The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • MKO confronts OBJ

    Shhhhh! Please read this piece very quietly and with ample touch of solemnity, Hardball is reporting for you from a higher plain that requires utmost quietude. Your hardworking Hardball transcended this plain to a realm where he could pick up the vibes of the late Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola (MKO for short). Of course you must remember the great Egba high chief and Kakanfo (generalissimo) of Yoruba land. Who does not remember the great business mogul- turned politician; the one who took Nigeria’s politics by storm and achieved what is probably the most famous mandate in history?

    At the peak of his power, MKO tobogganed an entire fractured nation into one voting machine that gave him an unassailable victory in the presidential election of June 12, 1993. Christians, Muslims, pagans, everyone turned out en masse to vote in MKO in a watershed election that will remain a landmark in Nigeria’s history. But this sweet victory was simply annulled. This singular act of squelching the will of the people snow-balled into a national and international ruckus, whose embers still smother even as you read this.

    The great MKO embarked on a long, tortuous and, eventually, terminal quest to reclaim his mandate. He was detained, he went on exile, he was imprisoned and eventually he was killed. His wife too was killed, his family dispersed and his large business empire damaged beyond repairs. While the whole world campaigned for MKO to be sprung from prison and handed his mandate, a certain clansman of his by the name  Olusegun Obasanjo, a former military head of state (also known as OBJ), announced to the world that that brother of his they were all weeping over was not the messiah they thought him to be.

    So it was that MKO perished in the struggle and not a line of eulogy from his brother, OBJ. A leadership vacuum soon materialised  from this crisis and who is propped up to claim the mantle of power – you guessed it – OBJ. He became the sole beneficiary of a Presidency that MKO was viciously denied. OBJ ruled for eight years as ‘executive’ president. In all this period, he virtually outlawed MKO and probably would have imprisoned him a second time if he could. While he built a monument to the memory of Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, he could well have danced on MKO’s tomb. This was seven years ago as OBJ left office in 2007.

    Dear reader, you must necessarily be put through the gamut of this long back-grounding because this is not an ordinary occurrence.

    Now, last Saturday, at a birthday party in Abeokuta, OBJ acknowledged that, “Indeed, Abiola contributed to the development of this country. He sacrificed everything for the development of this country.”

    As Hardball could pick, MKO was so riled by what he considers OBJ’s height of chicanery that he confronted him: “Seeee-guuun, ah, e wa simi abosi? On bo wa ba mi ni bi o, wa gbadun mi to ba de bi, mo n retie!” Translated roughly, a furious MKO had harangued OBJ, calling him Segun as he used to and wondering when he would quit treachery, ending with a note of warning that he would be joining him and would be waiting for him. OBJ could only utter, “ah, Moshoodi!” before the apparition vanished. It turned out a dream afterall!

     

  • Clark: I’m ready to depart this world. Really?

    Chief Edwin Kiagbodo Clark must be having a time of his life right now. Uwa ngbede kamma, that is how Ndigbo describe it, meaning a good evening of life is the best among all the stages of life. Even the Yoruba often pray that the evening of life be always better than the early part. This is why Hardball thinks that Pa E.K., as he used to be fondly known (hope we can still call him that now), was only grandstanding and posturing when he proclaimed recently that he was ready to depart this world.

    It was at the 87th birthday briefing of the former Information Minister in Abuja. He was expansive and effusive with it if we might add: “I believe that I have played my part, ready to depart in joy and peace. Hence, I have repeatedly proclaimed it loudly at given occasions that as a mortal being, I am now like one at a departure lounge awaiting the call to meet my creator… I have come to this position, believing that I have played my part, ready to depart contentedly…”

    One thing is sure about Papa E.K., he is certainly a contented and happy man. Looking ebullient and rejuvenated in the last few years of Goodluck Jonathan’s presidency, he does not look like one who is waiting anxiously at any departure lounge. No sir, we take E.K.’s comment with a pinch of salt; for a man who is effectively the First Father of not just the Ijaw nation today, but that of the whole nation. For instance, Pa E.K., in his octogenarian end stage, did not only relocate to Abuja upon Jonathan’s presidency, he carved out his own special, filial position as Father of the President. And for the life of Hardball, he has acquitted himself so brilliantly well in that position. Never begrudge a man his booty, who has done his job well.

    Pa E.K. virtually corralled Jonathan into the current son-hood position. He has been father, godfather, shepherd and warhead to the president since inauguration. A wily old man, Pa E.K. would stoke a fire on behalf of the president and then go ahead and quench it also on his behalf. He would reach out and reach in and of course he has been building bridges and even burning them as the situation demands. It has been a dual mandate of a queer kind; an exciting two headed diplomatic odyssey. It has worked, or shall we say that the president has never complained. But Hardball wagers it has worked even better for Pa E.K.

    Hardball cannot make a categorical statement about the financial status of Pa E.K. now but there is a saying that when you are very well off, your skin is the first to betray you. If we go by the tone and texture of Pa E.K.’s skin (which is as smooth as a little boy’s) you are bound to accuse him of being extraordinarily wealthy now. Again, we cannot tell. But what Hardball can tell for sure is that a year ago, Pa E.K. took a very beautiful young wife. Ladies and gentlemen, which man ready to depart this world takes a young wife?

  • Baba’s baccalaureate

    Baba, and Hardball of course refers to former President Olusegun Obasanjo (a.k.a. Obj), must think himself a pre-eminent African leader. Even as his country gets heated up to a boiling point and totters to a tipping (no thanks to his misrule), he gallivants across the globe pontificating on leadership and handing sermons on morality. He must be a man bereft of any compunctious visiting of nature, to play Shakespeare, and Hardball wagers that he must have long traded his conscience for something more precious to him. He alone, one dares say, must know that thing that is better than a man’s conscience.

    Baba’s latest irksome baccalaureate was in faraway Kigali, Rwanda, last Wednesday. It was during the Annual General Meeting of the African Development Bank (ADB) and he was in the company of Mr. Festus Moghae, former president of Mozambique and a laureate of the MO Ibrahim Award for Leadership in Africa. For a man who is at his best perhaps only when he is put under the spotlight on the world stage, Obj did not waste the moment; he did what he knows how to do best, talk the talk.

    Not perturbed that bombs were going off in his country almost daily and that his compatriot are being slaughtered in a manner beyond the scale of a full blown war, he went on his usual ego trip. On Boko Haram insurgency, he blamed it on leaders’ inability to professionally manage their human and capital resources creditably and transparently.

    Speaking on “Service Delivery and African Leadership Progress Tracking,”  he said Nigeria in particular and African countries generally have no business being poor, yet the continent has remained let down due to corrupt tendencies of its leaders. On Nigeria specifically, he said the leaders often abandon their predecessors’ policies for new ones just to line themselves with wads of currencies through new contract plans.

    It is a shame that Obj still gets accorded so much respect and afforded global stage to insult the sensibilities of Nigerians. In a continent better endowed with quality leaders, this Baba would have been ostracised and left to convoke only with his chickens in his Ota farm. But because Africa cannot find respectable former African leaders to mount her rostrum, it is often condemned to live with Obasanjo. But even he must know that each time he speaks about leadership, good governance and development, he sounds hollow and un-resounding.

    For the avoidance of doubt, Obasanjo ruled Nigeria for 11 years and for most part, he was un-exemplary. He was undisciplined, authoritarian, incorrigible, non-accountable and non-transparent. He disdained democratic ethos, had no respect for rule of law and failed to fight corruption. Under his watch for most of eight years as a civilian president, Nigeria was among the top-three most corrupt countries in the world. Nigerians ranked among the poorest people in the world during his time in spite of huge oil revenue and infrastructure went into further dereliction, especially critical ones like power and transportation. He added no value to critical national assets like abundant oil and gas and human resources.

    In fact, his time was a wholesale debacle that set the stage for the current crisis in the country.  Particularly remarkable was the fact that he foisted on the country as successors, perhaps the worst leaders in her history just for his selfish motives. Let Baba teach leadership to his chickens.

  • NJC and corruption of justice

    NJC and corruption of justice

    Paradoxically, it is not so clear where the National Judicial Council (NJC) stands in the temple of justice. With all due respect, the body has succeeded in sullying its image as the highest decision making organ of the Nigerian judiciary, despite the public optimism that ushered in its head and Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Aloma Mukhtar, when in 2012 she became the first female CJN and promised reforms and sanitisation of the judiciary.

    However, this expectation has come into question following recent developments that put NJC in a negative light. Top of the unflattering issues is perhaps the apparently unresolved matter involving the Rivers State Chief Judge, Peter Agumagu, who was sworn in by the governor, Rotimi Amaechi, on March 18, contrary to the NJC’s stance backing Justice Daisy Okocha for the position on the basis of being the most senior judge in the state judiciary.

    It is noteworthy that Amaechi formalised Agumagu’s appointment after a Federal High Court ruling by Justice Lambo Akanbi, who declared, “With greatest respect to the National Judicial Commission, who is my employer, I cannot allow the argument of the defence counsel that the governor must accept the recommendation of the NJC.”  According to the judge, “The body that is most suitable to make recommendation of a nominee as a chief judge of the state is the state Judicial Service Commission (SJC) because they have local knowledge of the most suitable candidate than the National Judicial Commission.”

    Moreover, he stated, it was not mandatory under Nigerian law that the most senior judge be appointed the state’s chief judge, adding that the official qualification was that the concerned individual must have spent at least 10 years on the bench. Since Agumagu, who was then the President of the Rivers Customary Appeal Court met this qualification, there was no issue about his appointment, he reasoned.

    Certainly, if the NJC had a problem with the judgment, it was expected to follow the path of the law, being itself a symbol of the law, with all the implications of truth and fairness. Amazingly, however, the NJC not only announced the suspension of Agumagu for alleged disobedience; it also reportedly queried Justice Akanbi. That is how things stand now, which is not easy to understand.

    What made the NJC’s moves particularly puzzling and even disturbing is the fact that it appeared to have disappointingly contradicted itself, given that in the same period it had supposedly demonstrated a sense of fair dealing that was evidently missing in the case of Agumagu and Akanbi.  To be specific, it was the same body that recommended to President Goodluck Jonathan the compulsory retirement from office of Justice G.K. Olotu of the Federal High Court and Justice U.A. Inyang of the High Court of Justice of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, “for gross misconduct.” Also, it was the same body that queried Justice Danlami Senchi of the Abuja High Court and issued warning letters to Justice Dalhatu Adamu, the Presiding Justice of the Court of Appeal, Kaduna Division; Justice A.A. Adeleye of the High Court of Justice, Ekiti State; and Justice D.O. Amaechina of the High Court of Justice, Anambra State.

    Now, with the benefit of insight into the seeming corruption of justice in Rivers State, it would appear that the NJC may not be beyond reasonable doubt concerning some of its actions after all.

     

  • President Shekau?

    President Shekau?

    President Shekau and Parliament Boko Haram? Imperative questions, given the latest presidential directive.

    The subject, of course, is still the Chibok girls, now in Boko Haram kraal.

    The other day when Citizen Oby Ezekwesili and other patriotic braves made the move to go march on Aso Villa and ask President Goodluck Jonathan the latest on our missing girls and adorable daughters, the president asked them to direct their appeal to Boko Haram!

    So, Boko Haram is now the authority in Nigeria? That might not be wrong, if a sitting president tells his hurting compatriots to go appeal to Boko Haram.

    However the Chibok kidnap affair is resolved, its mishandling by the Jonathan presidency would mark the final unravelling of the president.  On Chibok, it appears one day, one gaffe.

    To start with, what president flees from his people in the time of crisis?  When the marchers announced their intentions, Mbu Joseph Mbu, peculiar former commissioner of Police (CP) for Rivers but now CP for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), sprang on the double to ensure the citizens never met their president.  Was the CP doing his police-security duties or reverting to his Rivers role as Chief Politician (CP) in uniform?

    Whatever was it, hurting Nigerians that gave Jonathan his much crowed about “pan-Nigeria mandate” have suddenly become too dangerous to see their president.  Chai, there is God o!

    The same president that cannot receive citizens in his fortified Abuja — for security reasons — cannot also go to empathise with distraught parents in Chibok. The president, of course, didn’t have to go to Chibok.

    The girls are not there, silly! They are in Boko Haram’s mine-rigged Sambisa Forest.  So, what would the president go to Chibok to do? And even if he hugs or clutches the parents, quaking with tears, and rolling on the ground, would that conjure up the girls?  Nigerians must thank Jonathan for that wise presidential reminder!

    That jungle is too dangerous for the commander-in-chief.  But how about the citizens that still call that place home?  Well, they are on their own — after all, even the commander-in-chief has voted with his feet!  Chai, there is God o!

    With that clear hint, the C-in-C was, of course, free to display his might abroad, sharing champaign — not “bloods” — at the Zuma second term inauguration in South Africa: only to be reminded of the Chibok affair at home! But Reuben Abati has said his principal was cheered, not jeered in the land of Nelson Mandela.  Hardball believes him!

    Shekau the lunatic that leads Boko Haram, the band of murderous loonies, might indeed be delusional. But it would appear he is not delusional enough. By Jonathan’s presidential charter, he is now the president and his deranged band the parliament. The duo are the ones Nigerians signed a social contract with in 2011 — or why else would the purported president direct protesters to Boko Haram?

    So, when next you want to march, o patriots, head for Sambisa Forest. There, President Shekau and Parliament Boko Haram would give you a prompt answer.

    Chai, there is God o!

     

  • ‘Offend’ and be damned

    It is the eternal lot of the journalist in Nigeria to suffer image problem and poor self esteem. Though we are touted to be of the Fourth Estate of the realm, that claim is either a huge joke or the worst self delusion ever invented for most journalists cannot boast of a tin roof, not to talk of an entire estate. While half of Nigerians would probably vote the press and its practitioners as necessary evil, the other half would surmise it is an unnecessary evil. But evil it is either way. Thus though the press is tolerated, used and even abused, there is a subterranean disdain for the media, especially among the new, cabalistic elite of today. While an erstwhile president of the United States famously said he would rather have the press than the senate, Nigeria’s ruling elite of today will gladly abolish the press and go to bed with the senate (no ‘offence’ intended!).

    The above rigmarole of an introduction is an attempt to surmise the thinking of the National Conference administrators when they threatened they would withdraw the accreditation granted to a media house for the covering of the talk-shop if it proves to be ‘antagonistic’ during the course of the confab. This threat is contained under Order 14 – Miscellaneous of the National Conference Procedure rules, 2014. To quote from the rule books, “The Conference may withdraw approval to the representative of any media to attend the sitting of the conference if the medium publishes a report on the proceedings which the Conference considers unfair, offensive and not a true reflection of what transpired.”

    Hardball insists that this is an outright gag and intimidation of the press and asks that this Order 14 must be expunged immediately from the confab’s Procedure Rules. It is unacceptable that the media is being singled out here for harangue, intimidation and bating. If the confab could do without the press, well and good, the entire independent press would stay away. Otherwise, the press must be allowed to participate on its own terms, according to its professional dictates and without being limited or shackled.

    This is neither the first conference nor biggest national event ever to be covered by media houses in Nigeria and never had a special rule of engagement been drawn for the media. The administrators may also be overreaching itself a little to think that it can bar the press or that it reserves the right to accredit the press to cover the conference. The press, especially Nigerians, need no accreditation whatsoever to report the conference. Let us not forget that the entire junket is being bankrolled by tax payers and that automatically gives us all entry tickets to the confab under the law to play our legitimate roles.

    Finally, what constitutes an unfair or offensive report? Who determines it? What does the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria admonish in a situation like this? Why do we split hairs about ‘unfair’ ‘untrue’ and ‘offensive’ reports? Is our media law not replete with prescriptions, charges, punishments and even remedies for sloppy, poor and willfully malicious reporting? While we await the confab’s rethink of Order 14, let it be noted that should this one too fail, it would not be due to ‘offensive’ reporting.

  • Semanticizing corruption

    Hardball will start this note with a quick digression, which is: thank heavens that corruption is not being politicised by the politicians. As you may already know, every issue of public concern has been converted into a matter of hot electoral contention between the two leading political parties. Even matters of life and death and the abduction of little girls are being viewed by all from an electoral Perspex.

    We are however relieved that it is not so for corruption in Nigeria. Regardless of the fact that Nigeria still maintains her pride of place among the leading nations in the world corruption table, nobody has been accused of politicising corruption. Even though we all tend to agree that corruption is the monster trying to upend this very house of ours, it has not become an instrument of serious political machination, overt or covert.

    As you may have guessed, however, corruption is being glowingly semanticized and going by the very high quarters from which this hardy distinction is being made, we may soon bequeath the world with a special lexicon on corruption. Recall that it was no other personage than President Goodluck Jonathan who told us during a live television chat that there is no corruption in Nigeria but mere stealing. A baffled world still had its mouth agape when Mr. President got a validation to his thesis from a most distinguished quarter.

    It was from no mean a personality than Mr. Ekpo Nta, chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, ICPC. Nta of gray eminence, signposted by his billowing white hair and beard, took Nigerians through some English Language lessons recently. Speaking when members of the Council of Registered Engineers of Nigeria (COREN) visited his office in Abuja recently, Nta made it known that Nigerians,including supposedly educated ones, cannot distinguish between corruption and stealing.

    Hear him: “Stealing is erroneously reported as corruption. We must go back to what we were taught at school to show that there are educated people in Nigeria. We must address issues as we were taught in school to do.” Though he did not favour us with further elucidation or definition, he merely drilled home his point with a telling analogy. He likened the mistake of referring to theft as corruption to the layman’s error of calling a roadside mechanic an engineer.

    To Mr. Nta’s position, which naturally aligns with his boss’, Hardball would have been happy to just say “Hmm”; which as the legendary Fela sang, “that the question has eaten up its answer”. Or if you prefer Wole Soyinka’s interpretation and I paraphrase: that the proposition has swallowed its position. But we must not keep quiet in the face of semantic tyranny lest they brand us cowards. We must carry this inglorious fight to their corner by letting our dear Chairman Nta know that when two brawlers start throwing sand at each other, it only means they are battle-weary.

    It appears Mr. Nta is tired of this corruption thing so he chooses to be a lecturer.  Since he and his boss seem to love thieves, how many real corrupters has he caught? Lastly, if he thinks a thief in a system does not pervert and debase such a system, then Hardball prays someone steals his next subvention. That sure would corrupt his commission, won’t it?

  • Bluffing will not bring back our girls

    It is double cause for concern that over 200 schoolgirls abducted by the Islamist terror group Boko Haram in Chibok, Borno State, have remained in captivity since April 15; and more importantly, the Jonathan presidency is yet to address the grave issue with reassuring decisiveness. It is noteworthy that Abubakar Shekau, the militia’s notorious leader, has spelt out conditions for the release of the kidnapped students of the Girls Senior Secondary School, Chibok.  He said : “All I’m saying is, if you want us to release your girls that we kidnapped, you must release our brethren that are held in Borno, Yobe, Kano, Kaduna, Enugu and Lagos states, as well as Abuja. We know that you have incarcerated our brethren all over this country…We will never release them until our brethren are released.”

    Shekau’s words were unambiguous enough, which is why it is puzzling that the Federal Government’s response presents a picture of unhelpful ambiguity. The nearest to an official reaction by the government came through a third party, namely, British Africa Minister Mark Simmonds who gave a clue to President Goodluck Jonathan’s thinking after a meeting in Abuja to discuss an international rescue mission linked with the kidnap, which has attracted worldwide outrage and  condemnation. The BBC quoted Simmonds as saying in respect of Jonathan, “He made it clear that there will be no negotiation with Boko Haram that involves a swap of abducted schoolgirls for prisoners.”

    There has been no contradiction from official quarters, which is not only food for thought but also raises a logical question as to the government’s plan, if any, to get the girls back alive. Perhaps the administration needs to be reminded that it is battling with a murderous group, which has again and again proved to be unpredictable. The inescapable implication is that the government may be running out of time to secure the girls’ freedom, and would need to act expeditiously to prevent the group from possibly having a rethink that might not favour releasing them.

    Understandably, Jonathan is most likely anxious to avoid being perceived as  vulnerable to bullying tactics, particularly against the background that he has often been criticised by the country’s political opposition for alleged weak leadership. However, this is a wrong occasion for him to attempt to change that perception, which may indeed be valid.

    Moreover, given that the concept and practice of prisoner exchange or prisoner swap are not strange, yielding to the idea may not be a bad idea.  Of relevance to the country’s situation is the model of Humanitarian Exchange or Humanitarian Accord popularised by the experience of Colombia in which the government reached an agreement with guerillas to swap prisoners for hostages, an idea that was pushed by the families of the captives.  It is easy to imagine that in the Chibok case the affected families, if not the empathetic public, would readily endorse such arrangement.

    In case Jonathan does not understand, it would be a demonstration of strength to ensure that the girls are brought back alive, no matter the cost. This is not the time for bluffing.

  • Chibok: the Fixer roars

    On Chibok, and its handling and mishandling, the Fixer has roared:  no Nigerian, unborn, born or dead, could have done better than the wobbling Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. But of course! Who would droning flies back except the one with septic, smelly wound?

    “Jonathan can’t resign over Chibok girls, says Anenih” goes the headline.  Tony Anenih, the chair, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Board of Trustees (BOT), has spoken.  Any other sentiment outside that is unpatriotic. That is patriotic Anenih-logic for you. But didn’t another school declare patriotism as the last bastion of the scoundrel?

    Chief Anenih’s Kenya-Nigeria contrast is even more instructive. He contrasted the terrorists’ attack on a shopping mall in Kenya and how Kenyans stood solidly behind their president, Uhuru Kenyatta, to how the Nigerian opposition allegedly plays politics with how President Jonathan is handling the current Chibok crisis.

    To be sure, it is unfortunate to play politics with national angst, particularly the Chibok girls and their hurting parents. If true, that would be unfortunate and well and truly condemnable.

    But is it?  Nigerians are discerning enough to provide their own answers, beyond cheap sentimentality.

    But another question, the Fixer himself might want to answer: did Jonathan handle the Chibok girls’ kidnap crisis as sure-footedly, as intelligent and as compassionate as Kenyatta handled the Kenya mall blast? Did Jonathan inspire any confidence, with his scandalous dither and executive doubt until two weeks after the kidnap?

    If he did, who started politicising the crisis: is it an un-presidential president who in his paranoia abandoned his sacred duty to citizens, blaming some phantom opposition for his crass incompetence?

    Or the so-called opposition whose outrage eventually forced him to do the job he is being paid at a premium?  O, on this score, the “opposition” may well be concerned and outraged  Nigerians and the global community who stood as one to compel Jonathan to do his job.

    Of course, Chief Anenih, since as defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP) national chairman, helped to swap his party’s presidential mandate for a sterile interim national government, has hardly stood for anything worth crowing about in Nigerian politics.

    As he declared fumbling Jonathan excellent, he fully backed Lucky Igbinedion, whose tenure as Edo State governor is best forgotten, for doing an excellent job, even if that tenure was a clear disaster.  Incidentally, Anenih was one of two persons — the other being Lucky’s father, the Esama of Benin — who the former governor claimed he was borrowing money from to run the state. Strangely enough, Lucky’s pronounced bankruptcy of Edo vanished the moment his successor — not the professorial stop-gap but the real successor, Adams Oshiomhole — won back his stolen mandate.

    Of course, Sam Nda-Isaiah, former chairman of Leadership newspaper, once in an open and widely read letter to Anenih, declared the PDP BOT  chair would endorse any character in government. It was an Anenih rebuke gone sour.  Still, even Sam’s heroics falls spat in Anenih’s classification: he is “unpatriotic opposition”, being an APC partisan!

    Jonathan’s incompetence is clear and proven — whether Anenih likes it or not. No false patriotism change the situation.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Things men say for power

    For anyone who cares to know, Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi keeps accusing the Supervising Minister of Education, Nyesom Wike, of betrayal; and it isn’t difficult to understand why he feels so disappointed. Amaechi claims credit for recommending him to President Goodluck Jonathan for ministerial appointment, which Wike denies, even though certain facts would appear to suggest the plausibility of the assertion. In particular, they are both of Ikwerre ethnicity and Wike was Chief of Staff, Government House, Port Hacourt, and doubled as the Director-General of the Amaechi Campaign Organisation in 2011, which makes it believable, as the governor has claimed, that he sought his endorsement for the position of minister.
    It is thought-provoking that after Wike’s ministerial dream came true and he was appointed as the Minister of State for Education, he ended up on Jonathan’s side in the power clash that parted Amaechi and the president. It is noteworthy that the face-off between Amaechi and Wike was apparently compounded by the latter’s 2015 governorship ambition, which the former opposed with the argument that the state’s ethnic diversity required that other tribal groups be encouraged to produce the next governor.
    Interestingly, during a recent visit to Amaechi by the Supreme Council of Ikwerre Traditional Rulers, he went into detail on the background to Wike’s ministerial ascension, and made allegations that are food for thought. According to Amaechi, “Wike swore with the names of his children that he would never betray me, that I should put his name forward for ministerial appointment. I asked him to swear with the names of his children, which he did.”
    It may be unclear why Amaechi adopted the mentioned approach; but more importantly, Wike’s reported cooperation is an enlightening study in the things men do for power, or more precisely, the things men say for power. Disappointingly, Amaechi stopped short of further amplification, such as providing insight into the particularities of Wike’s alleged oath of allegiance, especially the evils he possibly wished upon his children should he break his vow. Such information would have added welcome colour to the account. Nevertheless, the picture sufficiently portrays the nature of behind-the-scenes activities in the country’s power loop, even though this is most likely to be a tip of the iceberg.
    There is a significant observation to be made in connection with Wike’s denial of Amaechi’s position that he proposed him to the president, which is that it does not necessarily mean that the oath incident described by the governor never happened. If it truly did, what better illustration of his desperation can you get? What is more, if it did, and Wike has turned out to be a betrayer as Amaechi alleged and probably supported by reality, what better indication of unprincipledness can you get?
    To extrapolate, it shouldn’t be difficult to imagine how an individual with such apparent lack of honour for his own words would treat his oath of office either as minister or governor.