Ebelechukwu Obiano's Disgraceful End

By Comfort Obi

I don’t know which community bestowed Mrs Ebelechukwu Obiano, the immediate past First Lady of Anambra State, with a chieftaincy title. Cheap as Chieftaincy titles have since become, the community should strip her of it. She does not deserve it, just as she does not deserve other titles bestowed on her, including the ones by Churches. She is a disgrace to those titles, the State, her family, women, and especially, young girls who had looked up to her as a role model. She is a bad Ambassador of women, and has made a public ridicule of the office she occupied for eight years.

If it was when our culture and tradition mattered, women would have trooped out to give Mrs Obiano a deserving disgraceful farewell from the office of the First Lady of Anambra State, and barred her from some community and women meetings.

I don’t know what, perhaps, transpired between her and her husband, Willie Obiano, the immediate past Governor of Anambra State after her despicable public outing. But many a man would keep her out of the “other room” for weeks, and give her space. For, what Mrs Obiano did on Thursday, March 17 in Awka was to rub a tar on her husband, and on every Igbo woman. How did Obiano end up so disgracefully on a day he planned to walk as if springs were attached to his heels?

It was to be a glorious end to an eight-year tenure as the Governor of Anambra State. There, Obiano sat majestically, dressed to the hilt, in the midst of high profile guests. There he sat, heart filled with joy over what he had accomplished which culminated in the ceremony taking place – the swearing in of a successor of the same party with him.

Not many people thought that possible in the months leading to the November 6 Governorship elections. Everything was stacked against him. A number of his cabinet members had deserted him. Party Chieftains deserted him. The climax was his dumping by his Deputy Governor, Dr Nkem Okeke. They all pitched camp with the opposition.

Not a few people thought the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Senator Andy Uba, was going to sweep the polls and send the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, out of office – no matter how good its candidate. But Obiano and APGA prevailed in a landslide. They were helped by the profile of the candidate.

So, on the day of the swearing into office of APGA’s Professor Charles Soludo as Governor, Obiano was hip. Celebrations had been planned. His people had planned to give him and his wife, a rousing welcome to their palatial home in his Aguleri community. But within a twinkle of an eye, all that crumbled.

Shame took over. Disbelief set-in. And, dear readers, I would have given an arm to know what was going through Willie Obiano’s mind.

What happened to him, publicly, on Thursday shouldn’t happen to anybody, let alone a man who, 24 hours earlier, was the most powerful man in Anambra State.

In the full glare of everybody present, and the thousands who followed the event on television, Obiano’s wife showed how disrespectful she is of her husband. She confirmed the stories in the streets of Anambra State that she is the man in the house. That she was the “de facto” Governor of Anambra State. That she has no respect for anybody. That she is wild. Otherwise, how could Mrs Obiano descend to the gutter from the olympian height she had been placed? How could any woman at her level be that irresponsible? My mother of the blessed memory would have summed it up by saying “bath a pig, dress a pig, a pig will always be a pig?”

It started unexpectedly. Soludo’s swearing-in ceremony had been completed, almost. He was about to sign the final documents. Then, all hell broke loose.

An obscenely dressd Ebelechukwu Obiano stepped-in. Wearing her very flamboyantly made pink dress, (or was it a long skirt and blouse) she made a noisy entrance. Some say she came late to the ceremony. Meaning that she breached protocol. She came in after Governor Soludo, the new First Lady, and her husband, Willie, were already seated. They said the entrance to the venue was already closed, but was opened for her. From the video clip I watched, she came in and sat down. Then, in her usual notice-me-or-I- die nature, which manifested in her usual flamboyant appearance, she stood up, just for the sole purpose of emphasising her emperial presence. She ended up making a public nuisance of herself.

Like one being pushed by the wind, the outrageous sleeves of her blouse flaying, she walked up to Ambassador Bianca Ojukwu who sat about five seats away from Mrs Obiano.

Witnesses say Mrs Obiano asked Bianca what she came to the swearing-in ceremony to do after she had said she would never attend any APGA ceremony, again, and that APGA was never going to win. It was, also, alleged that she called Bianca a witch.

So, you wonder if Mrs Obiano is Professor Soludo, or the National Chairman of APGA. You wonder what stake she has in APGA except that she is Mrs Willie Obiano.

Infuriated, Bianca gave Mrs Obiano a slap she had never received, perhaps, since her adult life. Her headgear off, her hair dishevelled, she looked more like a scarlet Queen than the immediate past First Lady of the State She made for Bianca, but the wife of an Army General, and a daughter of the no-nonsense former Governor of Enugu State, the late Christian Onoh, Bianca was ready for her. The saving grace was that a number of people intervened, and separated both women from tearing each other apart.

That was when Mrs Obiano did the unbelievable. She called Bianca, wife of the revered Igbo Leader, Dim Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, a free woman in a crude language.To emphasise her disrespect for her husband, she called Bianca that name before him. Even when her thoroughly embarrassed husband made to keep her in check, she rudely, and violently snatched her hand away from her husband.

For the records, let me say this. Bianca is not free from blame. To, publicly, exchange words with Mrs Obiano was belittling. But to have slapped Mrs Obiano, and gone physical with her, was disrespectful of her late husband’s memory, and that of millions of the Igbo, especially the youths, who literally, worship her. Momentarily, in that madness, Bianca forgot who she is. Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu’s wife. The “First Lady” of the Igbo. A former Nigerian Ambassador. A former Miss Intercontinental. A Lawyer who holds the revered Igbo traditional title, Iyom. No level of provocation should have pushed her to publicly slap Mrs Obiano. She should have controlled herself, especially before such a crowd.

By reacting the way she did, she not only reduced herself before the world, she helped in stealing the thunder from Soludo’s day. Now, nobody is talking about Soludo’s beautiful inauguration speech where he gave hope to the youths, where he promised to revamp the State, where he promised good governance and preached peace. It is the disgraceful incident that everybody is writing on, and talking about. Bianca owes the Igbo a public apology for descending to the level of a physical combat at Soludo’s swearing-in ceremony. She owes Soludo an apology. In more civilised climes, she and Mrs Obiano will be in huge trouble for public nuisance.

But the main bulk of the blame for the shameful incident goes to Mrs Obiano. Her gutter language, her “agbero” carriage, her brazen disrespect for her husband, for the new Governor and his wife, for the crowd gathered, add up to stink to high heavens.

The sad incident may not have been her first. Not a few Anambra people say that is who she is. They say she is wild and power- drunk. Since the incident, a long list of those she, allegedly, slapped within the eight years her husband was Governor, has surfaced. And so is her equally disgraceful spat, outside the country, with Senator Uche Ekwunife. She had called Ekwunife the same derogatory name she called Bianca. Ekwunife did not go physical with Mrs Obiano, but she did not spare her either. She reminded her of how, and why, she got married to Willie Obiano.

Any woman who is fond of labelling another a free woman is a scum. She disrespects every hard working woman. She creates a very wrong impression of women and everything women stand for. Somebody should remind Mrs Obiano of the saying that one judges others by one’s own standards. Most times, the saying rings true.

In Anambra State, many are rejoicing that she received a slap as a farewell gift. Well deserved, they chorus. They are thanking Bianca for putting Mrs Obiano in what they say is her place. While her husband was the Governor, many say, the fear of Mrs Obiano, was the beginning of wisdom. Her words were, allegedly, law.

A couple of Politicians were frustrated, allegedly, on her say so. A couple of them left APGA because of her. And this is the same woman whose husband has told Anambrarians would be going to the Senate, in 2023, to represent Anambra East. Such thoughts should be perished.

Mrs Obiano should be resisted. The character which she exhibited at Professor Soludo’s swearing-in ceremony does not recommend her to the high position of a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Her carriage does not recommend her.

Mrs Ebelechukwu Obiano owes Governor Soludo and the First Lady of the State an apology. She owes Igbo women an apology. She needs to sit back, think, re-evaluate, re-orientate and reinvent herself. The “gra-gra” she exhibited on Thursday was disgraceful, and belittling of the office she occupied. It was a big shame. Best forgotten in any civilised society.