IN July 2002, at the Transcorp Hilton Abuja, in one of the numerous meetings to resolve the political crises in  Anambra State, the then National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Chief Audu  Ogbe lamented the rampaging decadent culture of a people  thus: “As a child in my native Idoma village, all my teachers, health workers came from Anambra; the reverend father and even the catechist in my church, all came from Anambra".

He then posed a question: What has taken over this state today? In those days, this category of people represented the finest any society could offer. They represented a culture firmly rooted in excellence. Ogbe’s was a rhetorical question on the absurdity of a reversed phenomenon which hankering for warped socio- political symbols has turned culture (an emulation) into.

How come time-tested attributes of a people are fast vanishing? he may have intended asking. Though it was Matthew Arnold who said culture is always the envy of the philistines who mindlessly attack it, it was Charles Nnolim, a professor of English in a paper entitled, “Literature, Arts and Cultural Development that brought the implications to a  clearer perspective when he defined  philistines as  people who believe most that  greatness and welfare are proved by  being very rich and who give their lives and thoughts to becoming rich.

“The philistines are people with plebeian ambitions, people whose vulgar tastes pose a danger to culture, because culture tends always with the men of a system, of discipline, of a school.” He posited  further:  “Culture looks beyond vulgar wealth, beyond the febrile pursuit of false symbols of life, beyond the rude display of meretricious and garnished symbols of affluence, beyond  ill-bred, foul-mouthed bragging about earthly possessions”.

Unfortunately, philistines appear to have taken over politics in Anambra State. They have infested the political landscape, hence, the crises; hence, the anomie.  It is for this that the state has been in crisis for close to a decade. And at the base has been the decade-long imbroglio in the state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party.

The spill effect has been the reason for tension, sabre-rattling and skirmishes even with the All Peoples Grand Alliance in control of the executive arm of government. It has brought to the fore, the prevailing decadence in the candour of lofty socio-political ideals in the state. This phenomenon which has been a serious threat to the unity and progress of the state clearly manifests the diminishing ideals which a people once held high and sacred.

I am referring here to those golden attributes that long stood Anambra and her people out as leaders in all spheres of national life. Mention here includes those ideals as preached, expounded and lived by the late Right Honourable Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the first President of Nigeria and upheld by the successive leaders of the area until lately. These are the ideals of knowledge as power, of humility in greatness and of thoughts for the good of the society. In Zik, I could find no finer example of character, decency and integrity.

The neglect of this in his own Anambra is the root of the crisis of today.  I have thoroughly looked at the major protagonists to the crisis in the state PDP and discovered none who could earn leadership like Zik, and his acolytes in Nwafor Orizu, Mbazulike Amaechi, Mokwugo Okoye , MCK Ajuluchukwu, P.N Okeke and several others did. I am referring to leadership demonstrated in towering knowledge and in self-restraint.

I cannot see among the current jostlers for power who can stand tall against creeping megalomania, without having himself hurt. I am talking about leadership whose example shines, leadership well-equipped intellectually, whose light radiates enough to enable the people find their way.  It is leadership which can inspire the people to great heights.

This is leadership that places premium on intellectual wherewithal which only sound educational height can achieve. It is not politics where Lilliputians though versed in febrile wealth have suddenly turned champions, exploiting the decay of the moment to extort emulation. Not politics where hollowness has suddenly been pushing sound minds to an insignificant corner. Unfortunately, that is the reality in Anambra today.

Since the return of democracy in 1999, Anambra has passed through series of crisis. The state certainly needs restoration. It deserves a renaissance of sorts. The state certainly needs another Zik to resuscitate a direction.

Yes, he is the Zik of Africa , but he brought light to his people . He revolutionalised the Igbo society, influenced and threw the doors of education so open that at independence in 1960 the South East that produced its first graduate in 1930 competed in equivalent number of graduate manpower with the South West who had theirs a decade before.  

Politically, he played a consensus politics, a politics of give and take, of fruitful dialogue and compromise.

 Mr. Ngige, former Head of Publicity ,PDP National Secretariat, writes from  Abuja

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