In Nigeria, being good, upright, truthful and forthright could be a bad idea especially if you are in public office. It has also emerged in the past few years in our country that dictatorship, high-handedness, intolerance and vindictiveness can lice successfully with democracy, albeit, Nigeria’s brand of democracy. And where you have all these in abundance as is the case here, cronyism, nepotism, incompetence et al become the order of the day with corruption reigning supreme.
To understand what I am talking about, let’s take a look at the on going face-off between Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers state and ‘Oga and Madam at the top’ in Abuja’ President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan.
In between, throw a certain character called Nyesom Wike, who sits in cabinet with President Jonathan as Nigeria’s Minister of State for Education, but who in reality is a tool in the hands of Madam and does all the dirty jobs for the First Family, including trying to destabilise the Rivers State government to soften the ground for Madam, an Okrika from Rivers State, to have her boy installed as the governor of the state now or sometime in 2015. All these geared towards getting Rivers State and its two million or so votes in Jonathan’s corner in the 2015 presidential election.
Rivers votes have always been crucial to winning a presidential election in Nigeria. I recall as a teenager in the second republic how votes from the old Rivers State tilted the balance in favor of Alhaji Shehu Shagari of the then National Party of Nigeria (NPN). Glued to my father’s radio, I was monitoring the result of the 1979 presidential election state by state as being announced by the then Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO).
With most of the result out, Chief Obafemi Awolowo of the then Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) was in the lead with over four million votes closely followed by Shagari, and optimism was in the air, especially in the old western region that Awolowo was on course to clinching the country’s presidency. But overnight the picture changed when the result from Rivers State was released and NPN got over one million votes and catapulted Shagari to over five million votes. That put paid to Awolowo’s presidential ambition that year and the result put Rivers State as a must win for any presidential candidate in Nigeria.
That trend has not changed as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the successor to NPN has consistently benefited from this solid backing from Rivers since the advent of this democracy, up to the 2011 presidential election that brought in President Goodluck Jonathan.
Rightly or wrongly, however, the Jonathan camp believes that could change in 2015 if Governor Rotimi Amaechi is not in their camp in the run up to the next presidential election. And it does appear to them that the governor’s body language is not in sync with their 2015 ambition. This, those close to the governor say is not true as Amaechi is totally committed to not just the PDP but also the Jonathan presidency both now and post 2015 election.
The problems they say are the people around the president (read my lips, Nyesom Wike & co) who would rather create a gulf between Jonathan and Amaechi for their own selfish ends. They say the President and Governor Amaechi used to be in the same corner right from Jonathan’s days as Vice President to late President Umar Yar’Adua. And amidst opposition to Jonathan elevation to the position of acting President when Yar’Adua took ill, Amaechi it was said stood by the man from Otuoke, and finally when he ascended the presidency and later ran for election in 2011, the governor delivered Rivers votes to the president. So, at what point did their “quarrel” start?
It is very difficult to say the two are quarreling as both have denied this, but it will also be playing the fool to say all is well between them. All that can be said about the unease between them is that it doesn’t bode well for Rivers State on one hand and our democracy on the other hand. While both have refused to acknowledge it, their seeming quarrel can not but be related to the 2015 presidential election. Jonathan believes rightly or wrongly that Amaechi plans to team up with a presidential candidate, most likely from the north, to challenge him in the coming presidential election. And the governor has vehemently denied this, both in private and publicly. He had even gone on the record to say Jonathan is a good man and means well for the country, but that the president is surrounded by some “bad” people.
This is what everybody close to the President seem to be saying, but not a few Nigerians are confused when they hear this as President Jonathan has not convinced them that he is nice or meant well for the country. And examples abound to prove their point.
Jonathan, apparently driven by determination to return to office in 2015, from recent events and actions of the Federal government, doesn’t seem to believe Amaechi. The governor it does seem from the point of view of the president must be muzzled or bullied to tow the line or punished if he refused.
If recent events are anything to go by, then the punishment option appear to have been taken by the Jonathan camp even when there is little or no evidence to suggest that Amaechi is against the President’s 2015 project.
Remember the on going feud between Rivers and Bayelsa States over disputed oil field along their border in the Kalabari area? Not a few in Rivers State believe this was punishment on the people for the “sins” of Amaechi. Similarly oil fields have been ceded from Rivers to Akwa Ibom State in what many believe to be compensation for Governor Akpabio’s support for the president.
Other punishments bordering on security and even economic matters have been meted out to Rivers all in a bid to show Amaechi ‘we have the federal might’.
Directly the presidency is fighting to ensure that Amaechi does not return as chairman Nigeria Governors Forum when the Forum elects new officers in a few weeks time. Why you may want to know?
Amaechi as Chairman of the Forum has been speaking the minds of his colleagues especially on the vexed issues of excess crude account, sovereign wealth fund, true federalism, fuel subsidy and so on to a presidency that doesn’t seem to want to listen. For speaking truth to power on behalf of his colleagues, the presidency wants him out as NGF chairman and have been using the Governors of Benue, Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, expectedly Bayelsa states and to some extent Katsina State to cause trouble for Amaechi in the NGF.
We all know the story of the creation of the PDP Governors Forum, to frustrate the Rivers State Governor, even when both the PDP and Governor Akpabio, the PDPGF chairman, have denied it.
The story of insecurity of lives and property in Rivers State prior to the coming on board of the Amaechi administration is well known, so also is how the Governor has successfully restored peace to his domain. Part of the measures was to spend millions of Naira to equip the security forces deployed in the State. But while the security forces were grateful, their masters in Abuja appear less so. As we write, two armoured helicopters meant for security operations in Rivers state and environs, fully paid for by the state government have been denied clearance at the port in Lagos by the federal government who believe (wrongly) the choppers are meant for the so called Lamido/Amaechi 2015 project, which only exists in the imagination of the presidency. You can see how there minds work in Abuja. These are equipments that can be used to fight terrorism anywhere in Nigeria.
To cap it all, the war on Amaechi by Jonathan’s Federal Government has been taken to the ridiculous level of impounding the governor’s official aircraft for allegedly violating aviation rules and regulations.
Having covered the aviation beat for years, I know the powers invested in the regulatory authorities and as such would not pick issues yet with the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) over their actions regarding that aircraft. But they had better be on solid ground else they would be dragged into the political mess by Jonathan and be disgraced.
Amaechi, we all know cannot be kept quite and will continue to say the truth. And as long as he continues to deliver the dividends of democracy to his people, he will always triumph, no matter the odds. He has gone through this before and emerged victorious. His current travail this will not be an exception. He should be patient.
President Goodluck Jonathan is however advised to beware of his latter day friends, the Nyesom Wikes of this world.
