Politicians from Rivers State had started to play the kind of politics
that were tending to disunite the state. This unfortunate kind of
politics was essentially a matter with the ever voracious Peoples
Democratic Party politicians.
They were playing opposition among themselves with one faction rising
against the other, as Nigerians had seen in the judiciary-imposed
Felix Obuah-led faction of the PDP in Rivers State which suspended on
Monday April 29, 27 members of the state’s House of Assembly elected
on the podium of the party, and gave Governor Chibuike Amaechi 48
hours to explain why a jet belonging to the Rivers State Government
was purportedly bearing the name of a US bank in its registration
credentials.
Obuah gave his reasons for asking Amaechi to explain the
aforementioned in order to ascertain the ownership of the aircraft.
This part of the series in the state’s PDP shamefaced drama was coming
after the lawmakers of the state’s House of Assembly sacked the
Chairman of Obio/Akpo Local Government Area and his cabinet.
It was believed that the power tussle was as a political
differentiation between President Goodluck Jonathan and Amaechi. The
presidency had made its claim clear that Amaechi was playing
opposition to Jonathan’s scheme to hunt-for reelection in 2015.
It could be believed that why the faction of Obuah-led PDP in Rivers
State said that it suspended the 27 lawmakers was because the
lawmakers did not heed to its order on Monday, April 22, 2013, where
Obuah issued a 48-hour ultimatum to the Rivers State House of Assembly
to repeal the order on the termination of Obio/Akpor council. Hence,
there was no gainsaying the fact that Rivers State had again become a
combat ground in the present political dispensation.
This war partly started because of the political interest between the
forces loyal to Governor Rotimi Amaechi and Minister of State for
Education, Nyesom Wike. The former had interest in G.U Ake who was the
embattled Chairman of the party in the state, while Wike had Obuah as
his anointed person.
Against the sacked elected Obio/Akpor council members, a seven-member
caretaker committee, headed by Dike Chikordi, was instated by the
Secretary to Government, George Feyii, on April 23, aftermath the
viewing of the committee members by the House.
Originally, the war started after Amaechi and the President’s foot
soldiers had banter over a comment on the East-West road contract
which had suffered serious different setbacks. The president’s men
started to hound Amaechi as the chairman of Nigerian Governors’ Forum
(NGF); for-this-reason, the formation of the Peoples Democratic Party
Governors’ Forum, led by the Akwa Ibom State Governor, Godswill
Akpabio.
Just on Friday April 26, the war lengthened to the Nigerian Airspace
Management Agency stranding the Bombardier – BD700 Global Express
aircraft of Amaechi in Akure, Ondo, in what it described as the
pilot’s alleged failure to make-available the manifest of the plane,
when Amaechi was on a mission for the burial of the Deputy Governor of
Ekiti State, Funmilayo Olayinka.
There were more to the story that the Presidency was fighting Amaechi.
Information had it that why Wike especially was fighting Amaechi was
because Amaechi had been so straight to talk of how the power shift in
the state in 2015 should be.
As Ikwerre, Amaechi had said that the governorship should shift from
his constituency to another constituency in the state, a fact which
Wike felt affronted, that Amaechi said that in order not to allow him
who was also Ikwerre, to notch in the guber race.
While the Rivers masses were looking up to the 2015 gubernatorial
elections in the state to know who would win, Wike believed that there
was no need waiting till then; he was of the belief that the fight
should start in 2013 between Amaechi and him, to find out who the
winner was; as-a-result, Wike became the opposition to the Amaechi-led
PDP in the state. Was this why unconfirmed stories said that Amaechi
had shot himself on the foot? Rubbish!
The irony was that Wike who was supposed to be suspended from the
party for his new found love for political fascism, held sway. This
was because of the grace he enjoyed from the presidency. And if
anybody was saying that Wike preferred the job of the Chief of Staff
to the ministerial one, the question should be if anybody forced him
to be made minister.
It was perceptibly that Wike was fighting for two things at a time:
Senatorial and Governorship ambitions come 2015. The suspension of the
elected Obio/Akpor council (though not beyond a reasonable reason of
seemingly being guilty of maladministration), Wike saw the action as
an indication from the Amaechi’s campsite that the combat line had
been made visible.
Politically speaking, everything about PDP in Rivers State had gone
sour. Observing this, Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka presaged on
April 29 that the problem with the party in the state should not brew
into anarchy. (The greed play christened power play in the state was a
charade).
Wike was opposing a sitting governor of his state because he had the
blessing of the presidency? But he forgot that it was only a fool that
would destroy what he or she built. At least, Wike was supposed to
consider the role he played in 2007 and the court made Amaechi
governor.
If this type of outrage could be happening in a democracy and the
presidency was fingered as the architect, then without mincing a word,
Jonathan’s presidency was hyper-dictatorial.
It was expected that Jonathan would rebrand his government’s soured
image with best of the tidings expected of Nigerians, and not to
meddle in a crass political tussle as this.
While Amaechi was expected to prove the issue with the aircraft, the
presidency was not supposed to compromise with the decision of Wike to
control the PDP structure in Rivers State. Although, Amaechi and his
camp were unrestricted to pursue their case at the appellate level,
but the fear was that the presidency was it that controlled that
court.
The Rivers PDP members in Abuja who were fighting Amaechi should had
first advised Jonathan to redress his government which the
international community had seen as a corruption compromiser, after
Jonathan granted some perceived corrupt politicians amnesty or was it
pardon.
Amaechi had international reputation than Jonathan, no matter any
contrary view. It was recognizably that Jonathan’s international
correlation was not anymore beyond Africa. Wike and Obuah were
supposed to spare the masses this drama it was playing with the
federal might. They forgot that Nigerians were of the opinion that
with the authoritarian compass that Jonathan had found, he would not
be president again in Nigeria.
Conversely, the Rivers PDP’s crisis which was caused by greed had also
ridiculed the judiciary, apart from showing how scoundrel and
meddlesome Jonathan could be in political matters that were perceived
not to be totally in his favour.
Odimegwu Onwumere, Poet/Author, is the Coordinator, Concerned
Non-Indigenes In Rivers State. +2348032552855, +2348057778358.
apoet_25@yahoo.com.
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