By Charles Igbo
Billionaire businessman, Chief Arthur Eze, says Muhammadu Buhari Is the best President Nigeria has ever had.
The Anambra State -born businessman was responding to remarks made by Dr Chris Ngige, Minister of Labour and Productivity, on the Anambra State Traditional Rulers who were suspended by Governor Willie Obiano for travelling out of the state without the knowledge of the State Government.
They were suspended for an initial period of one year.
The Traditional Rulers were sponsored to Abuja by Eze, who also booked the appointments for them to visit President Muhammadu Buhari.
Eze said the trip was to say thank you to Mr President for his (President’s) good works in the South East Zones.
Even though they ended up not seeing the President, and were, instead, received in audience by Chief of Staff, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, the trip caused an uproar, especially, as a video which went spiral on Whatsaap showed the Traditional Rulers sharing money in Arthur Eze’s house.
Chief Eze, whose brother, the Traditional Ruler of his community was, ironically, was not on the trip, had come under strong criticisms by many people from the South-east zone, including Ngige, for the role he played in the Abuja trip. The questions were: What did he stand to gain? If the trip was to thank Buhari, why would be less it? Where was the Chairman of the Council not aware of the trip? Why was the Governor not aware? And why he not include his brother in the trip?
The State Government saw the trip as a disrespect for constitutional authority capable of causing a breach of the peace. It called it a mischief.
Ngige had asked the Governor to go beyond the one year suspension placed on the Traditional Rulers, and banish them from their communities so as to stop them from disrupting the peace in the affected Communities. “When you suspend somebody from office, you bar the person from the office environment”, Ngige, whose Traditional Ruler was one of those suspended.
He, also, canvassed that a punishment be meted out on Exe for sabotage against the state.
Irked, Eze dismissed Ngige’s submissions as the ranting of an ant, boasting that he had sponsored three African Presidents to office, one of whom gave him an oil well. He also boasted that he had giving a Governorship candidate in Nigeria, the sum of N10bn Naira. Ngige, he therefore, said is a little fry to him.
He dismissed Ngige’s call for the banishment of the Traditional Rulers as nonsense, and laughed at the thought of the Anambra State Government punishing him for sabotage.
Stung by Eze’s choice of words, Ngige said that Eze was his friend of many years who he housed and fed when he, Eze, was struggling to make ends meet as a trader selling tee-shirts.
Perhaps, embarrassed by Ngige’s disclosure, Eze went for the juggler.
In a statement by his Media Directorate, the businessman described Ngige as “an ant in human flesh,” saying he would have ignored the Minister’s outburst, but for the fact that he was serving in the best Government Nigeria has ever had, Ngige having become an accidental Minister.
Chief Eze:”We would have treated his ranting as the ranting of an ant who, by all social and political equation is an inconsequential product of history.
“We are, however, tempted to add a voice in view of his undeserved portfolio as a Minister in a Government that has been acclaimed as the best in Nigeria’s history under the able leadership of our beloved President Muhammadu Buhari.
On Ngige’s advice to the Governor to banish the Traditional Rulers, Chief Exe said: “One wonders how a Minister and a former Governor can wake up from slumber overnight and start calling on a state Governor to banish traditional rulers whose only offence is that they took a trip to Abuja to commend his boss, the President, for the magnificent jobs he is doing for the people of their zone.”
Eze, also, accused Ngige of not taking time to understand the political colouration given the trip by the state government.
Many of the Traditional Rulers beginning with Ngige’s, who he insists was imposed on the community by former Governor Peter Obi, and Obiano, have since apologised to the Governor.
However, many people expect the President to call to order his Minister and Eze, who Ngige labelled a fair weather friend, and dismissed as “Any Government In Power.”
Eze, for years, has been close to every Head of State/ President, from as far back as General Sani Abacha.
