Last Wednesday, after years of pussyfooting, Afenifere finally united to edge out its inflexible and controversial Acting Leader Ayo Adebanjo. They had made the attempt before, just before the last presidential election, but somehow the attempt fell flat. Now, they have managed to perfect the modality of regicide, and have done it flawlessly and sumptuously. There is no resurrecting the 95-year-old former acting leader. According to the exasperated Afenifere leaders who met at the home of their leader, Reuben Fasoranti: “Flowing from this, the Leader (Pa Fasoranti) then declared as follows that ‘In the light of recent events and the pressing need to reposition and rejuvenate Afenifere, it has been decided as follows: the position of Acting Leader and Deputy Leader has now been abrogated, the responsibilities and authority of advising the Leader of Afenifere and Asiwaju Yoruba are now vested in the Afenifere Elders Caucus which is hereby constituted.”
The communiqué was terse, but it boomed with a note of finality, for the attendees who signed off on the new order were the who-is-who in Afenifere and Yoruba land. Pa Fasoranti is infirm but still rational and in full possession of his progressive ideology. He had much earlier relinquished his powers to the increasingly conservative Pa Adebanjo, only for the latter to railroad the Yoruba into the amorphous Labour Party (LP) in the last election cycle, and before then had covertly leaned towards Atiku Abubakar’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Under him, Afenifere had rebuffed the All Progressives Congress (APC) on which platform their son, Senator Bola Tinubu, was contesting the presidency. It took a tug of war to get the Yoruba redirected to the progressive cause.
Now the struggle is over. Afenifere is united, back to its regal self, and still managing to reignite both its vibrancy and independence. Pa Adebanbjo may attempt to reassert himself and continue to issue statements, but he must be keenly aware what awaits any Yoruba man who distances himself from the pack. Radicalism in the twilight of his years does not befit him.
After it became quiet on the north-eastern front, with Boko Haram and ISWAP militants significantly degraded, banditry, which had imperturbably boiled as a slow civil war between Hausa farmers and Fulani herders, recrudesced in the north-western front into a brutal war. While Kanuricentric Boko Haram never quite metamorphosed into a kidnapping industry, and found it difficult to gain a foothold in the Northwest, banditry has effortlessly morphed into a profitable kidnapping industry. The entire Northwest has consequently worked itself into a lather, as the regions governors, with a helping hand from the federal government, mismanaged the revolt. Now, Abuja is threatened and unable to sleep, and the whole country is in uproar. The kidnapping crisis received wide publicity 10 days ago when gunmen in military uniforms abducted the Mansoor Al-Kadriyar family and others in the Bwari area council of the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja, murdered three of the victims, and upped the ransom from N60m to N700m. Former Communications minister Isa Pantami sensationally, but sanctimoniously, embarked on crowdfunding to aid the release of the victims.
A rash of copycat kidnapping may follow, leading to widespread apprehension in all parts of the country, and infernal pressures on both the Bola Tinubu administration and the FCT minister Nyesom Wike to rein in the madness. The Middle Belt is flaring up again, and it is a question of time before other parts of the country follow suit as more militants sense government’s weakness and desperation. It was always clear that Nigeria’s security strategy, never properly conceived nor standardized in the first place, was chaotic and outdated. The future has caught up with the country. How the Tinubu administration responds to this festering crisis will determine whether peace and stability would be quickly restored. Past administrations had either been ad hoc or lethargic in battling insecurity. By keeping the security system centralised and needlessly uniform, while also leaving many things undone for decades, including refusing to restructure the security system along more federalist lines, the current crisis became inevitable. In order not to be overwhelmed, the administration must now urgently regain the initiative by responding smartly and comprehensively to the kidnapping nightmare. The age of innocence is gone for good.
The first question the administration must ask is whether the sudden upsurge of kidnapping is merely a security issue consequent upon the nation’s socio-economic crisis or wholly or partly a political issue. If its diagnosis is right, its response will be conditioned by its findings and the panaceas will probably be effective. Three weeks ago, this column warned that there might be a correlation, no matter how tenuous, between the administration’s anti-corruption probes and the upsurge of insecurity. Nothing so far leads this column to think otherwise. The Christmas Eve attacks on Bokkos LGA in Plateau State were, for instance videoed and disseminated on social media. There was obviously a method to that madness. There will be many more of such provocations. However, regardless of the purpose of the kidnapping and senseless attacks on sleepy communities, whether to raise cash for nefarious reasons or just to feed fat on the misery of the helpless, it is the constitutional duty of the government to guarantee the safety and security of the people. And it is the duty of the security and intelligence services to know why the attacks are waged and by whom.
So far, the federal government has not demonstrated a proper understanding of the ongoing kidnapping and genocidal attacks, especially the whys. Responding to the siege on Abuja, particularly the outlying communities of the FCT, the Defence minister had suggested that pressures on bandits in Niger and Zamfara States might be responsible for the migration of militants to the greener pastures of Abuja. It is true that the Northwest is vast, with Niger State alone bigger than many states put together in some regions of the country, but it is unlikely to be a strong factor in the sudden upsurge of abductions. In any case, should that migration not have been anticipated and thus included in the strategy to restrict, cut off and destroy the bandits? Rather than treat attacks and kidnappings episodically, and instead of summoning security chiefs and giving them the marching order, it is time the administration carefully and intelligently understood why the attacks are happening on this scale and at this time. If it is wholly or partly politics, it should say so. And if they are convinced it is wholly or partly economic, seeing the hardship prevalent in the country, it should also admit it.
After understanding the reasons and patterns of the attacks and abductions, some of which predate the Muhammadu Buhari administration but worsened in the last eight years, the administration should then address the nation and enunciate its plans to combat the disease. Failure is not an option. The Tinubu administration has never lacked the courage to take on difficult issues, policies, or saboteurs, but it must do so from the position of knowledge. As far as this column is concerned, there is some deliberateness to the attacks and abductions, all of which seem planned to expose the government as weak or impotent, or to compel it to back off some of its stated goals and probes. The administration will of course not flag in its zeal to right decades of policy and political wrongs, no matter the cost, but it must carefully calibrate its response in such a way as not to compromise both regime security and survival. Indeed, it has a greater stake in national survival than the unscrupulous, emerging and malfeasant money power hinted at by ex-Osun governor and former APC chairman, Bisi Akande during his 85th birthday lecture. The new money power couldn’t care less what happens to the nation.
The situation is, however, not hopeless. But the Tinubu administration must reassert itself, do way with ministers and officials helping themselves to the nation’s money and creating image crisis for the administration, present itself as fair, unbiased and ethnically and religiously balanced, and with boldness and smartness take on those who have strangulated the country for decades, whether they belong to the business, political or religious class. The administration must never be perceived as weak or fearful. After diagnosing the current crisis, including identifying its tentacles, the president must sit with his security chiefs to convince himself that their comprehensive plans to curb the ongoing madness and ultimately defeat the cancer can and will work. From their plans, he will know whether he has the right men for the job. It is a shame that the intelligence services of the military and police cannot identify the dens of the militants when those who supply them food and materials can. And after ransoms have been paid, it is a far worse shame that the security services cannot follow the phone and money trails. If appointees can’t shape up, it may be time for the administration to tell them to ship out. Better their heads than the president’s.
Ex-president Muhammadu Buhari’s responses on some of the key issues that dominated his presidency between 2015 and 2023 may not raise eyebrows, but his seven-page contribution to his former adviser, Femi Adesina’s book provides an invaluable window into his leadership style. Publicly presented with fanfare last week in Abuja, the book, Working with Buhari: Reflections of a Special Adviser, Media and Publicity (2015-2023), is certain to elicit some interests and reviews. Ex-vice president Yemi Osinbajo whetted public appetite with quotes and anecdotes from the book that shed light on the former president’s style, earthiness and arcane sense of humour. Undoubtedly, some of the reviews are bound to be unsparing and caustic, not only because the book exposes the president’s difficulties in weighing some of the complex policies that befuddled him but also because of his serial denialism over persons and issues which to any ordinary observer needed no expatiation.
For now, three of his responses, which are perhaps archetypal of his presidency, invite fair and ready commentaries. They are: his reluctance and ultimately refusal to sack former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor Godwin Emefiele over his presidential ambition; the naira redesign policy which threw the country into turmoil on the eve of a major election; and the suffocating hold of cabals on his administration. For those loaded issues, it has surprised many that his perspectives were incredible oversimplification of complex state matters. On Mr Emefiele who openly and unlawfully politicked while still serving as CBN governor, the president attributed his refusal to sack him to the rather baffling excuse that the man in question did not tell him directly he aspired to be president. “I met Emefiele in office when I came,” began the former president curiously, “and unless there was firm evidence against him, it would be unfair, and an act of injustice to remove him, acting on hearsay. If you punish a man unjustly, it could dog his footsteps throughout life; so if you would punish, you must have evidence…I’m very conscious about the morale of people who serve with me. I also expect whoever succeeds me to be fair to me. I have family, friends, who will feel it. I’m very conscious of fairness.”
What the former president didn’t say is whether he was not aware of what Mr Emefiele was doing, or if in doubt why he did not call for evidence from the security services. There was hardly any Nigerian who was not aware of Mr Emefiele’s shenanigans. He was both brazen and profligate about it, and he was even cocky, perhaps daring the authorities to question him. The former president’s incredulity is hard to explain. And if he truly didn’t know about Mr Emefiele’s presidential ambition, his ignorance was still inexcusable. However, President Buhari was simply being disingenuous. His response never quite suggested he didn’t know what the former CBN governor was up to; all he said was that the controversial banker did not tell him directly. For a matter that screamed in all newspapers and went viral on social media, it was clear the president decided not to ‘know’ so as not to be forced to take action against a servile poodle. The additional excuses of staff morale, fairness of job tenure, and concern for the consequences upon Mr Emefiele of sacking him were absolutely hilarious. It is strange that the president was less mindful of the damage the former CBN governor’s politicking brought upon the apex bank and the country as a whole.
The second point the former president addressed is the controversial and deadly matter of naira redesign. He exculpated himself in this fashion: “The scarcity of money was not deliberately done to punish Nigerians. There is no denying that the Naira redesign policy gave us cleaner elections. It was people who had too much money that had problems with it. When it was said that the new notes were not available, over $260m was found with one bank chairman. Did I take on the Supreme Court on the issue? No, I could not have. Some APC Governors went to court. I refuse to judge people by my own standards. I am not materialistic, but it will be too much to expect all Nigerians to be the same way. It is not fair to condemn anybody, but it is up to them and their conscience…” What the former president did was to completely sidetrack the issue. Everyone knew who was targeted by the policy, and even the candidates of both the PDP and LP gloated in private, assured that their roads to the presidency were being paved with the goofy intentions of a naïve administration. The policy was not meant to punish the people, the former president said; but when it became obvious that the policy’s unintended consequences far outweighed its good side, the former president neither cared nor took immediate remedial measures. His administration even stalled court judgements, balked at the Supreme Court ruling, and relented only when a constitutional crisis seemed imminent.
On the far more exigent issue of cabals believed to have compromised and undermined his administration, the former president, barely able to disguise his irritations, pretended not to know anything. “If El-Rufai had mentioned the cabal members,” the great denialist said with a hint of irony, “I would have taken it up with him, but he didn’t. Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State made his own allegations. Well, they were just governors, I was President. If they had their facts, they should have named names.” Don’t believe the former president. The media were awash with key names of the cabals, and one of them even attempted to set the cabalistic hierarchy of importance. And they acted and spoke openly about their stranglehold on the Buhari presidency. Neither Mallam Nasir el-Rufai nor Abdullahi Ganduje needed to name anyone. There was no debate and no confusion about who constituted the cabals. Perhaps what the president was saying is that he did not see the cabals in the sense in which the public saw them, and that the whole labeling of influential people close to his administration who determined the order of things was nothing more than a definitional lacuna, a mere storm in a teacup unworthy of his attention.
Datti Baba-Ahmed, running mate to Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 presidential poll, has an incredibly whimsical way of reacting to national issues. He is of course not ideological, and can, therefore, not react in a consistent and philosophical way to anything. The closest he has ever got to anything consistent is his ephemeral pragmatism. When he insinuated last week that the ‘exit’ of Shell PLC told Nigeria something sinister which no one else but white men knew, it aligned with his entrenched disdain for the country’s current leadership, if not the country itself. Except that, as usual, his reading of Shell’s partial divestment was exaggerated and distorted.
Shell PLC has clarified that it was divesting only its onshore assets, nothing more, and was still keeping its other three subsidiaries. Could Mr Datti, founder of Baze University, Abuja, be persuaded to apologise for misleading the public on the same Twitter where he sold that falsehood? Not a chance. His statements since he joined politics, and especially after LP lost the presidential poll, reflect his fanaticism; and his politics mirrors his discordant personality. Taken in addition to Mr Obi’s obsession with anything superficial, both the LP and its former presidential candidates demonstrate their abysmal lack of capacity.
Right from the creation of the Humanitarian and Poverty Alleviation ministry in August 2019, Nigeria never got the social safety net matter right. Mired in controversy about misapplied funds, and marred by official incompetence, the ministry wobbled on until early this year when it finally imploded, beginning with the sacking of Halima Shehu, head of the National Social Investment Programme Agency (NSIPA). There were allegations of misappropriated funds totaling some N37bn from a pool of over N40bn reportedly intercepted before it was fiddled. A little later, even before the corpse of the former wrongdoer, Mrs Shehu, was embalmed, her legatee, Betta Edu, the now suspended Humanitarian Affairs minister, was also accused of fiddling N585m through shady contracts and malfeasant payments in league with the Internal Affairs minister, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, a former national lawmaker and brilliant and eloquent technocrat.
Sadly, the Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation ministry has become a cesspit of thievery and a seething cauldron of controversy. Draining that waste pipe now appears impossible. Worse, and far more than the complicated and sometimes unresponsive Nigerian economy, the ministry and its incorrigible officials may be presenting President Bola Tinubu the biggest test of his presidency so far. He has begun to deal with the seedy reports coming from the controversial ministry by suspending the minister, Dr Edu, and ordering the anti-graft agencies to probe some of the ministry’s former officials as well as the ministry itself. It is unlikely the anti-graft agencies will find anything palatable. More crucially, the public will watch with keen interest how the president handles the entire affair. They will use whatever he does as both a barometer to measure the tensile stress of his administration’s moral fibre and an indication of the fabled courage he is thought to possess. Will he pass muster?
Commentators, particularly from the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party (LP), have been trenchant. But analysts sympathetic to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), and who appreciate that the president has been taking the matter methodically, will continue to be restrained in their commentaries. However, the president’s attention will ineluctably be drawn more to the fulminations of the opposition, even though, given his steely interior, he will likely refuse to be stampeded. In short, he is today confronting three major nightmares: what to do with the offending and recalcitrant ministry; how to handle the naïve and hapless Dr Edu; and how to treat the associated scandal involving the high-flying Internal Affairs minister, Mr Tunji-Ojo.
The ministry is barely five years old, while Dr Edu is 37, and Mr Tunji-Ojo is 41. The president will eventually resolve the matter, and he will probably do the right thing, but his administration will not go unscathed. The reasons are legion.
Unlike his predecessor, ex-president Muhammadu Buhari, who was generally inured to scandals, scornful of being dictated to by the public, and generally uninterested in sacking erring appointees, President Tinubu sets store by strict public moral code. The Humanitarian Affairs ministry scandals call upon him to put his money where his mouth is. He must already be wondering whether the so-called juicy ministry with about five agencies under it is worth keeping, for it seems designed to birth, nurture and promote scandal. Not only is the ministry riddled with foundational and ethical issues, as far as the civil service is concerned, it is generally superfluous. Disaster management and poverty alleviation can be domiciled elsewhere and structured to promote efficiency and scrupulous financial management. The ministry is already being investigated by the Co-ordinating Minister of the Economy. He will probably link the financial malfeasance in the ministry to the failure to respect financial rules and regulations, the complicity or cowardice of officials, and the weakness of standards that has nurtured a culture of abuse and exploitation of payment loopholes in the civil service. These anomalies are exposed only when internal disagreements break into the open.
The case of Dr Edu seems all but settled. The president will be unable to keep her, even though he will be sorry to see her go. The 37-year-old is a bundle of talent. No one qualifies as a medical practitioner without having brains. More importantly, she brought to everything she did an uncommon passion and drive. She proved her intellectual and elocutionary mettle during the campaigns when she chaired the women wing of the APC.
Pretty, fair complexioned, and brainy, she was the closest thing to the ideal. Imbued with the strength of youth and eager to prove herself in any group, Dr Edu was neither bashful nor boastful. Alas, that was the exterior the public saw. It is not clear whether she deliberately projected and marketed that meretricious exterior, but that was what the public saw and reveled in. Months into her appointment as minister, however, her meteoric rise dimmed to a dismal and despairing low glow. She was reportedly unloved in her ministry, where she was said to have ridden roughshod over senior and critical ministry staff who could have helped to prevent the catastrophe that befell her. That fatal flaw of tactlessness and poor judgement finally undid her in a little over four months after her appointment.
Dr Edu will likely drag Mr Tunji-Ojo down with her. But more accurately, it is the more exposed and crafty Interior minister that will drag her down. He is another brilliant apparatchik with a string of enviable qualifications before he scaled his mid-20s. A dapper young man, he was a precocious lawmaker who came into wealth very early on the wings of his eloquence, self-confidence, and can-do spirit. He proved himself in the House of Representatives where he cleverly positioned himself under the wing of former Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, and became chairman of the House Committee on the juicy Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). But as far back as that time, signs of his overweening ambition and unscrupulousness had begun to emerge. He carried the whole feistiness into the Interior ministry where with Midas touch he dished out one brilliant and impactful policy after another, and seemed set to churn out many more engaging policies. Without doubt, it was obvious he hit the ground running and did not seem like a minister whose zeal would soon flag. Even though he had enjoyed some kind of relationship with Dr Edu before their appointments, which some interpreted to be trysts of the most captivating kind, his brilliance probably led to the suspended minister depending on him to energise her ministry. It is unlikely the president can keep him, even if he wants to. Similar to the case of Dr Edu, many Nigerians will be sorry to see Mr Tunji-Ojo go. He holds so much promise.
In the end what failed the two scandalised ministers is not their intellectual endowment or passion for the job, or even loyalty, or impetuousness. Indeed, both had likeable personalities, and both are pleasant to look at. What undid them is something far more sinister, something few people can boast of, something so nuanced and ethereal that it is sometimes difficult to define: their lack of character. Character may be difficult to define, but it is not impossible. The dictionary definition paints character as ‘the group of qualities that make an individual’, but it is far deeper than that. It cannot be extricated from sound judgement, intuition, ability to know and do what is right, and capacity to die in the defence of what one believes. As a matter of fact, it is even much deeper. Both Dr Edu and Mr Tunji-Ojo were on their way to becoming the poster children of the Tinubu administration, unfortunately for reasons almost entirely superficial. The former lacked social and political tact, and the latter had little strength of character. While the Interior minister rushed to the television and attempted to bamboozle the public with half truths, the Humanitarian Affairs minister told brazen lies about being blackmailed. They forgot that they represented the youth population in the cabinet, a status Dr Edu boasted about in her testimonies to anyone who cared to listen. Now, they have left the president, who obviously holds them in high esteem, little choice but to let them go in order not to damage the administration irreparably.
President Tinubu is a clever and tested politician. He won’t be deterred from staffing his cabinet with youths, and he will probably look for equally brilliant and passionate candidates to fill the posts that will soon be vacant. He knows there is little he can do to save both ministers, if his administration is not to be tarred with the same brush. But despite throwing caviar to the general on youth appointments, the president may by now have come to the understanding that there is a lot wrong with Nigeria’s political and leadership recruitment methods. It will not be his priority to institute reforms to ensure the training in learning and character of the next generation of leaders, but he will bear it in mind and wait for opportune moment to trigger the movement to retrain, realign and deepen the character of Nigerian youths. Nigerian youths are stupendously endowed in learning, and can stand shoulder to shoulder with the best in the world; but they are almost, like the rest of the world’s youths, bereft of the character that conduces to calm, sturdy, and visionary leadership. The October 2020 EndSARS movement indicated that problem in graphic and ugly details, but most Nigerians either failed or refused to see it. The last elections, largely distorted by youths angry for the wrong reasons and against the wrong people, were also early warnings that Nigeria was not preparing its youths for leadership. The consolation, however, is that most people have difficulty with character. What will be intolerable is if the country’s leadership cadre is populated by such vacuums.
President Tinubu can do little to save Dr Edu and Mr Tunji-Ojo. He should not attempt it; indeed, he should encourage their exit. It is regrettable both have come to this sorry pass, given their enormous talents, but it is inevitable that they must leave. Though it will be difficult, the president should do his best to find excellent replacements. When he does, he must then turn his gaze to the scheming and grasping civil service that ambushes hated ministers, especially ministers averse to team play. He should also try to institute some kind of informal mentorship programme for youthful ministers, assuming he can find mentors able to give what they have. Then, as perhaps a lasting bequest to Nigeria, the president must find ways of creating a system where leaders are trained, and from which pool the next generation of leaders would be selected. Presidential system does a very poor job of preparing and ennobling such leaders with character, as the United States of America is finding out.
Okupe, Bwala deepen the mystery
Last Wednesday, spokesman of the Atiku Abubakar presidential campaign, Daniel Bwala, visited President Bola Tinubu and declared his support. He had leaned in the president’s direction for some weeks before the visit. In summary, he is almost back to the All Progressives Congress (APC) from which he defected shortly after the presidential primaries of the political parties. His defection had been anchored, like so many others, on his opposition to the APC’s Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket. Well, that ticket, against all expectations, won the election handily.
Another defection, so to say, has heightened the political mystery tremoring the country as Doyin Okupe has huffily left Peter Obi’s Labour Party (LP) for an undisclosed destination. Like Mr Bwala, he is expected to berth safely at a shore soon. Dr Okupe cites ideological reasons for his defection. Indeed, his departure from the LP was even more revelatory of the entire Nigerian political environment and the general absence of principles that undergird and drive politics in these parts.
In his resignation letter, the amiable medical doctor and politician told the LP leadership: “You will recall that our standard bearer, Mr Peter Obi, myself and others left the PDP abruptly and had to look for a Special Purpose Vehicle in which to contest the 2023 Presidential Elections. The Labour Party, your good self and other members of your executives provided us with this veritable platform with no burdensomeness whatsoever, and for which we were extremely grateful. We did contest the election on the platform of the Labour Party and lost. This makes it exceedingly difficult for me to continue to stay in the Labour Party which is ideologically rooted in the left of the center. I have been a rightist and a Liberal Democrat all my entire life. It is therefore this ideological conflict that makes me seek an exit so that I may continue my political activities with liberalism, sincerity and freedom.”
A few things jump at the reading public from the letter. One, if the LP had, against the run of play, won the election, it is unlikely that Dr Okupe would be discomfited by ideological differences. Two, he was honest enough, unlike Mr Obi, to disclose that the Obi team looked for a special purpose vehicle, or what is referred to gracelessly in these parts as SPV, to fight for political office. They had no patience for building a party or imbuing it with a clear ideology; they only unscrupulously wanted to win office. Nothing more. And for that purpose, they dispensed with ideology, courted religious divisions, and manipulated their way into infamy, playing on the intelligence of the undiscerning public.
Dr Okupe was humiliated out of his position as the Director-General of the Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Organisation after he was convicted for money laundering. He thus had little affection left for the LP; and it is a wonder that he still has a little appetite left for politics. But he is at least a little better than Mr Obi who objurgates both ideology and party structure. The stark fact is that the LP candidate has little understanding of ideology and political structure. Had he won, he would have adopted unstructured and unideological approach to governance, something quite akin to eclecticism or ad hocism.
A few analysts have suggested that both Mr Bwala and Dr Okupe were agents provocateurs in the parties they worked for during the presidential poll. This is an exaggeration. Mr Bwala was genuinely mistaken about the Muslim-Muslim ticket kerfuffle; and Dr Okupe, who was shunted aside as a political relic, needed an SPV to be relevant in the last polls. Both have had an uncomfortable relationship with their principals, but they are less coarse than the principals they worked for, whether it was the rolling stone, Alhaji Atiku, or the flighty and tedious Mr Obi.
A day after Peter Obi, Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate in the 2023 presidential election, donned his party with political grandeur by describing it as the country’s main opposition party, the real main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) indicated that its presidential candidate in last year’s election, former vice president Atiku Abubakar, would contest the next presidential election. Mr Obi’s grandiosity was reflected in his New Year press statement wherein he argued that the LP would contest the presidency again, and he would be their champion. Alhaji Atiku, said his spokesman in the 2023 presidential race, Daniel Bwala, was not only interested in the 2027 race, he would lead a coalition. The spokesman went on, rather facilely, to explain the dynamics of that race and how a coalition would be cobbled together.
Seven months into the All Progressives Congress (APC) administration, the two opposition parties have begun jostling for relevance and dominance between them. Lightning, it is said, never strikes the same place twice. But it is an idiomatic expression that has no basis in scientific reality, an expression both the PDP and LP are determined to refute by their fractious politics. Both are in the opposition today because in 2023 they despised cooperation. Now, Mr Obi is trying to settle the precedence between the two parties by assuming, regardless of Nigeria’s electoral statistics, that the LP was in the process of adjusting to its ‘natural role’ as the main opposition party. Mr Obi is always highfalutin. The LP has one governor to PDP’s 13, 34 House of Representatives members to PDP’s 102, and eight senators to PDP’s 36. It would take far more esoteric arithmetic to make that unbridgeable disparity translate into LP dominance. But the former LP presidential candidate is never one to be deterred by fact or reality.
Does Mr Obi really believe himself when he talks about the LP being the main opposition party? It is hard to tell. Those conversant with Nigerian politics and unimpressed by partisan grandstanding will search in vain for any corroboration, no matter how flimsy. His press statements, written addresses, and extempore assertions have never been as elegant or as lucid as he hopes, but somehow, he runs away with the impression that he makes rhetorical impact on a scale worthy of international approbation. “We in the Labour Party,” Mr Obi began grandly and confidently, “have undertaken in the national interest and in our undying commitment to a New Nigeria that is possible, to remain firmly in opposition and, as such, must remain focused going forward. Our collective role in nation-building remains fundamental and obligatory.” Then he launches into a flurry of identity politics, capping it with delusion of grandeur. Said he: “I wish to thank members of the Labour Party, the Obidient Family, friends, and well-wishers of Nigeria for their loyalty, resilience, tenacity, and commitment to true democracy. We will continue ongoing discussions and efforts for the Labour Party to adjust to our new role as Nigeria’s main opposition party. We will continue to constructively engage all Nigerians and our friends, who have now realised the vast implications of the road not taken; and the folly of national interest decisions predicated on sentiments and primordial interests.”
Mr Obi appears determined, regardless of what the facts say, to play the role he has imagined for himself. He sees himself a fearless and iconoclastic representative and even champion of Nigerian youths, a politician committed to taking the road not travelled. No, his exposition of himself and the role he has assigned his party is not just verbosity, whether written by him or by his speechwriter. His statement in fact demonstrates his unfathomable conviction in his strengths, ideas, and visions for the future. These may be unsubstantial, but he sees the whole matter differently, and his supporters, riding the waves of social media effervescence, have learnt to trust and love him. Mr Obi will keep giving them new things to ponder. They may not be able to make anything out of his statement about “the folly of national interest decisions”, and will probably laugh him to derision when he talks about these decisions, presumably the APC administration’s policies, being “predicated on sentiments and primordial interests”. Their snicker is propelled by the fact that other than Alhaji Atiku’s brief and half-hearted forays into primordialism, Mr Obi was actually the greatest avatar of primordial politics in the last presidential election. He engaged in ethnic baiting as avidly as he basked in religious politics of the most corrosive variety, much of that viciousness put on record and captured on phone taps.
So far, he has limited his opposition politics to denouncing APC policies with the same sentiments he belabours the ruling party. He has proffered no fresh ideas, demonstrated no genuine convictions, displayed no substantial respect for logic and facts, and paid scant regard to the country’s cultural and political history. The LP is not only factionalised and destitute of a guiding philosophy or ideology, it is delinked from Mr Obi who has little or no experience in founding or running a political party. So, when he speaks about constituting the main opposition to the ruling party, he appears to be talking about his political extravaganza and propaganda as well as his desultory approach to politics. He is, however, unlikely to upstage the bigger, more grounded, more ideological PDP. Whereas the LP is essentially about Mr Obi, and to a lesser extent, its surrogate mother, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the PDP has wider reach and more indomitable political figures besides Alhaji Atiku. The LP could not make any impact outside Mr Obi; but the PDP, as events will dictate in the coming months, will prove it can do without the paradoxes of its former presidential candidate: his detachment, aloofness, presumptuousness, and monarchical airs.
Mr Obi conflates his demagoguery with substance and ideology, hence the enduring flimsiness of his politics. But the PDP is gearing up for a dramatic resurgence. That resurgence will likely outpace and diminish the LP’s social media frenzy. But whether it can match the APC’s increasing surefootedness remains to be seen. The economy has not yet proved responsive, and the Bola Tinubu administration has not yet chalked up remarkable achievements; but the cognoscenti anchor their conclusions and responses on the magnitude of the depredation of the Muhammadu Buhari years and estimate the tentative impact of the new administration’s ongoing efforts to reset the political and economic substrata. The administration may not have achieved a rhythm yet, but even the most acerbic critic suspects that it is boldly reappraising Nigeria’s governing paradigms. Given the depth of the Tinubu administration in policies and staffing, it is only the PDP that appears capable of producing the oppositional politics Mr Obi has self-servingly spoken about.
However, if Mr Bwala’s statement accurately reflects the thinking of both the PDP and Alhaji Atiku, it is nevertheless unclear whether the party can pull off the magical coalition they vouchsafed to a wary and frankly disenchanted public last week. When the party was on the cusp of victory in last year’s presidential election, it abhorred mending fences, was indifferent to internal wrangling, called the bluff of disaffected members, and nonchalantly assumed intraparty fights could not sabotage its success. But that factionalism proved lethal. Months after the election, the party and candidate still refused to acknowledge their faults. Instead, they sold themselves the lie that the victorious APC probably rigged the election, or if that was unpersuasive, that the APC candidate was most assuredly unqualified to contest. If they spent months denying their self-inflicted injuries, why do they now confess and yield to the indispensability of putting together a coalition as a winning strategy?
Spokesman Bwala put it elegantly: “Some elements in the NNPP came out and said they suspended its presidential candidate. In Labour you see what the Apapa group did. They will never allow somebody to rest. In the PDP, you have seen some elements. He (Tinubu) will make sure all the political parties continue to have problems. But once there is a coalition of the parties, some of these people that are giving the headache in the political parties would have been swallowed. For example, once you solved the Nyesom Wike question in PDP, you would have solved all the problems…Sure, he (Atiku) would run…” Mr Bwala appears more realistic than his principal, Alhaji Atiku, who was prodigal with his chances. But perhaps it is still too early to determine whether the coalition of their dream could be cobbled together or, if the leading opposition party unite and bring other aggrieved or fringe parties under their umbrella, whether the president would not anticipate their strategies and, as Mr Bwala himself insinuated, booby-trap their coalition.
Neither the APC nor President Tinubu is of course invincible. But this is the first time a man with a mind of his own, someone not sponsored by a military or civilian cabal, will assume the presidency on his own steam and with his own resources. The president has not only proved tactical in politics, he has demonstrated courage and an uncanny ability to second-guess his opponents and take the wind out of their sails. How the PDP coalition, even if it incorporates Mr Obi, the LP, and a host of aggrieved groups of governors and lawmakers, can penetrate the APC/Tinubu armour is not exactly clear. But first, it has to be determined whose ego, between the staid and anachronistic Alhaji Atiku and the dreamy and apocalyptic Mr Obi, is more brittle.
The Plateau State government is yet to publish a definitive list of victims of the Christmas Eve attacks on Bokkos, Barkin Ladi and Mangu local government areas. Police estimates, which at first put the figure at less than hundred, are more conservative. But other estimates put the figure of the dead at well over a hundred, with hundreds more wounded. What is undisputable, however, is that the attacks were neither motivated by herdsmen-farmers misunderstanding nor triggered by religious conflict, despite the endemicity of that factor in Nigeria’s Middle Belt. Some observers think the attacks were motivated by economic factors relating to expropriation of minerals interwoven with pure ethnic cleansing. But given the video recording of the attacks and its dissemination on social media, many analysts have now begun to suspect something more politically sinister.
Whatever the motives are, it is now more urgent than ever that the federal government find a solution to the festering crisis before the country keels over. And until the factors predisposing the Middle Belt to these ferocious attacks are identified, the solutions will prove elusive. A few religious leaders, including the voluble and generally insensitive Ahmad Gumi, insist the problem is economic, and the answer, negotiation. Killing the attackers, whom he has appropriated into the Islamic faith by his own unusual logic, would be counterproductive, he warned. After all, he concludes, the military response has so far been unable to stanch the flow of blood in those violent regions. He makes no room for the factor of collusion by a section of the security forces. For a long time, too, the herdsmen-farmers struggle for fertile land was thought to be the most important factor in the crisis. The crisis has now, alas, morphed considerably into something more complex, political and subversive. The Christmas Eve attacks, complete with gory video disseminated on social media, shows how complicated the problem has become underneath.
The country could become engulfed in chaos amidst suspicion that the conflicts are inspired and catalysed by powerful sponsors. The Plateau attacks, most analysts agree, were without any tangible or justifiable provocation. They were targeted and deliberate, and they were planned by external invaders in a manner that they left the police, military and Department of State Service (DSS) flat-footed. It is now the job of the country’s political leadership to rejig the intelligence and security services to prevent or respond massively to such attacks in future. If there is a next time, someone must be held accountable. More importantly, it is now the job of the Tinubu administration to reappraise, reform and retool the country’s security architecture to respond more spontaneously. How could a team of attackers lay siege to communities, slaughter hundreds, and withdraw without being noticed or pursued to their dens? Was there collaboration? Was there internal sabotage? And what has happened to the many communities – over a hundred – sacked and taken over by invaders in years past in a country with government and justice system?
The Plateau attacks, certainly not the first of their kind, and if care is not taken, may not be the last, were partly designed to achieve predetermined ends. It is time the Tinubu administration reformed the security system. Lethargy needs to end. The routine and perfunctory wailings, if not collusion or indifference, of past administration needs to also end. The country is probably too vast for the size of the security personnel and logistics at the disposal of the administration; it is, therefore, time to recalibrate what is available to deal with the spiraling security crisis. By unearthing the financial malfeasance of the past and investigating the high and mighty, the administration opens itself up to all sorts of subterranean plots. This is of course not time for paranoia; but the government must not pretend that it does not have old and new enemies capable of pulling the strings from a thousand miles away.
Assuming there is no sabotage or collusion, one way to respond to localised attacks is by shutting down the affected local government areas and surrounding communities immediately. This should limit the mobility of the attackers and prevent their escape until they are smoked out of their hideaways. It is also time to put together a team to think through the crisis and find adequate and effective ways of responding to banditry and other forms of insurrection. Sheikh Gumi, who empathises more with bandits and herdsmen than their victims, advocates almost exclusive negotiations with the attackers. The administration should instead borrow a leaf from Sri Lanka which ran out of patience and made a final and successful push to uproot the Tamil Tigers in 2009 after a 26-year military campaign. The Tinubu administration will be seeking a fresh mandate in a few years; it should assign itself the next two years or less to deal massively with the agents of destabilisation. Given the administration’s effort to unearth what went wrong with the economy in the past years, it may have unwittingly positioned itself either to win this war soonest or open itself to its enemies to demystify and rubbish it. Both sides to the conflict are in a race for time. The hungrier for victory will undoubtedly win.
The death of Ondo State’s Governor Rotimi Akeredolu last Wednesday has created nightmarish scenarios for politicians in the state. The worst hit are those interested in contesting next year’s governorship election. The least hit is probably the new governor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, whose supporters had earlier wanted him to be declared acting governor, if not outright governor, on the grounds of Mr Akeredolu’s incapacitation. A little over two weeks ago the new governor was declared acting governor, a position he had hankered after to the annoyance of those who empathised with the ailing former governor. Supposing that the former governor was probably going to be bedfast for many more months, and perhaps until well into 2024, the new governor needed the acting governor position to strengthen his hands in the coming electoral contest. The other aspirants, on the other hand, needed the former governor alive, or even better, back in office, to help create a level playing field for all the contestants. Mr Akeredolu’s death and Mr Aiyedatiwa’s ascendancy will, therefore, tax the ingenuity of Ondo’s governorship aspirants in ways they had despaired to countenance.
Clips after video clips have emerged showing how enamoured of Mr Aiyedatiwa the former governor was. He eulogised him as his potential successor, and with folkloric ease lauded his deputy’s name as pregnant with meanings and spiritual import. The new governor, who was then deputy governor, eagerly lapped up the praise. But in a few crazy months, perhaps a reflection of the delicate character of Mr Aiyedatiwa, the sickness of the former governor triggered something unwholesome and unsavoury in him. He was impatient, believed to be unfeeling, unscrupulous, and politically unskillful. He was unable to show convincing proof that he empathised with the debilitated former governor, and in statement after statement, and one action after another, he fumbled into deeper ethical quandary, while his men secretly advocated the remorseless application of the constitution. Eventually, the constitution was applied; and to the relief of Mr Aiyedatiwa, even before he finished savouring that little triumph, the former governor passed away, leaving the coast clear.
Whether anybody likes it or not, Mr Aiyedatiwa is now governor. He is expected to show his mettle and demonstrate whether he has the character and intuition to govern the state. His lack of surefootedness had divided the state and immersed it in needless controversy as the former governor battled prostate cancer; he will now be called upon to heal the wounds of division, refute allegations of his perfidy and insensitivity, and pursue his 2024 governorship ambition in ways that are not offensive, desperate and egotistic. Given his antecedents, this is a tall order. But as this column indicated last week, he must simply rise above the mediocrity he seemed accustomed to, and surround himself with exemplary characters and advisers who will either help to mould him anew or at least chaperon him into playing a leadership role that seems at first glance bigger than him. Many leading political figures in the state view him with an eerie wariness, and the ruling party in the state, the All Progressives Congress (APC), can’t find the equanimity and the resolve to trust him. How he transcends those divisions and dissipates the distrust in which he is held will go a long way in demonstrating whether he can pleasantly surprise those casting furtive glances at his unorthodox politics.
A few resignations by the late governor’s aides and at least one commissioner have attempted to take the shine off Mr Aiyedatiwa’s ascendancy. The resignations were neither insulting nor tied to anything the governor did or didn’t do; but the undertones were clear. They will, however, not have the force or amplitude of the resignations that plagued the political manoeuvres of the Rivers State governor, Siminalayi Fubara. In Rivers where the governor attempted to assert himself against his allegedly overbearing godfather, the governor took extra-constitutional steps to arrest the impeachment moves against him. Even then, the resignations were dismissed as the exaggerated actions of pampered and prejudiced appointees. In Ondo, despite the governor’s machinations, he had the constitution on his side through and through. No resignation, even if it involved every appointee of the former governor, would raise eyebrows. If they did not resign, the new governor would be at liberty, the constitution firmly on his side, to reshuffle the executive council and retain those he can trust. One of the Ondo resignees had spoken touchingly and in sepulchral tones of his loyalty to the late governor, but even if necromancy had the force of law, Mr Akeredolu could not be a living godfather in the grave. In Ondo, an era has passed; it remains to be seen what kind of moral and political tapestry the new governor would weave for the new era.
In the months ahead, as the state braces for the next governorship primaries and election, Mr Aiyedatiwa will have a lot of policy issues and administrative obstacles to contend with. President Bola Tinubu and the APC party leadership in Abuja have charged him to unite the party and deal with Ondo wisely as well as offer the state excellent leadership that delivers the dividends of democracy. It is unclear how he will proceed in those onerous tasks, for the months ahead will be taken up almost wholly by the politics of next year’s governorship election rather than the task of development. The governor has managed, perhaps not intentionally, to set the cat among the pigeons by his open desperation to succeed his former boss. What no one can tell immediately is whether enough functionaries in the party and the state’s elite have been offended by his clamorousness. Yet if the temperament of Nigerian politics is taken into cognisance, the governor may by patronage and guile, and perhaps a little dose of ruthlessness, draw a significant number of important people into his camp, enough to tilt the scale against other governorship contenders. For a man and politician who only needed to bide his time early in Mr Akeredolu’s battle with cancer, but chose to go for broke, could he be trusted to produce the guile and wisdom needed to gain the upper hand in the contest for the minds of the electorate?
As governor, Mr Aiyedatiwa occupies a vantage position in the coming battle. But his co-contenders, some four or five of them, have also put their hands to the plough and will not be inclined to look back. Some of them have some measure of support in Abuja; they will give the governor a run for his money, and match him battleground for battleground, and naira for naira. All contenders will try their best and worst to seduce the national leadership of the party and buy the local party chapter. Whether they succeed will depend on the cheapness or expensiveness of the consciences being bought. What is clear is that there will be some sort of trading, far worse than horse-trading. The flip side is whether Ondo’s political personalities who chafed at Mr Aiyedatiwa’s methods are scandalised enough to double down on their intransigent view of the new governor’s duplicity. Should a critical mass of political leaders in the state remain attached to the moral argument against the governor, they will be loth to put him in the State House knowing full well that once in power, he could transmogrify into something nastier than he exhibited during the former governor’s sickness. They could, however, also wonder whether it would not make more sense to put their own APC monster in office, assuming that description fits, than put a hostile and unamenable lamb from the opposition PDP in office.Human memory can, however, be fickle. Mr Aiyedatiwa may not have been exemplary during Mr Akeredolu’s sickness, but if he can begin to conciliate his opponents, massage the egos of the state chapter of the APC, persuade and retain as commissioners some appointees of his predecessor, and begin to make high-sounding and lofty moral statements, even if untrue, the party and the electorate could begin to doubt their own judgements and conclusions about him. He has less than a year to make a great impression on Ondo in terms of projects and bribes; but with barely four months to the governorship primary and 10 months to the election, the state has become an excruciatingly tight and labyrinthine maze only a wise ruler can navigate successfully. Perhaps he is incapable of pulling a rabbit from the hat or demonstrating that he has any wisdom left in his repository. Should he do the unimaginable in appealing to the party and the people, they will forget his dark side, excuse his domestic troubles gingerly alluded to in Akure’s beer parlour gossips as nothing extraordinarily different from his predecessor’s termagant better half, and even begin to defend his idiosyncratic impatience as customary of leaders everywhere.
Mr Aiyedatiwa has now become lucky, as his first name suggests. He replaced the luckless Agboola Ajayi as deputy governor, and almost from the outset his mentor touted him as a worthy and favoured successor. But at his swearing-in, where he made a deplorable Freudian slip about the state heaving a sigh of relief, his supporters ululated in triumph and booed his opponents. It was an incredibly churlish display indicative of the unbridgeable divisions in the party and government. There were only a few Akeredolu men in the hall where he was sworn in; most stayed away. If his supporters’ attitude to his opponents is a reflection of his conviction, then the APC in Ondo State may be headed for a turbulent and acrimonious time. APC leaders in Abuja will be anxious to avoid turmoil in the state; they must hope that the governor will be on the same page with them. Both the party and the governor need that miracle; for while the party is not yet tuned to operate at an exquisitely efficient and calculating level, Mr Aiyedatiwa seems even less inclined to political panache or discreteness. Whatever happens, the next few months in Ondo will engender a titanic battle between the governor and other governorship aspirants who are undeterred and unfazed by his office, power or money.
IF Governor Siminalayi Fubara of Rivers State felt the peace deal he signed before the president in Abuja last Monday left him with the short end of the stick, he did not immediately betray his feelings. There were probably one or two others in his delegation who felt queasy like him. But a day later in Rivers State, when he addressed the 3rd Convocation and 6th Founders Day ceremonies of PAMO University of Medical Sciences in Iriebe Town, Obio Akpor local government area of the state, it had become obvious that he felt disadvantaged by the peace deal brokered by the president to end the simmering conflict unsettling Rivers. Plaintively, with lips quivering as he struggled to dam the tears welling up in him, he announced that no price was too high to pay to ensure peace in the state. He had had about 24 hours to reflect on the eight-point peace deal he signed, particularly items three, four and five which deal with the restoration of legislative leadership, representation of state budget, and re-absorption of 10 commissioners who had of their own volition resigned from his cabinet, and appeared chastened that he had been made to look less like the valiant warrior he had positioned himself to be in the early weeks of his battle with his mentor, FCT minister and former governor Nyesom Wike.
There is a groundswell of opposition against the deal from his state inspired by two former governors, Rufus Ada George and Peter Odili as well as notable Ijaw leaders, including Edwin Clark, a former Information minister. The opposition against the deal is hardening, particularly with sundry street protests, but it is not clear whether it will acquire enough amperage in the weeks ahead to deflate and derail the agreement. Perhaps if the governor had not been compelled to take back the commissioners and submit to the Speaker Martin Amaewhule-led Assembly leadership, the governor’s hands would have been strengthened. The ex parte injunction granted him weeks ago had given him a distorted sense of political and constitutional supremacy, from which high grounds climbing down appears onerous and humiliating. If the tempo of the disgust against the deal is maintained, the hawks may yet have the upper hand. But that advantage will be unable to endure for very long. The state has not only wobbled into a legal and constitutional cul de sac, it has sadly displayed before the whole country its inability to produce inspiring leaders with the capacity to understand complex problems and issues and find resolutions.
Some of the state’s leaders as well as analysts outside Rivers have suggested that the problem is essentially a constitutional one which the courts must be made to resolve. But there is nothing in the misunderstanding between the governor’s camp and Mr Wike’s forces that shows that the disagreement is either legal or constitutional. It may have morphed somewhat into a constitutional matter, but it began strictly and almost wholly as a political disagreement between Mr Fubara and his mentor over how the state is run. The governor is reported to have felt choked by his predecessor’s demands and insistences. So far, however, neither of the combatants has availed the public directly what the crux of the matter really is. There is a lot of waffling going on, with whispers and suspicions about money, influence and positions running riot. Interestingly, both have publicly limited themselves to the more sanguine and noble part of their disputes. Mr Wike talks about the betrayal of political structure, thereby cleverly rousing and pricking the conscience of leading politicians obsessed with such matters, while Mr Fubara talks about external meddlesomeness, indicating that his animus is directed against anyone who wants to compromise the sovereignty of the state. Both positions resonate with each man’s captive crowds.
The Abuja deal obviously took off from the point of view of politics, believing that the misunderstanding between the governor and his predecessor is essentially outside the purview of the constitution and only tangentially related to the issue of law. There is of course sense in trying to resolve such matters from the point of view of the law and the constitution, for then such conflicts stand the chance of setting precedents and curating solutions that endure. In addition, some argue, it will help Nigerian democracy to stabilise and mature. This naturally suggests that the godfather phenomenon, with which the Rivers crisis is lathered, or the grander and nobler subject of mentorship from which prism Mr Wike’s supporters like to look at the problem, is both unknown to the constitution and fraught with moral and interpretative difficulties. In the weeks ahead, as the protests in Port Harcourt are indicating, one of the two arguments will take the upper hand. The governor’s plaintive cry at the PAMO university convocation may indicate that at bottom he resents the deal, and would love to undermine it; but his statement about paying a high price for peace may also indicate that the pragmatist in him embraces the intuitive wisdom of downplaying the radicalism and threats of his young and ageing supporters. Given the complicated cut and thrust of Rivers State politics, if the presidency, which brokered the deal last Monday, is not already contemplating other political alternatives, it would be surprising. They should ponder their shrinking options.
No commentator on the Rivers crisis has failed to blame both the governor and his predecessor for the crisis stifling the state. Mr Wike is denounced as abrasive and overbearing, and Mr Fubara is dismissed as naïve and overreaching. Until the governor exploded in uncharacteristic rage, few except those close to him knew the pressures he endured from his predecessor. His problem, however, is his limited capacity in managing a godfather apparently consumed with his own fantasies, his inability to calibrate and moderate his reactions to his mentor’s provocations. His methods had been amateurish and boyish, sometimes wearing a distant and wistful look on his face; but in regards to the latest eruptions, nearly every step he has taken has been misplaced, every statement unreal, and his rallying cries uncourageous, superficial and unconvincing. To compound these faults with excessive display of emotions is to court disaster. Not to have a mind of his own and to wrap this failing in poor judgement led to the excessive and short-sighted response of demolishing the House of Assembly building to preempt his impeachment, an impeachment that was more bluff than real.
On the surface, Mr Wike has appeared to have the upper hand in the peace deal. But in reality, he has also seemed to lose the public esteem he desperately covets. That means Mr Fubara has the opportunity to carve something extraordinary for himself, assuming he can surround himself with brilliant and farsighted advisers. Instead of crying over split milk, he should see what lemonade he can make from the lemon life has given him. He is obviously disadvantaged and shackled, and must now contend with a triumphant and skewed legislature as well as a cabinet that appears beholden to someone else. But it is in such hostile circumstances that leaders are forged. Mr Fubara seems at bottom committed to making the Abuja accord work. Let him, therefore, see how he can disarm the hostile lawmakers instead of combating them; and deploying all manner of suasions, let him also entrance his cabinet and inoculate them against division and bellicosity. He must find novel ways of resisting Mr Wike without openly engaging him in fruitless battles on hostile grounds. His side of the story, hitherto concealed, has come into the open; and while it portrays him as tactically inept, it nevertheless shows that his predecessor has been exacting. He needs to proceed warily, tactically, and must eschew the sanctimonious approach hardliners in the state are urging upon him.
By now, Mr Wike must have known that he is in a very delicate position. By taking a ministerial appointment with the All Progressives Congress (APC) administration while still retaining his membership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), he is running with the hare and hunting with the hounds, a guile every fibre in his being repudiates. The groundswell of opinion in Rivers is largely against him, especially with the governor’s hasty alliance with the Labour Party (LP), a group of highly motivated and pugnacious but unthinking partisans. If that dubious alliance is sustained, it will constitute a formidable opposition to Mr Wike and his defecting lawmakers, especially if he himself chooses to also defect. Even if the peace deal endures, there is no way the FCT minister can retain his hold on the state on the level he fantasises. He must begin to reassess his politics as scrupulously and realistically as he can muster. Mr Fubara is an impossible person to deal with, given the abysmal manner he fraternises with the ‘enemy’. Had that not been the case, it would have been advisable for the FCT minister to ensure a rapprochement with the governor and in addition ask his men to give him the fullest support in governing Rivers. But there are many around the governor who resent an Abuja potentate dictating to the state, especially when the state has a few wary ex-governors of its own, including the flip-flopping Dr Odili.
Mr Wike’s friends in the APC must now begin to quietly reassess their politics, particularly the part that involves Rivers State in their electoral calculations. They need a buffer elsewhere, a plan B no less. Nothing guarantees that they will henceforth always get Rivers into the APC column. In fact, given the current mood in the state, and the unwise and hasty defections and resignations, Rivers is an electoral toss-up. The state is of course not also guaranteed for the PDP or LP in the years and elections ahead, seeing that both parties are likely to become engulfed in crisis sooner or later, but it can play a great spoiler in 2027. APC leaders, Senator Adams Oshiomhole revealed at a book launch in Abuja last week, enjoy internecine wars and cannot always be trusted to fight bravely and consensually. Factions of the ruling party, for various reasons, may want to exploit and harden the division in Rivers. Rivers is, therefore, in a flux; so, too, is politics 2027. The ongoing crisis in the state, which mercifully is yet to ossify, should be sensibly managed to prevent it from convulsing the nation. But there are no guarantees that both Mr Fubara and Mr Wike can manage their egos well enough not to impede their goals or ambitions. Sadly, the greater responsibility of finding a happy ending to the Rivers saga lies with the APC and Mr Wike, not the governor who is playing victimhood very elegantly and adroitly.
Strangely, too, Rivers State elders, including Mr Wike and the governor, are unable to appreciate or properly decipher the state’s regnant culture or zeitgeist. The entire state is culpable. As governor, Mr Wike waxed lyrical over the state, constituting his own troubadour, belabouring his opponents, and traducing monarchs. They suffered his harangues for years, gritting their teeth and dancing to his tunes. Once he left, the elders and stakeholders simply transferred their allegiances to the new men in the saddle, desensitised to their own lack of fidelity to and even disinterest in any political virtue. The constitution and the law never mattered. With Mr Fubara, despite his glaring flaws, his abysmal misreading of history and lack of principles and almost total ignorance of ideology, the state’s elders have seen and embraced a new champion. Their fecklessness proved lethal in the last polls, and it will define and stultify both the politics of the state in the coming years as well as distort future polls. Decades of returning fantastic polling figures may have now given way to the shocking realism of BVAS, but those years and structural and electoral changes have not reconstructed electoral behavior on a scale that gives hope for predictability and a great and enduring future. For stakeholders and elders who never cared about the constitution for years, it is shocking that they now rhapsodise its beauty and sacrosanctness.
However, Rivers State is not alone in projecting the politics of opportunism. With the exception of a few political leaders who make tokenistic appeal to ideology or any other thing that appears a little lofty, most states and politicians subscribe to nothing more than the politics of expediency. This column suggested last week and at other times in the past that Mr Wike, apart from being unideological himself, settled on Mr Fubara as his successor for the wrong reasons, chief among which was his successor’s presumed loyalty and perhaps engaging stoicism. Like other states which adopted that flawed approach to succession, Rivers cannot produce a different, idealised outcome. The Abuja deal cannot in any way promote peace for the long term. The problem is much more fundamental than defecting lawmakers and resigning commissioners. Mr Wike may have some advantage now, but he will have to adopt statesmanlike attitude far more subliminal than he is capable of to produce the outcome everyone dreams about. And Mr Fubara himself, who is believed to be incapable of his predecessor’s charismatic politics and quick wittedness, must find and surround himself with incredible beings of sound judgement and philosophy capable of creating the political environment lawyers and constitutionalists around Nigeria talk very glibly about. He has disavowed the virtue of joining his predecessor to create an ironclad system capable of withstanding outside stresses or of imbibing a defined and centralising ideology; he will face the possibility, like the intransigent Mr Wike himself, of being defeated or damaged separately. It is unfortunately difficult to be optimistic as the state cavorts in mediocrity and poor leadership all-round.
Apart from the reckless and profligate demolition of the iconic Rivers State House of Assembly building, much of last week was taken up by the furore over the resignation of some seven commissioners on the cabinet of Governor Siminalayi Fubara. The governor has come of age and has decided that whatever the cost, he is determined to be his own man and will not be a leader who cannot call his soul his own. He will, it seems, forcibly wean himself off his dependence on ex-governor Nyesom Wike‘s breast milk. The resignees were all the former governor’s men anyway, and had all been foisted on the new governor, it was alleged. The iconic legislative building too was nothing more than a victim of collateral damage, a memento of the war between a feisty mentor and his lugubrious mentee. Built during the Peter Odili administration, only one chamber out of six was burnt in the early days of the war between Mr Wike and the governor. But seizing upon that arson, and declaring that the entire building no longer had structural integrity, the governor brought the whole edifice down over days, a herculean and costly and foolish effort. Only in Nigeria, and of course in the name of democracy.
It was not until last week that Mr Fubara’s side of the story began to waft out into the poisoned atmosphere in Port Harcourt. Mr Wike is allegedly high-handed, grasping, uncouth, vindictive and rambunctious, they say. He was, they add, virtually having a third term in office by single-handedly nominating nearly all the commissioners, gets reports of the government’s financial dealings, has hemmed in the governor with all sorts of fail-safe measures and tools and handymen, leaving the governor straitjacketed. Stifled and scorned, Mr Fubara has reached out to his Ijaw brothers and sisters for support, unconcerned about the consequential ethnic bifurcation of the state. He is relived that the burdensome and prying commissioners are resigning, regardless of whether it seemed like they were protesting his lack of principles and recklessness. And he has finally put his hands to the plough and will be loth to look back. More, he imitates the Edo example of transposing minority and majority lawmakers, and has done his arithmetic well to be satisfied that four lawmakers passing his budget in less than 24 hours means nothing to either democracy or his image. He blames his resort to legal legerdemain, burning of the ‘Reichstag’, lack of regard for democratic principles, marching of the ‘black shirts’ on Port Harcourt, and if care is not taken, Kristallnacht, all on Mr Wike.
In the days ahead, the controversy about the power of 27 lawmakers versus the effrontery of four lawmakers might land in the courts and be probably resolved or litigated for extended period of time until it becomes a fait accompli. The defections of the 27 Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the improbable ex parte injunction upon which Mr Fubara based his provocative budget presentation and immediate accent will also come into sharp focus. In addition, the commissioners will of course be replaced, and the nominees given express vetting and approval. Against these alarming and tragic happenings, the people of Rivers State know very well the antecedents of Mr Wike, how he ruled the roost during his governorship without anyone breathing down his neck, and how he has waxed lyrical about Mr Fubara’s betrayal and ingratitude. The devil is in the detail. Perhaps many analysts are perplexed by the rapid disintegration of the relationship between the governor and his predecessor; perhaps they are also stupefied by Mr Fubara’s embrace of patently anti-democrat methods to win his freedom from the former governor, and is indifferent to the repercussions on the state’s democratic practices, finances, and relationship between ethnic groups. But what they will find more difficult to explain is how the governor hid his sinister longings for so long before exploding in a paroxysm of rage.
It is not time for Mr Fubara to regret any method and weapon he has deployed so far in the fight against his predecessor. But it is time for Mr Wike to be full of regrets. He was said to have been warned about ceding power to Mr Fubara’s part of the state, but he brushed aside any misgivings. No one it seems counseled him about his undue expectations from the governor, but he has undoubtedly now realised that his ability to measure competence and capacity as well as produce the next generation of leaders were deeply flawed. He chose the wrong man, possibly because his own democratic credentials and leadership acuity were deeply and perhaps indubitably wrong. Not only did he apply the wrong principles and yardsticks in measuring competence and capacity, but by not having a great understanding of what leadership means, and by not anchoring leadership on any philosophy and ideology, it was also difficult for him to identify the right man for the job. He chose Mr Fubara, not because the latter shared his worldview and philosophy, and can thus defend the party’s structure and ideas in the years ahead; he chose him for his loyalty, an appalling and meretricious yardstick that easily wilts at the first contact with half a joule of political heat energy.
Mr Wike is deeply flawed and not quite as altruistic as he presents himself; he will be fortunate to understand how to manage, overcome or reconcile with his successor. Mr Fubara, notwithstanding the panegyrics of his fellow Ijaw men and women, is definitely not what he is cracked up to be. Indeed, if Mr Wike is flawed, Mr Fubara is a tragedy. By ignoring the arson in the legislature and then proceeding, despite the humongous costs involved, to pull down the entire structure, he has proved to be a total and unquestionable misfit. It is doubtful whether the cost he has approved for his inexpiable methods can be defended. It is even more shocking that the people of Rivers could stand grimly aside and see their legislative building pulled down with out a whimper. Perhaps they imprudently see the matter as ‘two fighting’. The worst shock is the federal government and its police force that should have done something major and calculating about getting to the bottom of the arson in the House of Assembly. Petrified of being seen to be taking sides, they allowed themselves to be paralysed from doing their law enforcement job, and have even provided security for the state executive branch to pull down the legislative building housing an independent arm of government. Have they all lost their minds in Port Harcourt?
There are calls for President Bola Tinubu to intervene before things get out of hand. Earlier, he had intervened to no avail. It is not clear, as the judiciary displays their proficiency to complicate things in the state with ex parte injunctions, that any intervention now to forge a truce will amount to anything. What the federal government should do – indeed should have done – is to apply the law. They should have got to the bottom of the arson in the House of Assembly, and prevented the demolition of the building until the forensic examination of the burnt part was completed. It was a crime scene which they are now complicit in obliterating. The investigations should, however, still be done. The federal government should make it clear to the dithering police and quiescent Department of State Service (DSS) that their job is not to take sides, regardless of how patronising the state government has been to them, but to protect and enforce the law and the constitution. Tragedy and farce of unimaginable proportions are unfolding upon the state, and the people who should defend democracy and good governance suffer from inexplicable inertia. It is not too late for Abuja to quit their passivity. They have the constitution to guide and enliven them.
