A new governor was sworn in on Friday in the south-eastern Nigerian state of Anambra as local lawmakers sought to cement an impeachment rejected as illegal by the targeted governor and civil rights groups.
The controversial attempt to remove opposition Governor Peter Obi is the fifth impeachment process against a state governor in 12 months.
The trend is widely seen as evidence that allies of President Olusegun Obasanjo and local grandees are seeking to increase their power in the regions in order to control next year’s crucial elections in Africa’s most populous country.
The chief judge of Anambra swore in Obi’s deputy, Virginia Etiaba, to replace him even though she had refused the job on Thursday, pledging loyalty to Obi.
”I am accepting this job in the interest of the people of the state. … I have to accept it so as not to allow any vacuum in government,” said Etiaba after she was sworn in. She will be Nigeria’s first female governor if the impeachment sticks.
A group of state lawmakers had voted to impeach Obi behind closed doors at dawn on Thursday in the state capital Awka. They said the necessary two thirds majority of the state house of assembly voted in favour of the impeachment, but this was disputed by Obi and several state lawmakers.
”I still remain the governor. … If there must be a change in government, it must be done according to due process and within the confines of the constitution,” Obi told reporters at the governor’s lodge in Awka after Etiaba was sworn in.
The claims and counter-claims are typical of the messy impeachment processes that have caused crises in five of Nigeria’s 36 states. In some cases, rival camps have invoked conflicting court decisions, adding to the confusion.
State of emergency
Obasanjo declared a state of emergency last month in south-western Ekiti state after a chaotic impeachment there resulted in three people claiming to be governor.
Many opposition critics say the impeachments are part of a plan to cause chaos across the country, giving a pretext for Obasanjo to declare a wider state of emergency and postpone the elections. He has denied this.
Nigerians are due to elect their president, state governors and lawmakers next April in polls that should mark the first democratic handover from one government to the next since Africa’s top oil producer gained independence in 1960.
Obasanjo has assured that the elections would be free, fair and on schedule but with increasingly fierce power struggles both in the states and at the national level, many Nigerians fear there could be widespread trouble ahead of the polls.
Obi’s attempted impeachment follows a complex series of intrigues in Anambra state which have exposed corruption and thuggery at the heart of the Nigerian political system.
Obi has occupied the governor’s post only since March this year, after an appeals court ruled that the 2003 elections in the state were rigged by the ruling People’s Democratic Party.
The PDP’s candidate, who occupied the post of governor illegally for three years, fell out with senior party figures soon after the election because he said he refused to loot public money to pay them back for their support.
Since Obi took office, he has been locked in a power tussle with one of Obasanjo’s closest aides, Andy Uba, who wants to win the governorship in next year’s elections. Analysts say the impeachment was to pave the way for Uba’s ambition. – Reuters