We read with utter dismay your recent postings with the title above stated. It was a great shock to us as the entire content is not only spurious but malicious and libelous. It was simply a calculated and devious attempt to slander the person of Senator Andy Uba, (OFR)
Amid lingering tension in Ogbunka and Owerrezuka in Orumba South Local Government Area of Anambra State, the scene of recent communal clash which saw neighbours turning foes, Senator Andy Uba (Anambra South), at the weekend, visited the communities to sue...
A Peoples Demoratic Party senatorial aspirant in Anambra State, Chief Andy Uba, has said that his honest vision for the state motivated him to want to serve.Uba, who is seeking the party’s ticket in Anambra South, spoke in a telephone interview with the News Agency...
Senator (Dr) Emmanuel Andy Uba, MFR, is the distinguished Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He is a native of Uga in Aguata Local Government Area of Anambra State, Uba is the Sentor representing Anambra South Senatorial District...
The story was so inspiring that I always consider it a good illustration of how one should live his life… people never knew him, many never met him, but they know he passed through their world by the trail of light he left behind him. Terry fox was..
A legislator representing Anambra South Senatorial District, Senator Andy Uba, yesterday expressed shock over the death of Ikemba Nnewi, Dim Chukwuemeka Ojukwu. Uba described Ojukwu death as a great loss to Nigeria.
He was a great patriot and embodiment of unity among the Ibos and a rally point for all committed patriots, he said. Uba said Nigeria has, by Ikemba death, lost a legend. “We would continue to remember him for his valuable contribution to the country, he added. In the same vein, former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr Okwesilieze Nwodo, described as rude shock the death of the former Biafan leader, Chief Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. Ojukwu died at the weekend in London hospital.
The death of Ikemba Nnewi, Chief Chukwuemaka Odumegwu Ojukwu, came as a rude shock to all of us who have been praying and hoping for his recovery, Nwodo said in a statement in Enugu. Here unfortunately is the end of an era. An era when men were men, who lived and fought for what they believed in and were ready to pay the supreme sacrifice for their belief. Ikemba was a leader made in this mould.
The former PDP chairman said Ojukwu was blessed with great erudition and communication skills that assisted him greatly in prosecuting the Civil War. The Igbo in particular and Nigeria generally have lost a great and courageous leader of immense dimensions, a historian who made history. We pray that his family and all those who loved him will have the fortitude to bear his death, Nwodo said.
A Peoples Demoratic Party senatorial aspirant in Anambra State, Chief Andy Uba, has said that his honest vision for the state motivated him to want to serve.
Uba, who is seeking the party’s ticket in Anambra South, spoke in a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Tuesday.
“I am sure by now, my brothers and sisters that are abroad know the type of person I am and they know that I have a vision for the state.
“My vision is very clear. My vision is an honest vision. I am not here to rip the state off, I am not here to set the state back, I am here for them.
“I am here to see how we can change the image that people have about Anambra State, especially, because the Igbo race that is from Anambra, every other state in the South-East will tell you that Anambra is the number one state.
“But if you look at it today, it’s like Anambra is the last state,” he said.
Uba called on the people to give him the opportunity to serve as a senator to enable the state to move forward and also make contributions to national development.
“So, what I am asking them is to give me the opportunity so that I will be able to work with them with the ideas that they have, so that we can turn this state around,” he said.
I must preface this discourse with the announcement that the two subjects of this article are very well known to me. Professor Okey Tony Ndibe, the erudite scholar and a compelling writer, has been my very close friend for about 30 years now. In fact our friendship has been such that it should qualify to be classified as brotherhood, as we, in fact do. Senator (Dr) Nnamdi Emmanuel Uba (Andy) is equally very well known to me, not just because he is a kinsman and currently the distinguished senator representing me, but also and more importantly, because I was one of those who ardently supported and worked for the actualisation of his gubernatorial ambition in 2007.
I see eye to eye with Okey on many contemporary issues, including our shared belief that the steady but unfortunate corrosion and denudation of Nigeria’s institutional and personal values are lamentable and unfortunate. However, I have refused to see eye to eye with Okey, since in 2007, when he made personal attacks on Andy a regular sport and a commitment. Against good and consistent advice, my friend’s has pursued his unending castigation of a man who has committed no wrong against him, in a very personal and malicious manner.
I was surprised that my friend did not appreciate such a basic fact in public communications that if you continually attack a person who says nothing to you in self defence or reply, whatever your motive was loses its potency and instead, you attract sympathy for your victim. I had reasons to complain personally to my friend at that time that he was injuring an innocent man out of mostly hearsay and accusations of envious political opponents.
Even after those elections, Okey did not stop disparaging Andy, but rather tended to create the impression that the former senior aide to President Obasanjo had become so omnipotent as to have been responsible for every ill besetting the nation. At a time, I am aware that some concerned people made overtures to him to find out what the problem was because what he was doing was definitely abnormal and hovered over and above the altruistic demands of our profession. Okey rebuffed those attempts and kept on hacking at the reputation and personality of the man who was doing his best to serve his people and carve out a political niche for himself in the murky waters of Nigerian politics. It was obvious that Andy, like every other Nigerian, including Okey and me, are not angels; but then, who said that politics is for angels. But Andy was definitely not a fiend, either.
It is a pity that I should join issues publicly with my very close friend on an issue which we should have discussed indoors. However, the recent attack Ndibe launched against Senator Uba in his column in the Daily Sun of last Tuesday, was in such a bad taste and so maliciously inspired that it left so much bile in my mouth and those of our other constituents, such that I needed to spit it out publicly.
Writing under the title “Andy Uba, Boko Haram and Electoral Reform”, Ndibe did a heavy-metal job that had no rhyme or reason and ended up casting a very huge question mark on the objectives and reasonableness of that piece. At the end of the day, an ordinary and averagely intelligent reader became at a loss as to what the writer sought to achieve. make Up till today, I still do not understand what Okey had set out to achieve.
Ndibe started by excoriating the senate president for having appointed Senator Andy Uba as the chairman of the Committee on INEC, describing such an appointment as ‘ghastly’ and ‘hilarious’, without explaining why and how. Rather, he pursued that illogic by stating that “Uba epitomises some of the maladies of Nigeria’s troubled
electoral system...” How, he did not expatiate on, either. Rather and in the same gratuitous malignity, he claimed that, “Nigerians seek a movement towards electoral credibility and probity, not a return to the days when elections were
an all-hijackers’ affair”.
He made further questionable preachments about electoral misdemeanours being the precursor for social and political upheavals. While electoral ills are patently unacceptable, Okey failed to prove how the position of Andy as the committee chairman of INEC and electoral reforms has anything to do with all that arm-chair pontificating. After a long non-sequitor rigmarole on Boko Haram and the insecurity in the land, which obviously has nothing to do specifically with my senator, Okey essayed to bring himself back to his favourite business of Andy-bashing by positing that “Mr. Uba’s antecedents should preclude him from serving – posing – as a leader..” in any efforts at electoral reform.
He went further to tabulate what he alleged were Uba’s record in alleged electoral manipulation, which of course, started and ended with what Okey had repeated ad naseum in the past. It was his claim that INEC banned “all of Uba’s formidable opponents” during the 2007 elections in Anambra State. He did not say that Andy worked at INEC at that time, but knowing the nature of his earlier position, if one had nudged him further, Okey would have regurgitated his favourite story that Andy Uba ran the INEC because he had allegedly had a hand in the appointment of Prof Maurice Iwu as the INEC chairman. I have always been bothered that while attempting to carpet Andy, the likes of Ndibe had tended to create the impression that the humble and self-effacing former presidential aide was God who could do anything.
That must obviously be the justification of Ndibe’s fear that the same omnipotent Andy would now pocket Prof Jega, just as he had allegedly done to Maurice Iwu and would now turn the entire electoral system upside down
in 2015 or earlier. Without saying it, Okey might really be fearing that Andy, who he is supposing would be playing the role of the de-facto INEC chairman, would be in the position to short-circuit the ambition of his political hero,
Dr. Chris Ngige (his senator), who we hear, might be making another ill-fated attempt at governorship in 2014. Many of my constituents are rather surprised that the sanctimonious Okey has never written a line against his favourite Ngige who was thrown out by the tribunal for having rigged the 2003 gubernatorial elections in Anambra State – a fact that Ngige even acknowledged.
The problem is that my friend Okey often tries to set angelic standards for those he does not like – like Dr. Andy Uba and recently, Governor Peter Obi –and in the process, unwittingly betrays his lack of understanding of the nitty-gritty of realpolitik. If he understood that as the chairman of the senate committee on INEC, Uba would not be ‘overseeing INEC’ as he wrote, but rather ‘over-sighting’ it, he would not have written in the vein he did. Those concepts are different and far apart, for while Prof Attahiru Jega, the INEC chairman, would be overseeing the affairs of INEC, Uba’s committee would merely be ensuring the funds appropriated to the electoral body are being spent in tune with what they were made for and that the body is being run in accordance with the constitutional demands. That being so, is my friend saying that with the type of practical and cognate experience that Dr. Uba has gathered, he would be
incapable of over-sighting any body in Nigeria?
The venom with which Ndibe always writes about Dr. Andy Uba is not normal and if I did not know him well, I would have agreed with some accusers’ claim that he is envious of the senator. Otherwise, why would he tend to give the impression that the misfortune which Uba’s electoral fortunes suffered in 2007 was due to what he alleged was “
a vote tally that exceeded the number of registered voters in the state”? Does Ndibe have to present such a patent inaccuracy in order to drive his nail into what he sees is Uba’s coffin. Okey, as far as I recall, was several thousands of
kilometres away from Anambra State and could, therefore, not have witnessed the “heady celebration” with which Anambra shook “when a panel of Supreme courtm judges dismissed Mr. Uba from office”. Ndibe carefully hid from his readers the fact that Andy was not ‘dismissed’ by an electoral tribunal which queried the integrity of his victory but rather by a court which quashed his ßelection on the basis of a pre-election matter, to wit, Peter Obi’s successful challenge that the election had held when he his tenure had not expired.
The continued allusion to Uba’s academic qualifications leaves a lot to be desired as Ndibe tends to be leaving the substance to chase the shadow. If, as he erroneously claims, “Uba has produced no proof of a first degree”, of what
import is that issue when the constitution has always required only a secondary school leaving certificate as the qualification for both the gubernatorial and senatorial aspirations? His refusal to address Andy as ‘Dr.’ also smacks of
little-mindedness because, being aware that many people who use that title in Nigeria on basis of a honoris causa award conferred on them, have not been derided. Or does he not know that Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, for instance, never had a PhD?
In conclusion, Professor Okey Ndibe should do well to learn to water down his personal, regular, malicious and unwarranted attacks of the man whose people take as a very good representative and defender of their cause. Just last week, Andy embarked on efforts to settle an inter-town quarrel that has lasted for over 50 years and which has left a huge trail in human and material costs. The massive efforts and resources he has expended in community and personal empowerment and development in our constituency and all over the state and beyond should attract commendation and goodwill to Senator Andy Uba and not the type of motive-hunting of motiveless malignity that Ndibe has embarked upon.
Today, a massive edifice stands as UNIZIK’s faculty building – a present that Andy made to the academic community when he obtained an honorary doctorate degree from there. A wise and very cerebral man like my great friend should know when enough is enough. That is one of the most visible indices of a truly educated and balanced mind
Courtesy The Sun
Today, a massive edifice stands as UNIZIK’s faculty building – a present that Andy made to the academic community when he obtained an honorary doctorate degree from there.
We read with utter dismay your recent postings with the title above stated. It was a great shock to us as the entire content is not only spurious but malicious and libelous. It was simply a calculated and devious attempt to slander the person of Senator Andy Uba, (OFR). In your report, you made such an unbelievable attempt to defame the eminent judges that sat at the Anambara State National Assembly Election Tribunal by shockingly claiming that they were induced by Senator Andy Uba to tilt judgement in his favour. For this reason, according to your report, the Honorable president of the Court of Appeal, Justice Ayo Salami, dissolved the panel.
This is no doubt a robust lie and sheer figment of the writer’s imaginations as Justice Salami did not attribute the dissolution of the panel to a bribery question.
Your report claimed that some of the tribunal members were met at a hotel in Abuja where the purported bribe was delivered and went further to state that one of the judges was caught in the act. Yet you couldn’t name who gave him this bribe or how much he received.
There is no doubt that your publication was instigated by Senator Uba’s opponents with a diabolical intention to subject him to outrageous infamy and ridicule his palpable victory at the polls. But this will not in any way diminish his awesome popularity among the people of his senatorial district who trooped out enmass and voted overwhelmingly for him during the election.
Senator Uba has absolutely no reason to compromise the respectable jurists at the tribunal and certainly did not meet any of them at any place. That your Publication could not give the name of the person that gave this so called bribe or how much was given leaves the entire story porous and untenable.
Professionalism in your media art demands that you investigate story properly and get the two sides to every subject. In this case, you have only offered your organization as a platform for negative minded political adventurists whose sole ambition in politics seems to be simply to pull down or destroy Senator Andy Uba.
We will therefore advise you to be more thorough in your quest for sizzling stories so that whatever credibility you have left will not be completely eroded.
We will not bother, for now, to address the catalogue of defamatory tales you published in this singular story. At the appropriate time, we shall respond adequately to them.
Here is wishing you all the best even as we urge you to adhere yourselves to a more responsible and professional journalism. That way you can raise the profile of your organization and win the respect of serious minds and people within and outside Nigeria.
Amid tension, Andy Uba visits Anambra warring communities
OnSeptember 18, 2011 ·
Amid lingering tension in Ogbunka and Owerrezuka in Orumba South Local Government Area of Anambra State, the scene of recent communal clash which saw neighbours turning foes, Senator Andy Uba (Anambra South), at the weekend, visited the communities to sue for peace.
The two communities had been turned into a war zone following the burning of houses, killing and maiming of defenceless villagers and raping of hapless maidens. The situation forced the deployment of policemen and soldiers to the communities.
About 300 persons were reportedly arrested. The cause of the communal war is said to be an expanse of land with green lush vegetation, which separates Ogbunka and Owerrezukala.
According to sources, the high concentration of stones in commercial quantity in the disputed area to which both communities are laying claim is the problem. The land known as Ikpaobu has been in dispute since 1940 and reports claim that at least 1,000 lives have been lost to recurring disturbances.Uba was in the two communities at the weekend for an on-the-spot assessment of the destruction caused by the latest incident.
Addressing representatives of the communities, the senator expressed unhappiness at the situation, saying they all have a lot to gain through amicable resolution of all issues.
Source: InNewsfrom www.vanguardngr.com
Chronology Senator (Dr) Nnamdi Emmanuel Uba (Andy)
1958 Born in Enugu, Enugu State, 14 December
1967-1970 Survived the Nigerian civil war
1984. Graduated with honors from Concordia University, Montreal Canada
1985-1992 Worked for the Golden State Mutual Insurance of California. With his team, he established health clinics in different parts of United States.
1996 Earned a Doctor degree in Bio-Sciences from Buxton University, United Kingdom
1998 Join the presidential campaign of PDP in United States
2003 Appointed Special Assistant to the President on Special Duties and Domestic Affairs.
2007 PDP candidate for gubernatorial election in Anambra state
2011 PDP candidate for senatorial election in Anambra state
Quotes: I have always regarded it as a religious duty to get all I could and to give all I could
Location: Anambra, Nigeria Age: 53 State of Origin: Anambra Political Party: People's Democratic Party (PDP) of Nigeria Candidate For: Anambra South Senatorial Seat Website:www.andyuba.net
Biography: Senator (Dr) Nnamdi Emmanuel Uba (Andy) was born on December 14, 1958 in Enugu, Enugu State, to the family of Mr & Mrs Philip Uba whose parentage was from Uga, Aguata Local Government Area of Anambra State.
Having witnessed and survived the Nigerian civil war, with his parents and siblings, Senator Andy continued his education after the war at Boys High School Awkunanaw, Enugu State where he obtained his senior school certificate (SSCE). He gained admission abroad and was engaged in geological studies at Concordia University, Montreal Canada where he graduated with honors in 1984.
Dr Uba who had further academic studies at the California State University later proceed to Buxton University in the United Kingdom where he earned a Doctor degree in Bio-Sciences in 1996.
He lived and worked most of his professional life in the United States.
Between 1985 and 1992 he worked for the Golden State Mutual Insurance of California. With his team, he established a chain of health clinics in different parts of United States. His duties involve conducting evaluations for the United States government on workers’ compensation claims. However, Dr Uba maintained contact with situations in Nigeria and that accounts for his interest in philanthropic and developments projects he carried out in Nigeria soon after his return.
It was this pursuit to contribute to the socio-economic and political development of the Nigerian people that encouraged him to join in the United States the presidential campaign of PDP in 1998.
What determines the goals one sets (or don’t set) is ones context. Your context is your collection of beliefs and values. The most significant part of one’s context is ones collection of beliefs about the nature of reality, which includes ones religious, spiritual, and philosophical beliefs. Context dictates goals. Goals dictate projects. Projects dictate actions. Actions dictate results say Steve pavlina.
Senator Andy Uba’s context worked like a filter for he never lost access to his potential goals, projects, and actions while he was abroad. For example, His zeal and dedication to the people of Nigeria in Diaspora earned him the recommendation of the then presidential candidate of PDP, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo who invited senator Andy to serve in Nigeria having noticed his deep sense of loyalty, philosophical beliefs, and originality. Subsequently, he was appointed the Special Assistant to the President on Special Duties and Domestic Affairs.
The new appointed Special Assistant to the President on Special Duties and Domestic Affairs soon began to make good policies and appointments, which impacted positively on many interests groups in Nigeria. Armed with the goal of rendering public service to his people, Dr Uba as PDP candidate in the 2007 gubernatorial election in Anambra contested and won the governorship ticket.
Today, Senator Andy Uba remains a cheerful philanthropist to the needy and under privileged, as well as supporter of noble goals and initiatives. Amongst his contributions to the Nigerian people and to the good people of Anambra state includes; the construction of the Nze Philip Uba endowment building for Mass Communication, named after his late father at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka; the building of multipurpose hall for the people of Uga and his numerous donations to various charity homes and organizations in Nigeria.
Senator Uba is a calm devote Christian knight of Anglican Communion. He also holds a national honor of Member of Federal Republic of Nigeria (MFR) and is married with four lovely children.
