There was a point in Anambra politics when the question was no longer simply who had won the governorship.
It was who would actually control the government.
Chris Nwabueze Ngige had won the governorship election held in April 2003 according to the declaration made by the Independent National Electoral Commission. He had campaigned on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, with Okey Udeh as his running mate.
Chris Uba, meanwhile, was one of the most powerful political figures in the state and a major PDP power broker. He had helped build the political structure through which Ngige emerged as the party’s candidate.
Then the election was over.
Ngige entered Government House, Awka, as governor.
And the relationship between the governor and the man who had helped put him on the ballot began to fall apart.
More than twenty years later, Ngige gave a remarkable account of one of the demands he said had been placed before him. According to the former governor, he was asked to make Chris Uba his deputy governor.
He refused.
What followed was one of the most extraordinary political crises of Nigeria’s early Fourth Republic.
The Political World That Produced Chris Uba
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To understand why the deputy governor position became so important, it is necessary to understand the political system developing around Anambra at the beginning of the Fourth Republic.
Nigeria returned to civilian rule in 1999 after years of military government. Political parties were rebuilding themselves, candidates were seeking powerful sponsors and political financiers were becoming increasingly important in elections.
In Anambra, Chris Uba emerged as one of the most influential figures within the PDP.
By the 2003 elections, his political network stretched across the state. Human Rights Watch later described him as being at the height of his political influence during that period and documented his role in sponsoring PDP candidates.
Uba himself famously presented his political influence in extraordinary terms after the election, saying that he had been able to put politicians into office across Anambra.
Among those politicians was Chris Ngige.
The relationship between the two men was not simply a casual political alliance.
There was a written agreement.
Human Rights Watch obtained a copy of a document described as a contract and declaration of loyalty between Uba and Ngige. The document, signed before the election, described Uba as the “Leader/Financier” and Ngige as the “Administrator”.
It also contained provisions concerning loyalty, government appointments and contracts.
The existence of the document would later become one of the most important pieces of evidence in understanding the political relationship between the two men.
Ngige Enters Government House
The governorship election took place on 19 April 2003.
INEC declared Chris Ngige of the PDP the winner.
Peter Obi, who had contested under the All Progressives Grand Alliance, challenged the result.
While the legal battle continued, Ngige took office as governor.
His deputy was Okey Udeh.
At first, the new administration appeared to have the political backing necessary to govern. But the relationship between Ngige and Uba soon became increasingly difficult.
Ngige later told Human Rights Watch that after taking office he attempted to break away from Uba’s control. He alleged that Uba made demands for money from the state treasury.
Uba denied that he had demanded cash payments from the governor.
The disagreement went beyond money.
There were disputes over appointments, government contracts and the extent to which the governor was expected to follow the wishes of the political structure that had supported his election.
The political alliance that had brought Ngige to power was beginning to unravel.
The Deputy Governor Demand
The deputy governor issue became part of the story much later, when Ngige publicly gave his account of what had happened behind the scenes.
In an interview published in August 2025, Ngige recalled a meeting involving the late Senator Ibrahim Mantu.
According to Ngige, Mantu approached him and communicated conditions that he was expected to fulfil.
Ngige said he rejected them.
He recalled that Mantu later suggested that they meet the person behind the demands.
According to Ngige’s account, the major condition eventually presented to him was that he should make Chris Uba his deputy governor.
Ngige said he refused.
He explained that he had two major concerns. One was the constitutional protection attached to the office of deputy governor. The other was the reaction he believed such an appointment would provoke among people in Anambra.
The demand, as Ngige remembered it, was therefore not simply about appointing Uba to a government position.
It was about placing one of the most powerful political figures in Anambra inside the elected executive structure of the state.
But there was an immediate complication.
Chris Uba was not Ngige’s deputy.
Okey Udeh was.
And Udeh had been elected alongside Ngige on the PDP ticket.
That fact would become increasingly important as the political crisis deepened.
Why the Deputy Governor’s Office Mattered
Under Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution, a governor and deputy governor are elected together on the same ticket.
The deputy governor is therefore not simply another political appointee.
The office carries constitutional responsibilities and becomes particularly important when the governor is unable to perform the functions of the office or when the governorship becomes vacant.
For that reason, placing a powerful political figure in the position would have represented something very different from giving him a commissionerial appointment or another government position.
It would have placed him directly inside the elected executive.
That distinction helps explain why the demand described by Ngige was so significant within the wider political struggle.
The conflict between Ngige and Uba was already about control.
The alleged demand would have taken that struggle into the very structure of the state government.
Then the Alliance Collapsed
The relationship between Ngige and Uba deteriorated rapidly.
On 10 July 2003, the political crisis reached a point that shocked the country.
Ngige was taken from the Government House in Awka by armed policemen.
While he was away, a letter said to be his resignation was presented to the Anambra State House of Assembly.
The Assembly accepted the resignation.
The plan was for the deputy governor, Okey Udeh, to take over.
But Ngige was not voluntarily leaving office.
He later said he had been forced to sign the resignation letter.
The Federal Government intervened, and Ngige was eventually released.
The episode became one of the most notorious political incidents of the early Fourth Republic.
It was described in contemporary reports and later human rights investigations as the abduction of a sitting governor.
Ngige accused Chris Uba of being behind the operation.
Uba denied the allegations.
The political conflict had now moved beyond arguments over appointments and money.
A sitting governor had been physically removed from his office.
The Deputy Governor Was Caught in the Middle
Okey Udeh found himself in an extraordinary position.
He had entered office as Ngige’s elected running mate.
Yet during the July 2003 crisis, the State House of Assembly attempted to install him as governor after the alleged resignation of Ngige.
The situation placed Udeh at the centre of the political confrontation.
Later that year, proceedings were brought against him in the State House of Assembly.
In September 2003, Udeh was impeached and removed from office.
The man who had entered Government House as Ngige’s deputy was therefore gone.
The political battle had consumed the second highest office in the state.
The Document That Revealed the Political Arrangement
As the crisis attracted national attention, the relationship between Ngige and Uba received increasing scrutiny.
The written agreement obtained by Human Rights Watch provided an unusual glimpse into how political sponsorship could operate behind the formal structures of government.
The document described Uba as the leader and financier and Ngige as the administrator.
It also contained provisions giving Uba substantial influence over government appointments and contracts.
The document became important because it showed that the relationship between the two men involved more than ordinary political friendship.
It established expectations.
Uba argued that Ngige had failed to honour the commitments contained in the agreement.
Ngige, for his part, said he had attempted to free himself from Uba’s control after becoming governor.
The disagreement was therefore not simply about two politicians who had fallen out.
It was a conflict over what political support during an election was supposed to purchase after victory.
Anambra Government House Under Attack
The political crisis did not end with Ngige’s return to office.
In 2004, violence escalated.
Human Rights Watch documented attacks on Government House in Awka involving armed men carrying firearms and crude explosives. Part of the Government House was burned.
Other government buildings were also attacked.
Human Rights Watch reported that as many as 24 people were killed during the violence and looting that followed.
Ngige and others accused Chris Uba of involvement.
Uba denied responsibility.
The attacks demonstrated how far the political dispute had travelled.
What had begun as a disagreement over political authority was now associated with violence, destruction and fear across the state.
For ordinary residents of Anambra, the struggle among political elites had become something much more tangible.
Government buildings could be attacked.
Political institutions could be paralysed.
A governor could be removed from his office by force.
The boundary between political competition and political violence had become dangerously thin.
The Election That Eventually Removed Ngige
There is another important part of the story.
Chris Ngige did not ultimately leave the governorship because he refused to make Chris Uba his deputy.
His removal from office in 2006 came through the courts following Peter Obi’s challenge to the 2003 governorship election.
The election petition eventually went through the legal system.
The election tribunal found in favour of Obi.
Ngige appealed.
On 15 March 2006, the Court of Appeal upheld the decision against Ngige.
Peter Obi was sworn in as governor of Anambra State on 17 March 2006.
The Supreme Court later dealt with the constitutional questions arising from Obi’s tenure and the earlier election dispute.
The judicial history is therefore separate from the political claim Ngige made decades later about the alleged demand that he appoint Uba as deputy governor.
Ngige’s account explains how he remembers the political pressure surrounding his administration.
The court records explain how his tenure eventually came to an end.
Both parts belong to the history of the crisis.
The Political Godfather and the Elected Governor
The struggle between Ngige and Uba became one of the most recognisable examples of the political phenomenon commonly described in Nigeria as godfatherism.
The basic problem was simple to understand.
A political sponsor could provide money, party connections, campaign machinery and access to influential figures.
But after the candidate won, the constitution gave authority to the elected officeholder.
What happened when the sponsor expected to continue exercising the same control?
That was the central tension.
Ngige was governor.
Uba was not.
Yet Uba’s political influence was substantial.
The written agreement obtained by Human Rights Watch showed how explicitly the relationship had been structured before the election.
The subsequent crisis showed what could happen when the elected official refused to continue operating according to the expectations of the political sponsor.
The deputy governor demand described by Ngige therefore fits into a much larger struggle over political control.
The Man Ngige Said He Would Not Put Beside Him
There is an irony in the story.
Chris Uba did not become deputy governor.
Okey Udeh occupied that office.
Yet the relationship between Udeh and Ngige also eventually collapsed.
Udeh was impeached in September 2003.
The office that had been at the centre of the political struggle therefore did not provide lasting stability to any side.
The political crisis continued.
Ngige remained governor for almost three years, fighting political battles, surviving the extraordinary July 2003 episode and facing a series of legal and political challenges.
Then the courts overturned the election result.
On 17 March 2006, Peter Obi became governor.
The political story had entered a new chapter.
What the Anambra Crisis Left Behind
The Ngige and Uba confrontation became part of a broader Nigerian debate about political sponsorship, party structures and the power of unelected individuals.
It demonstrated how much influence could be concentrated around a political financier.
It also demonstrated the limits of that influence when an elected official refused to submit to it.
The story contained nearly every ingredient of the turbulent early years of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic: disputed elections, powerful political patrons, secret agreements, accusations of financial demands, party conflict, police involvement, legislative intervention, court battles and political violence.
But the deputy governor story gives the episode another dimension.
According to Ngige’s later account, the battle was not simply about money or appointments.
It was about who would stand at the governor’s side and, by extension, who would have a constitutionally recognised place within the state’s executive power.
Ngige said he refused to make Chris Uba his deputy.
The political relationship between the two men subsequently broke down completely.
And Anambra entered one of the most turbulent periods in its modern political history.
The Question That Still Matters
The story of the alleged deputy governor demand is ultimately part of a much bigger chapter in Nigeria’s democratic history.
Elections can produce governors, but political networks can determine who reaches the ballot.
Money can finance campaigns, but constitutional office gives the winner formal authority.
Political sponsors can help build a government, but the constitution does not make them governors.
That tension was exposed dramatically in Anambra in 2003.
Chris Ngige entered office with Chris Uba as a powerful political ally.
He left office in 2006 after the courts overturned the election result that had originally brought him there.
Between those two moments came an attempted forced resignation, the removal of a deputy governor, violent attacks, bitter political accusations and a struggle over who truly controlled the state.
More than twenty years later, Ngige’s recollection of the alleged demand to make Uba his deputy added another piece to that extraordinary story.
The office was never given to Uba.
But the demand, as Ngige remembered it, revealed the deeper battle taking place behind the official titles and election results.
It was a battle over whether political power belonged to the person who won the office or to the network that helped him win it.
And that is why the story of the deputy governor who was never appointed remains one of the most revealing episodes in the history of Anambra’s Fourth Republic.
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Author’s Note
The story of Chris Ngige and Chris Uba was not merely a disagreement between two politicians. It was a dramatic confrontation over political influence, elected authority and the expectations created by political sponsorship. Ngige entered office with Uba as a powerful ally, but their relationship deteriorated over control of government, appointments and political influence. Ngige later said he was asked to make Uba his deputy and refused, while the documented events that followed included his forced removal from Government House in July 2003, the impeachment of his deputy Okey Udeh, attacks on government facilities and, ultimately, the court decision that ended Ngige’s tenure in March 2006. The episode remains a significant chapter in understanding how Nigeria’s young Fourth Republic struggled with the relationship between political godfathers and elected governments.
References
Human Rights Watch. Criminal Politics: Violence, “Godfathers” and Corruption in Nigeria. October 2007.
United States Department of State. Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Nigeria, 2003. 2004.
Supreme Court of Nigeria. Peter Obi v. Independent National Electoral Commission & Others, SC 123/2007, 12 July 2007.
Court of Appeal, Enugu Division. Chris Nwabueze Ngige v. Peter Obi & Others, 15 March 2006.
Vanguard. Johnbosco Agbakwuru. “I was removed as governor for refusing to make Chris Uba my deputy, Ngige.” 7 August 2025.
