In Nigerian politics, some deals are made at party meetings. Others are made over dinners, behind closed doors or through trusted intermediaries.
And then there was the deal between Chris Ngige and Chris Uba.
Before the 2003 Anambra State governorship election, the two men appeared to be political partners. Uba was a powerful financier and political organiser. Ngige was the Peoples Democratic Party’s candidate for governor, a medical doctor who had not previously occupied such a powerful elected office.
Uba helped build the political machinery around Ngige’s campaign.
Ngige won.
But the victory did not produce the relationship Uba expected.
Within weeks, the two men were locked in a bitter struggle over who would control the government of Anambra State.
Then, on 10 July 2003, the dispute exploded into one of the most extraordinary political episodes in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic.
Armed policemen took Governor Ngige away from Government House in Awka.
A resignation letter appeared.
The governor was supposedly gone.
But there was a problem.
Ngige said he had been forced to sign it.
What followed exposed a political arrangement that had been hidden from the public, including written agreements that showed just how much control Uba expected to exercise over the governor.
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The Political Climate That Produced the Deal
The story began before Chris Ngige ever became governor.
By 2003, Anambra State had already developed a reputation for intense political competition and powerful political patrons.
The relationship between Governor Chinwoke Mbadinuju and businessman Emeka Offor had deteriorated during Mbadinuju’s first term. The conflict eventually contributed to Mbadinuju losing the PDP’s support for another term.
The party needed a new candidate.
It turned to Chris Ngige, a medical doctor who was relatively little known outside political circles.
But Ngige did not enter the election alone.
Behind him was Chris Uba.
Uba had become one of the most influential figures in Anambra’s PDP structure. His political reach extended beyond the state. His brother, Andy Uba, was an aide to President Olusegun Obasanjo, giving the family important connections at the centre of federal power.
Uba was therefore more than a campaign supporter.
He was a political financier, organiser and power broker.
And in the expensive politics of the period, those roles mattered enormously.
Chris Uba’s Investment in Ngige
The 2003 election was part of a wider period of intense political competition across Nigeria.
Political parties needed money to organise campaigns. Candidates needed networks capable of mobilising supporters. Political operators needed access to party structures and influential officials.
Chris Uba had those resources.
Human Rights Watch later documented Uba’s extensive political influence in Anambra during the 2003 elections. The organisation reported that Uba sponsored PDP candidates across the state and quoted his own description of having put virtually every politician in the state into office.
Chris Ngige was one of those politicians.
But Uba apparently did not regard his support as a donation.
There was an expectation of loyalty in return.
And unlike many political arrangements, part of this one was put into writing.
The Agreement That Changed Everything
The most revealing evidence of the relationship emerged years later in research by Human Rights Watch.
The organisation obtained copies of agreements between Uba and Ngige, including a document dated 5 May 2003 titled “Memorandum of Irrevocable Undertaking to Serve as Governor of Anambra State for One Term of Four Years.”
In the document, Ngige undertook to serve as governor for a single four year term and not seek a second term.
That alone was extraordinary.
But the documents went further.
Another agreement described Ngige’s relationship with Uba in unusually explicit terms. Ngige pledged loyalty to Uba as his mentor, benefactor and sponsor and agreed to allow Uba influence over important government appointments and contracts.
The document referred to Ngige as the “Administrator” and Uba as “Leader/Financier.”
That distinction would become crucial.
The Constitution recognised Ngige as governor.
The agreement recognised Uba as the political figure to whom Ngige had promised loyalty.
The arrangement could survive only if the two men continued to agree on how government should be run.
They soon did not.
Ngige Wins the Election
On 19 April 2003, Chris Ngige was declared the winner of the Anambra State governorship election.
The political objective had been achieved.
Ngige was now governor elect.
On 29 May 2003, he assumed office.
But the relationship that had helped produce his victory was already under strain.
According to Ngige’s later account to Human Rights Watch, he attempted to distance himself from Uba’s control after becoming governor.
Uba, however, expected the new governor to honour the commitments made before the election.
The disagreement quickly moved from private conversations into the business of government.
The question was simple but explosive:
Who would decide what happened inside Government House?
The Battle Over Appointments and Contracts
The struggle was not simply personal.
It concerned the distribution of political power and access to government resources.
Human Rights Watch reported that the agreement between the two men contemplated Uba having control over important government appointments and the awarding of government contracts.
Ngige later told the organisation that Uba made demands involving money from the state treasury.
Uba denied that he demanded cash payments from the governor.
The disagreement over money was accompanied by a wider dispute over political appointments and government decisions.
For Uba, political sponsorship had created an expectation of influence.
For Ngige, becoming governor meant exercising the authority attached to the office.
The political partnership was therefore becoming impossible to sustain.
The man who had helped Ngige reach Government House expected influence inside it.
The man occupying Government House was increasingly unwilling to give him that influence.
The ₦3 Billion Claim
One of the most serious claims made during the dispute involved ₦3 billion.
Ngige later told Human Rights Watch that, shortly before his inauguration, armed men had entered his home and forced him at gunpoint to sign a pledge promising to pay Chris Uba ₦3 billion after assuming office.
At the time, Human Rights Watch noted that ₦3 billion was roughly three times the federal monthly allocation received by the Anambra State Government.
Uba denied demanding cash payments from Ngige.
The allegation therefore became part of the wider dispute between the two men, rather than an established fact about Uba’s conduct.
But the claim revealed the extraordinary scale of the disagreement.
The battle was no longer simply about political appointments.
It had become a struggle over money, government resources and control.
Then Came 10 July 2003
Less than two months after Ngige assumed office, the crisis reached its most dramatic point.
On 10 July 2003, armed policemen arrived and took the governor away.
His security personnel were disarmed.
Ngige was removed from Government House and held for several hours.
Then came the document that appeared to settle the matter.
A resignation letter bearing Ngige’s signature was produced.
The Anambra State House of Assembly accepted the resignation.
For a short period, the governor of Anambra State had apparently resigned.
Except Ngige said he had not resigned willingly.
He said he had been kidnapped and forced to sign the letter.
The incident immediately transformed a private political quarrel into a national crisis.
How the Governor Returned to Office
The federal government became involved.
The attempt to remove Ngige did not succeed.
Ngige challenged the resignation, and the courts ultimately rejected the circumstances surrounding it. He returned to office as governor.
The episode had exposed something extraordinary.
A governor had been physically removed from his official residence, a resignation letter had been presented and the state legislature had accepted it, yet the governor himself was still contesting the validity of the resignation.
The political arrangement between Ngige and Uba was now beyond repair.
Whatever understanding had existed between them before the election had collapsed.
The Resignation Letter Was Not an Accident
One of the strangest details of the affair was that Uba had apparently prepared for the possibility that Ngige might eventually resist him.
Historian Stephen Ellis, writing in the Journal of African History, reported that Uba had obtained a signed resignation letter from Ngige before the election and kept a video of Ngige signing it.
The document was intended as an insurance policy.
That detail explains why the events of July 2003 were so extraordinary.
When the relationship broke down, the resignation letter was already available.
The political disagreement had therefore been accompanied by a form of private contingency plan.
The document that was supposed to protect the political arrangement became the centrepiece of the attempt to remove the governor.
The People Caught Between the Two Camps
The crisis was not confined to Ngige and Uba.
The political struggle reached the Anambra State House of Assembly.
Human Rights Watch interviewed a state legislator who described lawmakers as being under significant pressure from Uba’s political network.
The state government itself became increasingly unstable.
Government institutions were caught inside a struggle between competing political loyalties.
For ordinary residents of Anambra, the consequences were more tangible than the language of political godfatherism suggested.
Government activity was disrupted.
Political violence became a recurring feature of the state’s politics.
The authority of public institutions was repeatedly challenged by private political networks.
What began as an arrangement between two political figures was affecting an entire state.
The Violence Did Not End With the Failed Resignation
The conflict continued after Ngige returned to office.
In 2004, violence surrounding the political struggle escalated dramatically.
Government buildings in Awka were attacked and parts of Government House were burned. Human Rights Watch reported that the violence and looting resulted in deaths and widespread destruction.
Ngige and his supporters accused Chris Uba of involvement in the violence.
Uba denied the allegations.
The important historical point is that the conflict had moved far beyond a disagreement over political appointments.
The institutions of the state were now physically caught in the struggle.
Government House, which should have represented the authority of the elected government, had become a target in a battle over who actually possessed political power.
The Okija Shrine Enters the Story
The Ngige and Uba conflict later became connected with another extraordinary chapter in Anambra’s political history.
In 2004, police raided the Okija shrine in Ihiala Local Government Area.
The raid uncovered human remains and triggered national outrage.
The shrine quickly became associated in the public imagination with secret oaths, ritual killings and political power.
Historian Stephen Ellis examined the episode in detail and found that the reality was more complicated than some of the sensational stories circulating at the time.
Ngige acknowledged having had dealings with the shrine in the previous year but said he had not actually entered the shrine. His name also did not appear in the register kept by the shrine secretary.
Ellis nevertheless documented evidence of connections between the shrine, oath taking and political networks in Anambra.
The shrine therefore became an important part of the story surrounding the state’s political machinery, even though many sensational claims made about it at the time went beyond what the evidence established.
Why the Deal Was So Important
The Ngige and Uba affair became one of Nigeria’s clearest examples of political godfatherism because it exposed the relationship between political financing and political control.
A wealthy political sponsor can help a candidate win an election.
But winning an election creates a constitutional office.
The difficult question begins afterwards.
Does the candidate remain politically indebted to the sponsor?
Or does the election give the office holder an independent mandate?
In Anambra, the answer was contested almost immediately.
Uba had invested in Ngige’s political rise and expected influence.
Ngige had become governor and increasingly sought to exercise the authority of the office himself.
Their interests collided.
The result was not a quiet political disagreement.
It was a political explosion.
The Election Was Eventually Overturned
The story did not end with Ngige’s return to Government House.
Peter Obi of the All Progressives Grand Alliance had challenged the result of the 2003 governorship election.
The legal battle continued while Ngige remained governor.
On 15 March 2006, the Court of Appeal in Enugu ruled in favour of Obi’s challenge and removed Ngige from office.
The judgment brought Ngige’s tenure as governor to an end.
This created an extraordinary final chapter to a political saga that had begun with a powerful alliance between Ngige and Uba.
The political struggle between the two men had already transformed Anambra politics.
Then a separate legal battle over the election eventually determined who had the right to occupy the office.
The Deal That Was Supposed to Secure Power Destroyed the Alliance
Chris Uba and Chris Ngige needed each other in 2003.
Uba had the money, connections and political machinery.
Ngige was the candidate who could become governor.
Together, they formed a powerful political alliance.
But the alliance contained a fundamental weakness.
They did not appear to have the same understanding of what would happen after victory.
For Uba, political sponsorship carried obligations.
For Ngige, the governorship eventually meant independence from the person who had sponsored his rise.
The documents signed before the election became evidence of the relationship that both men later fought over.
The resignation letter became the weapon used in the attempt to enforce the arrangement.
The kidnapping transformed the dispute into a national scandal.
And the collapse of the relationship helped make Anambra one of the most closely watched examples of political godfatherism in Nigeria.
The Real Story Behind the “Unwritten Deal”
The deal between Chris Ngige and Chris Uba was not entirely unwritten.
Some of the most important parts were actually written down.
There was an undertaking concerning Ngige’s four year term.
There was a declaration of loyalty.
There were agreements concerning Uba’s expected influence over appointments and contracts.
There was also a resignation letter that later became central to the attempt to remove Ngige from office.
What remained unwritten was the broader understanding between the two men.
Uba expected his political investment to produce influence.
Ngige eventually wanted to exercise the authority of the office without that level of control from his political sponsor.
That was the real fault line.
The election brought them together.
The question of who controlled the government drove them apart.
A Political Lesson Written Into Anambra’s History
The story of Chris Ngige and Chris Uba is remembered because of its dramatic moments: the political deal, the disputed money demands, the armed policemen, the resignation letter, the return of the governor, the violence and the later court battle.
But underneath all of it was a much simpler struggle.
Two men helped create the same political victory, but they did not agree on what that victory entitled each of them to control.
Chris Uba had helped build the road to Government House.
Chris Ngige eventually insisted that occupying Government House meant exercising the powers of the governor.
The relationship could not survive that disagreement.
And when it collapsed, it revealed something that Nigerians had rarely seen so openly before: the private bargain behind a public political office.
That is why the Ngige and Uba affair remains one of the defining political stories of Anambra’s Fourth Republic.
It was not simply a story about two men who fell out.
It was a story about what happens when the machinery used to win political power begins demanding a share of the power it helped create.
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Author’s Note
The story of Chris Ngige and Chris Uba shows how a political alliance built on sponsorship, loyalty and expectations of influence can collapse when the politician who reaches public office begins to assert independence. Their 2003 confrontation exposed the hidden relationships behind Anambra politics, turning private agreements and political debts into a public crisis that involved a disputed resignation, the removal of a sitting governor, violence and years of legal and political consequences.
References
Human Rights Watch, Criminal Politics: Violence, “Godfathers” and Corruption in Nigeria, 2007.
Human Rights Watch, Criminal Politics: Violence, “Godfathers” and Corruption in Nigeria, Case Study B: Anambra State, 2007.
Stephen Ellis, “The Okija Shrine: Death and Life in Nigerian Politics,” The Journal of African History, Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Leena Hoffmann, “Fairy Godfathers and Magical Elections: Understanding the 2003 Electoral Crisis in Anambra State, Nigeria,” The Journal of Modern African Studies, Cambridge University Press, 2010.
United States Department of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Nigeria 2003.
Court of Appeal, Enugu Division, Ngige v. Obi, judgment delivered 15 March 2006.
