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Travails
of Mr Pi(o)us
By TONY IYARE
The cup of Senate
President Anyim Pius Anyim may be full and running over. With a
date with the kangaroo and a committee composed largely of hangmen,
he should be counting his days on the saddle as the nation’s number
three man. Anyim is definitely headed for the cleaners. His crime
was learning too late that the market was not the place to throw
darts at the leadership of the ruling People’s Democratic Party
(PDP). He had opted to play pious at a wrong time. Before now, he
had strangely chanted a crucify him chorus with his colleagues in
the Senate plotting the removal of the President. As a man whose
abode is made of glass, the Senate President was oblivious he needs
not throw pebble. He had taken on himself to shreds. Anyim is obviously
a victim of poor strategy.
His poise to
engage both President Olusegun Obasanjo and his party chairman,
Chief Audu Ogbeh in a common duel is a whimsical appreciation of
real politik. Like a man perpetually quarrelling with his chi, he
had earlier taken on the governor of his home state, Ebonyin, Dr
Sam Egwu in a feverish battle for primacy over PDP faithful. Anyim
has also not paid gladly his immediate predecessor, Dr Chuba Okadigbo
and his supporters in the Senate. At every turn he has threatened
this ebullient former lecturer of political philosophy at the University
of Nigeria, Nsukka with the cruel face of the Kuta report. Remember
the Takar and Daboh tirades. Now Anyim faces the biggest challenge
to his survival as Senate President. And it may be a battle of no
return. He had fired the first salvo accusing Ogbeh of trying to
swindle him of N120million said to be meant for a party retreat
in Calabar, Cross River State.
Rather than
turning to explore the internal structure of the PDP to resolve
the row with the chairman, the Senate President chose to dance himself
lame in the gutters. Not done with playing the role of Mr Clean
on the N120million scandal, Anyim wrote to the Inspector General
of Police, Tafa Balogun and even got an order of mandamus from the
court to send Ogbeh to the guillotine. Ogbeh’s offence was ordering
the cancellation of PDP primaries in Ebonyin perceived to be aimed
at whittling the political base of Anyim. Anyim’s every battle has
been suspect. His mentors and godfathers must be having a good laugh
at the volte face of this trusted hireling. He seem to have egged
himself on to the road to Golgota. From an infamous reputation of
being the president’s boy, the Senate President dramatically gave
tacit consent to senators rooting for the president’s jugular raising
questions of an amiable relationship gone sour.
Anyim is irked
by a new thinking by the strategists of Obasanjo second term project
that upstaging the governors will not be a wise move. For a man
whose war with Egwu had consumed the lives of some PDP foot soldiers,
this was a bile difficult to swallow. For daring him in his den,
Anyim reasoned it was time to play ball with opponents of the President.
His new revolt smacks of someone perpetually hunted by some hysteria.
Anyim appear more to me like a man relishing a meal of tonnes of
flesh. Meaning that Anyim’s new found role of playing god on the
N120million issue would have paled were he to be handed the lordship
of Ebonyin state without contest on a platter of gold. Were he and
his supporters given some leeway to enthrone their loyalists in
the state PDP primaries, all these bravado to armtwist the president
on the issue of implementation of the budget will fizzle. Ogbeh
may have been dashed more than the paltry N120million for retreat.
And all these would have been shut out from the prying eyes of the
media. So what kind of Mr Clean is this?
The Senate President
is playing half clever by trying to eat and have his cake at the
same time. To be counted and trusted in this new campaign against
corruption in high places, Anyim must be steadfast and not show
his face only in the middle of the night.
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