One of the legacies that former President Olusegun Obasanjo bequeathed to the people of Nigeria is the name Chris Uba, whose elder brother Andy served as Adviser on Domestic Affairs for the period the Obasanjo administration lasted.

Not many Nigerians can lay claim to have heard the name Uba before Obasanjo came to power as a civilian president in 1999; and like most of the legacies Obasanjo left us with, the name Uba has become a nightmare of some sort to millions of Nigerians, especially those from his home state, Anambra. Like Obasanjo also, Uba has his own legacies and projects. Some are on-going, like his insistence that he alone would determine who becomes governor of Anambra State in 2010.

In case you do not remember some of the Uba legacies, he it was who made open confession, on the network of a national television authority and before the glaring eyes of millions of Nigerians how himself/Obasanjo and others rigged the election that took Chief Chris Ngige to Awka Government House as governor. Up to this day, nobody has asked what punishment should be meted out for that confessed criminal act.

Angry that the man he rigged into office as governor did not submit himself and the trappings of that office to his whims, Uba was said to have masterminded and supervised the execution of the July 10, 2003 kidnap of Ngige, a serving governor in a Gestapo fashion that has remained one of the most absurd development in the history of Nigeria’s political development; and for that brazen act, no question has been asked.

As part of the strategies to let all stakeholders in Anambra politics know who was in control, thousands of hoodlums, thugs and terrorists alleged to have been mobilized by Uba had unleashed mayhem on the state in 2005, destroying public and private utilities worth billions of naira in a manner that can only be compared to some of the deadliest terror attacks in today's Afghanistan. And again, no one has been asked to explain why, till this day.

Before the above actions, there was the case of abduction in 2002, of a serving chairman of Aguata Local Government Council, Engr. Godwin Osele.

To crown his political efforts, Uba had, during the 2007 governorship election in Anambra State, threw his support behind the Democratic Peoples Party (DPP), moving along with his loyalists like Uchenna Emordi and Osita Ezenwa against the candidature of his own brother, Chief Andy Uba, who was then the flag bearer of his party, the Peoples Democratic Party. The conflict between the two brothers had raised an ominous cloud over the heavens of Anambra so much so that the then Inspector General of Police has to detain Uba at the Force Headquarters in Abuja in order to pave way for peace, days to the election.       Peoples Democratic Party members and millions of Nigerians who awaited to see and hear of the sanctions against Chris Uba for what was clearly anti- party activities were instead shocked when the PDP rewarded him with membership of Board of Trustees (BOT), a position that is usually reserved for the most distinguished members of every decent political party, as is the case with the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa. This was even when he was under-aged for such an exalted position in a party that prides itself as the largest in Africa.

What is happening today in Anambra PDP is another of those ugly scenes from the theatre of the absurd that the party is. A situation where more than 47 aspirants, over half of who were said to have been sponsored by Uba, collected forms to participate in a primary election that was to produce a flag bearer of the PDP for the 2010 governorship election in Anambra State and who, through series of court injunctions, restrained the party from conducting its primaries even up to the last second to the deadline given by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for all parties to submit the names of their candidates for the February 2010 election.

Apart from court cases initiated by former aspirants said to be loyal to him, Uba had, last week Tuesday, in Awka, organized a rally against the candidate of his own party, this again, in defiance of a directive which was advertised in some national dailies by the leadership of the party, asking members not to attend the rally. At the rally, he was said to have vowed to fight till the end, against the party's candidate, no matter what anybody may say or do. It was on the evening of that same day, after he and his supporters had threatened to use all means possible to stop the party's candidate from contesting the 2010 election that the father of Prof. Chukwuma Soludo was kidnapped, a development for which the Nigeria Police suspected Uba.

And why wouldn't he defy everyone? Just imagine a situation in a country where dearth of adequate security personnel and equipment, especially for the Police has led to the brutal murder of even a serving Attorney-General of the Federation and thousands of innocent citizens. Yet one man, a private citizen moves around with over 25 well- armed mobile police officers and men allocated to him by the same authority that has stripped well- placed and most deserving public officers like judges of their orderlies.

Perhaps the people to blame most for the pain and destruction Uba has caused and is still causing Anambra are the people of Anambra State themselves who are keeping quiet in the face of this one- man tsunami and this Anambra is the home state of some of the brightest Africans in history who are keeping quiet.

When all these are added together to a recent report in a national daily of how Uba, a supposedly BOT member of the PDP, contributed immensely to the emergence of Uche Ekwunife as the gubernatorial candidate of the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) for the 2010 election in Anambra State that is barely three months away, you will not but begin to see the reasons why critics say that the PDP is a large umbrella that is torn to shreds. • Melah, a journalist and social commentator, writes from Wuse 2, Abuja E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it