy Manager in charge of the Audit Unit of Fidelity Bank in 1991. He rose to become an Executive Director of the bank before he retired, relocating to Houston, Texas, and determined to thoroughly enjoy his well-earned retirement.

As the saying goes, however, Man proposes but God disposes. The call came for Obiano to plunge into the mire of Nigerian politics, something that never previously crossed his mind. As gubernatorial candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) fate dealt him Anambra’s governorship in 2014. On the spur of his electoral victory, cynics went into overdrive, lamenting that a grievous mistake had been made. Governor Obiano, they declaimed, was bound to send Anambra State down the tube, being patently unprepared for the gargantuan task of leadership.

But Obiano knew differently. He had taken the job to serve his people, not to swim in the puddle of negative partisanship. There was little doubt in his mind that he possessed the dominant infrastructure of leadership. His thinking and that of those who really knew him were in coalescence. He would deliver. In retrospect, the confidence reposed in him was not misplaced. The apprehension of the naysayers, as has become self-evident, was groundless. They had impishly assumed that the habit made the monk. Today, there is a consensus of opinion between Obiano believers and non-believers that his greatest political achievement was delivering an APGA successor to his office.

That is the practice in the Igbo country. If your father conferred on you an Ozo title, the least expectation of your community would be your investing a similar title on your own son. APGA put Obiano in power. Obiano has concretised APGA’s retention of power in Anambra State. In this positive outcome, the people underscored their support for Obiano, and for the political values APGA espouses. In this positive outcome, neither Obiano nor Ndi Anambra settled for a lackey or ass-kisser, a zombie to be remotely and cynically manipulated by puppeteers teeming in the chasm of arrogance and conceit.

Had another party won the November 2021 ballot, a re-enactment of what followed the out-of-schedule governorship election perpetrated by INEC in 2007 would have become the unenviable lot of Ndi Anambra. By now, Obiano’s official portraits would have been torn from government offices and public buildings. Banks would have received marching orders to treat his outgoing administration as non-existent. A systematic dismantling of APGA legacies would have ensued. Entrenched recidivists, incorrigible anarchists and dissolute turncoats would have, with barbed phalluses, commenced the remorseless raping of Anambra State. Indeed, their wild excesses would eventually have painted a canvass of horror and despoliation reminiscent of Pablo Picasso’s Guernica.

Through Governor Obiano’s hands and the people’s faithfulness, God saved Anambra State. The striking salvation is destined to continue for a central reason. Pundits have critically peeped into their crystal balls and thoroughly analysed their findings. They agree that there isn’t the slightest indication that, out of office, Obiano would transform into a virulent antagonist of his successor, ranging media onslaught against him and serially organising opposition candidates for his ouster.

This means that after bidding farewell to the Awka Government House, Chief Obiano would not assume the persona of a malcontent railing against the structure he was party to constructing. Therefore, the people would rightly consider him a statesman. In which case, there would be no hesitation to consult him for advice on how to mediate challenges of extraordinary dimensions whenever they crop up. What legacy is greater than that?

The presidential election is next year. But Ndigbo constitute none of the elements in the equation.

This point requires expansion because it is at the very heart of service to the people. The presidential election is next year. But Ndigbo constitute none of the elements in the equation. This speaks to the ethnic group’s drastic retrogression since the January 1970 end of the Nigerian civil war. Witness: Five political parties contested the 1979 presidential election. One of them had an Igbo presidential candidate. The other four had Igbo running mates. After more than four decades, there is today a multiplicity of political parties. Not one of them boasts an Igbo frontrunner for the presidential ticket. Strutting about are perpetual vice-presidential careerists waiting like dogs for their master to mercifully drop the bone over which to fight and annihilate each other, waiting to be running mates to Fulani overlords! What a bleeding shame indeed.

If APGA did not win the Anambra ballot, it bears repeating that the party, the only one in which Ndigbo have a stake, would have died unsung and un-mourned. That the party yet lives foreshadows its chance to shake off the viruses that wickedly militated against it, in order to rise to the occasion of a powerful Igbo voice. Only those interested in advertising themselves as intellectual light bantamweights would contest this thesis. In parenthesis, only masters of doublespeak will posit that, after his time in office, Professor Chukwuma Charles Soludo would be judged on a criterion other than that of where he met the Anambra spirit and the point he led it to. That is the certitude that Governor Obiano and Ndi Anambra lived up to their billing by deciding on a successor, a Charlie Nwangbafor, that knows where his umbilical cord is buried and is proud of it, and yet also has the presence of mind to concede that interred umbilical cords are not a rarity outside his redoubt. It is a fine point underscored by the composition of his transition committee.

Yet, there is another angle from which to view Governor Obiano’s legacies. Take the Anambra International Passenger and Cargo Airport at Umueri. It came up during the November 2017 debate by gubernatorial candidates. One of Obiano’s interlocutors, a former Aviation Minister, argued that, with the Asaba Airport around that bend, Anambra did not need one. Another, a serial governorship contestant, posited that the state needed no more than an airstrip. These bizarre interventions made you laugh to cry or cry to laugh. Wisdom ultimately prevailed. Obiano thrashed his opponents to earn a second term. And, as one of the consequences of his resounding victory, the airport at Umueri has since gone into operation, rapidly becoming one of the busiest in the country.

Obiano thrashed his opponents to earn a second term.

The airport’s story is a long walk to freedom. Mere days after the civil war ended in January 1970, the apostles of No Victor, No Vanquished, demolished Anambra’s first airport, the one Biafra constructed at Uli. The story of another airport for Anambra started when Group Captain Sampson Emeka Omeruah was appointed the military Governor of the old Anambra State in 1985. His administration wanted an airport for the Onitsha metropolis. It was to be built at Oba, a border town. While interested parties went hair-splitting on what name to call it – Onitsha Airport, Oba, or Oba Airport, Onitsha – the military authorities redeployed Omeruah, stalling the project.

In the intervening period of over three decades, Onitsha exploded exponentially in size and population, making it inexpedient to house the airport. A new site was found in Umueri, not really far from anywhere in Anambra and not really difficult to access from anywhere in the Igbo country. But no action commenced until Obiano happened on the scene. The values of the airport are unquantifiable. If anyone bound for Igbo land flew in from the Americas or from Europe or from Australasia, it made better sense to land at Umueri and drive another 35 minutes or so to one’s destination or “domot”. Such a traveller was saved the harrowing experience of a thousand roadblocks on the 444 kilometre Lagos–Asaba expressway, “checkpoints” of AK47-wielding soldiers, and policemen and women, and naval officers and ratings, and Air Force officers and airmen; plus Customs, Immigration and Civil Defence cadres and so on, not to talk of the toxic mix of hardened gangsters, practiced bandits, blood-sucking cultists and occultists, insufferable Fulani herdsmen and allied terrorists. What beats this?

What beats the joy of going right home after miraculously dangling in the air for anything between six and 15 hours, knowing that there is no further anguish of a prison sentence of five or six extra hours at the Asaba end of the obsolete and quaking Niger Bridge that is impatiently waiting to crash on all the people’s skulls? Yet, there is an angle not often considered when the Umueri Airport is discussed – the fact that it was conceived to birth an aerotropolis, a metropolitan sub region with an infrastructure, land use and economy that are centred on the airport.

The Umueri Airport holds an immensity of economic potentials. Anambra being oil-producing, the airport is conceived as a refuelling station for aircraft on intercontinental flights. By the time it has started firing from all cylinders, a jetliner from Iceland could land at Umueri, tank up, take off again and head for the island state of Tasmania in Australia. The airport is built as a pivotal centre for A, C and D, checks of aircraft maintenance. In the fullness of time, it will employ hundreds directly, and thousands more indirectly. The aerotropolis and Onitsha would constitute the twin engines powering Anambra’s economic ascendancy. It is thanks to Governor Obiano that the Anambra International Passenger and Cargo Airport is now in place and functioning.

Talking about style, there is a whole heap to say on Chief Obiano. He does not believe in half measures. He reckons that there are people who insist that money is to be saved, not spent. Of course, he sees their point but vehemently disagrees with it because it makes no sense saving to the result of starving children while there is money in the parents’ pockets with which to feed them. That is why the Awka City Stadium is of Olympic standard while the International Conference Centre is bigger and more modern than any other in the country. Did it not embarrass that Anambra, a state that has produced better sportsmen and women than about any other was without a stadium? How did it feel that, until recently, big events in the state had to hold on primary school pitches because of the absence of a standard conference centre?

Chief Obiano acts himself. He couldn’t justify the skipping of vacations, knowing that his absence from Awka for a period of three weeks would never translate into Anambra going under. Whenever on leave he had no aversion to taking pictures with or without his family members and posting them on social media. There are leaders who never go on leave, and who never want to be seen in the likeness of a toff. For sure, those are no capital offences. But leaders and followers with a knack for sartorial elegance and a proclivity to occasionally unwind must also not be impaled. After all, the expensive attire does not culminate in an empty state treasury.

They call Chief Obiano Akpokuedike. He has proudly been living the title. After now, he would be remembered as one of a kind, a gracious man and the “Alert Governor” who unfailingly called the State Accountant General on the 15th of every month and received assurances that salaries would be promptly paid on the 24th.  Key point: This man never claimed to be holy. This article’s objective is not to invest him with a hallo of sanctity. Saints, as our faith teaches, are in paradise. As is the nature of things in this world, however, there must be people who see him as inherently repulsive. Integrity impels this lot to readily marshal facts or arguments in support of their standpoint. In the last analysis, history’s verdict will come, followed inevitably by the Supreme Being’s judgement, the one that entertains no appeal, to neatly wrap up everything, not just for Chief Willie Maduabrochukwu Obiano alone, but for all of us mortals on His terra firma.

* Chuks Iloegbunam is a freelance journalist.

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Anthony Obi Ogbo

When Power Doesn’t Need Permission: Nigeria and the Collapse of a Gambian Coup Plot

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4 days ago

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December 14, 2025

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“Power does not always announce itself; sometimes it prevents chaos simply by being present.“ —Anthony Obi Ogbo

A failed coup attempt in The Gambia reveals how Nigeria’s understated military, diplomatic, and intelligence influence continues to shape West African stability—without spectacle, but with unmistakable authority.

The attempted destabilization of The Gambia—quickly neutralized before it could mature into a full-blown coup—served as a quiet but powerful reminder of how regional power is exercised in West Africa today. While social media narratives raced ahead with exaggerated claims and half-truths, the reality underscored a familiar pattern: Nigeria remains the pivotal stabilizing force in the sub-region, especially when the democratic order is threatened.

Unlike the dramatic coups that have unsettled parts of the Sahel, the Gambian plot never gained momentum. It faltered not by accident, but by deterrence. Intelligence sharing, diplomatic signaling, and the unmistakable shadow of regional consequences helped shut the door before conspirators could walk through it. At the center of that deterrence was Nigeria—acting through ECOWAS mechanisms, bilateral security coordination, and its long-established role as the region’s security backbone.

Nigeria’s influence in The Gambia is not a new phenomenon. From the 2017 post-election crisis, when Nigerian forces formed the backbone of the ECOWAS Mission in The Gambia (ECOMIG), to ongoing security cooperation, Abuja has consistently demonstrated that unconstitutional power grabs will not be tolerated in its neighborhood. The recent coup attempt—however embryonic—was measured against that historical memory. The message was clear: the region has seen this movie before, and Nigeria knows how it ends.

What is notable is not just Nigeria’s military weight, but its strategic restraint. There were no dramatic troop movements or chest-thumping announcements. Instead, Nigeria’s power was exercised through quiet pressure, coordinated intelligence, and credible threat of collective action. That subtlety is often overlooked in an era obsessed with spectacle, but it is precisely what makes Nigerian influence effective. Power does not always announce itself; sometimes it prevents chaos simply by being present.

The Gambian coup flop also exposes a wider truth about West Africa’s information ecosystem. Rumors travel faster than facts, and failed plots are often retrofitted into heroic or conspiratorial narratives. Yet the absence of tanks on the streets and the continuity of constitutional governance speak louder than viral posts.

In a region grappling with democratic backsliding, Nigeria’s role remains decisive. The Gambian episode reinforces a hard reality for would-be putschists: while coups may succeed in pockets of instability, they are far less likely to survive in spaces where Nigeria’s regional influence—political, military, and diplomatic—still draws firm red lines.

The failed coup attempt in The Gambia is a blunt reminder that real power in West Africa does not always announce itself with tanks, gunfire, or televised bravado. Sometimes it arrives quietly—and when it does, it often carries Nigeria’s imprint. While social media chased rumors and inflated conspiracy theories, the reality was far less dramatic and far more decisive: the plot collapsed because the regional cost of success was simply too high.

Unlike the coups that have torn through parts of the Sahel, the Gambian attempt never found momentum. It was stopped not by chance, but by deterrence. Intelligence sharing, diplomatic signaling, and the unspoken certainty of ECOWAS intervention closed the door before it could open. At the center of that deterrence stood Nigeria, operating through regional institutions and long-established security relationships. Abuja did not need to issue threats; its history spoke for itself.

Nigeria’s influence in The Gambia is rooted in memory. In 2017, Nigerian forces formed the backbone of the ECOWAS Mission, which enforced the electoral will and prevented a democratic collapse. That precedent still haunts would-be putschists. They know how this story ends, and they know who writes the final chapter.

What makes Nigeria’s power effective is not just military superiority, but strategic restraint. There were no dramatic troop movements or chest-thumping speeches—only quiet pressure, coordinated intelligence, and credible readiness. In a region addicted to spectacle, this restraint is often mistaken for weakness. It is not.

The Gambian coup flop also exposes the toxicity of the information space, where fiction outruns fact. But governance is not decided online. It is decided by institutions, alliances, and forces that do not need permission to matter. The message to plotters is brutal and clear: coups may succeed where chaos reigns, but they rarely survive where Nigeria still draws the red lines.

♦Publisher of the Guardian News, Professor Anthony Obi Ogbo, Ph.D., is on the Editorial Board of the West African Pilot News. He is the author of the Influence of Leadership (2015)  and the Maxims of Political Leadership (2019). Contact: anthony@guardiannews.us

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Burna Boy, the Spotlight, and the Cost of Arrogance

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3 weeks ago

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November 27, 2025

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“Humility is the anchor that keeps greatness from drifting into delusion.“ —Anthony Obi Ogbo

Fame is a dangerous flame. It warms, it dazzles, and if you hold it too close, it burns straight through the layers of judgment that keep a person grounded. In its hottest glow, fame convinces artists that applause is permanent, talent is immunity, and fans are disposable. Arrogance doesn’t erupt overnight—it grows in the quiet corners of unchecked power, in entourages that never challenge, and in audiences that forgive too easily. But the world has a way of reminding every superstar of one brutal truth: no one is too famous to fall.

This season, Burna Boy is learning that lesson in real time. The Grammy-winning giant—hailed globally as the “African Giant”—is now facing one of the most dramatic reputational meltdowns of his career. Five U.S. arena dates on his NSOW Tour have reportedly been cancelled due to poor ticket sales and a fierce wave of fan backlash following his Denver debacle. What was supposed to be another triumphant American tour has spiraled into an expensive public relations disaster.

It all ignited on November 12, 2025, at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado. The show started late. Energy was high. Then Burna Boy spotted a woman in the front row who had fallen asleep. Instead of performing through it, he halted the show, called her out publicly, ordered her partner to “take her home,” and refused to continue until they left. The humiliation would have been bad enough on its own. But later reports revealed she wasn’t drunk or uninterested—she was exhausted, mourning the recent death of her daughter’s father.

The internet demanded empathy. Burna responded with contempt. A sleeping fan, he said, “pisses me the f*** off.” And then the line that detonated the backlash: “I never asked anybody to be my fan.” Those ten words may become the most expensive sentence of his career.

This wasn’t an isolated flare-up. Burna Boy has long danced on the edge of arrogance, and the public has kept receipts. In 2019, he halted a performance in Atlanta to eject a fan who wasn’t dancing—handing the man money and telling him to leave. In Lagos in 2021, a fan who attempted an innocent stage hug was shoved off by security, sparking outrage over excessive force and coldness.

The following year was worse. In 2022, his security team was accused of firing shots in a nightclub after a woman allegedly rejected him, injuring multiple patrons and triggering legal headaches that trailed him for months. Fast-forward to January 2023: at his “Love, Damini” concert in Lagos, he arrived hours late, berated the crowd, and left fans feeling disrespected and insulted.

By 2025, the pattern was undeniable. He kicked a fan offstage during a New Year’s performance. Months later, he brought a Colorado concert to a standstill until an “unengaged” couple was escorted out. The incidents piled up, painting a portrait of an artist increasingly out of touch with the people who made him a global phenomenon.

This latest incident, however, has delivered the sharpest consequence yet: the U.S. market—a notoriously unforgiving arena—has pushed back.
Cancelled shows. Sparse crowds. Boycotts. Refund demands.
For perhaps the first time, an African artist of Burna Boy’s magnitude is experiencing a full-force American-style public accountability storm.

If African entertainers are paying attention, they should treat this moment as a case study in how fame can be mismanaged.

The first lesson: Fan value is sacred. Fans are not props. They are not subjects. They are not inconveniences in an artist’s emotional universe. They are customers, supporters, ambassadors, and—most importantly—the foundation on which every stage, every award, and every paycheck rests.

The second: Empathy is not optional. A superstar who cannot pause long enough to consider that a fan might be grieving, ill, exhausted, or battling something unseen is a superstar who has forgotten the humanity at the core of all art.

The third: Professionalism is currency. Arriving late, publicly shaming fans, halting shows, and weaponizing power in moments of irritation are choices that corrode trust. And once trust is broken, even a global superstar can watch ticket sales collapse in real-time.

Burna Boy is an extraordinary artist—brilliant, groundbreaking, and influential. His musical legacy is secure. But greatness in artistry is not the same as greatness in character. Fame tests the latter far more than it rewards it. And the spotlight, no matter how bright, does not protect anyone from the consequences of their own behavior.Humility is the anchor that keeps greatness from drifting into delusion. Burna Boy’s current storm is a brutal reminder that talent without restraint can become tyranny, and fame without introspection can become a curse. Artists rise because people believe in them, invest in them, and support them. When that respect is abused, loyalty evaporates. The lesson is stark: the higher the pedestal, the harder the fall—and the fall always comes. What matters is not the applause you command, but the humanity you maintain long after the music stops.

♦Publisher of the Guardian News, Professor Anthony Obi Ogbo, Ph.D., is on the Editorial Board of the West African Pilot News. He is the author of the Influence of Leadership (2015)  and the Maxims of Political Leadership (2019). Contact: anthony@guardiannews.us

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The Leadership Deficit: Why African Governance Lacks Philosophical Grounding

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5 months ago

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July 30, 2025

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Leadership across nations is shaped not only by policies but by the quality of the individuals at the helm. History has shown that the most transformative leaders often draw from deep wells of ethical, philosophical, and strategic thought. Yet, in many African countries—and Nigeria in particular—there appears to be a crisis in the kind of men elevated to govern. This deficit is not merely political; it is intellectual, philosophical, and deeply structural.

There is a compelling correlation between the absence of foundational wisdom and the type of leaders Nigeria consistently produces. Compared to their counterparts in other parts of the world, Nigerian leaders often appear fundamentally unprepared to govern societies in ways that foster justice, progress, or stability.

Consider the Middle East—nations like the UAE and Qatar—where governance is often rooted in Islamic principles. While these societies are not without flaws, their leaders have harnessed religious teachings as frameworks for nation-building, modern infrastructure, and citizen welfare. Ironically, many of Nigeria’s military and political leaders also profess Islam, yet the application of its ethical standards in public governance is nearly non-existent. This raises a troubling question: is the practice of religion in African politics largely symbolic, devoid of actionable moral guidance?

Take China as another case study. In the last four decades, China’s leadership has lifted over 800 million people out of poverty—an unprecedented feat in human history. While authoritarian in structure, China’s model demonstrates a deep philosophical commitment to collective progress, discipline, and strategic long-term planning. In Western democracies, especially post-World War II, leaders often emerged with strong academic backgrounds in philosophy, economics, or history—disciplines that sharpen the mind and cultivate vision.

In stark contrast, African leaders—particularly in Nigeria—are more often preoccupied with short-term political survival than long-term national transformation. Their legacy is frequently one of mismanagement, unsustainable debt, and structural decay. Nigeria, for example, has accumulated foreign loans that could take generations to repay, yet there is little visible infrastructure or social development to justify such liabilities. Inflation erodes wages, and basic public services remain in collapse. This cycle repeats because those in power often lack not just technical competence, but the moral and intellectual depth to lead a modern nation.

At the heart of the crisis is a lack of philosophical inquiry. Philosophy teaches reasoning, ethics, and the nature of justice—skills that are essential for public leadership. Nigerian leaders, by and large, are disconnected from such traditions. Many have never seriously engaged with political theory, ethical discourse, or economic philosophy. Without this grounding, leadership becomes a matter of brute power, not enlightened governance.

The crisis of leadership in Africa is not solely one of corruption or bad policy—it is one of intellectual emptiness. Until African nations, especially Nigeria, begin to value and cultivate leaders who are intellectually rigorous and philosophically grounded, the continent will remain caught in cycles of poverty and poor governance. True leadership requires more than charisma or military rank—it demands the wisdom to govern a society with justice, vision, and moral clarity. Without this, the future remains perilously fragile.

♦ Dominic Ikeogu is a social and political commentator based in Minneapolis, USA.

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