Port Harcourt: Present day
I opened the newspaper and the first headline that screamed at me was: “Senators set for battle over Ihceama”. It was the lead of The Country. The main actor of the story was a good friend of mine. We were close and did so many things together. All that ended as soon as I became a minister. I changed my boss and soon had to change loyalty too. My old boss and the immediate past one quarreled soon after I changed job.
Madam, my immediate past boss’s wife, was not happy with my old boss. I found myself in a deep blue sea and pitched my tent with my immediate past boss. Call it the game of survival and I had no qualms with that.
Reading through the story about the dilemma the whole Senate was thrown into over Ihceama, my old boss, made my heart skip. The whole drama was orchestrated by me and was I regretting it? Not really. The petition, the White Paper and other things that made his journey to becoming a minister difficult were all games; of course championed by me.
He was mean to me at some point; so, I saw nothing wrong in being mean to him too. He was always describing me as corrupt and not refined. He even called me a thug and said I was the commander of the cultists and other bad elements around. He was really mean to me and I had no choice but to give it back to him.
As I thought through how our relationship went from sweet to sour, the sun peeped in announcing its presence.
The time was 8:00 a.m. and I was not prepared to go to the office yet; an office I was not sure of not being kicked out of soon.
My daughter soon walked into the living room where I was reading The Country. We exchanged pleasantries. In no time, she grabbed a novel she had read part of the day before and continued reading. I looked at her and wondered if she was proud of me.
My mind soon wandered away. With mixed feeling, I floated to the past letting the present take care of itself.
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Accra, Ghana: 2007
The breeze from the poolside of the Labadi Royal Beach that Saturday afternoon was refreshing. There were ladies in different levels of nakedness. Many of them were white who had come to enjoy the sun in mother Africa. The sun was good for tanning.
I noticed a couple at a corner. Their countenance showed they were not having it good. Perhaps, they were in the beach hotel to see if they could work things out. They reminded me of a film about a couple who returned to the hotel where they met as a way of bringing back the spark. Were they here for the same reason? I had no way of knowing.
I had just come into Accra to meet Ihceama, a man I believed so much in and was pushing his quest to become governor with all of my heart. He was hibernating in Accra to escape possible attempt on his life. We did not want to give anything to chance while we were in court trying to straighten the ‘k-leg’ that stalled his mission to the Government House.
It was one of my frequent visits to Accra to brief him on happenings back home. Sitting on a camp bed beside me was Ihceama. After hours of debriefing in the room, we decided to come and savour the breeze by the poolside.
“Your leadership quality is amazing and it remains the reason I am with you and will remain with you. It matters not that we are age mates; but you are height above many of us when it comes to leadership qualities. You are just amazing and will come out victorious at the Supreme Court,” I told Ihceama.
The usual humble man that he was, he simply said: “Thank you, thank you.”
I was quick to add: “I am not saying this because you are here. No, I say this because I believe it, because I have seen you demonstrate leadership qualities I may never be able to demonstrate. I have tried to emulate you, but I have given up because I am simply not built that way. So, to make up for my shortcomings, I will stay around you to give me direction.”
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Port Harcourt: Present day
My daughter soon brought me back to the present when she called my attention to the live transmission of the screening of Ihceama on the television.
At last, my efforts to stop it had failed. As I was trying to make sense out of my failure this time around, Ihceama’s voice boomed in my ears.
“The President of the Senate, distinguished senators, I stand here before you with all sense of responsibility to tell you that I am not the man Ekiw is painting me to be. I certainly am not that and he knows. He is just playing politics, dirty politics, and the sort that should be consigned to the dustbin of history.
“I am a man who believes in the rule of law and that explains why I am always in and out of the courts. Let him allow the court to indict me and I will accept that. But indicting me through the backdoor is not the type I will just accept.
“As governor, I never fixed contract prices. It was an institutional process. I didn’t award contracts because there was a tenders’ board in place. They did market survey to get the price benchmark for these things. There was a process and we had consultants who checked these things periodically.
“I am not saying mistakes could not have been made. But, there was no deliberate attempt to shortchange our state as being insinuated. I will be the first to stand with the governor to correct mistakes if discovered. But I repeat, I did nothing to shortchange our people. I am not someone who is interested in rat race. I never was and will never be.”
I found myself muting the volume of the television at a point. My daughter, who had, by then abandoned the novel she was reading, looked at me and smiled; the sort that suggested she felt I was uncomfortable with Ihceama’s line of thought.
She soon walked out of the living room without saying a word. I guessed she was retiring to her room to go and continue listening to Ihceama’s submissions before the Senate.
Seeing him on television irritated me. As he spoke, my mind evoked a vision: I saw fire take over the green chamber, with people running helter and skelter. Some succeeded in getting out but Ihceama was consumed.
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Of course, there was no fire in the green chamber and Ihceama was confirmed a minister. I soon switched off the television and found myself wondering why this man always found his way out of tough situations. His confirmation whether I continued to deny it in the public or not, was a setback for me. It had added salt to my injury, especially with the tribunal set to rule on the petition against my election.
I thought of forgiveness on both parts and moving on, but the situation was so bad and we had both gone too far to call a truce. Things were really so bad, and in my view beyond repair because of several under-currents. But in view of the saying that when you go after someone always and he keeps getting out unscathed, then beat a retreat, reconciliation would have been the best thing. But how?
I had no answer. So, I smiled, looked up as if expecting God to provide an answer. I got none and simply walked out of the living room, headed to the office and hoping my political end was not here. I was prepared to give it everything it required to ensure there would be no more loss.