Last week, it was reported that a distraught sea shark was
washed ashore a Lagos beach. The poor animal did not reckon with the country it ventured into. Before it could realise its fatal error, sundry thieves, hungry men, homeless fellows, wandering bandits and ignorant neighbours have gathered and were helping themselves from the ‘manna from the sea’. After all, like aja ogbanje, or the abiku sacrifice, the washed up animal belonged to nobody, and so any person who has the courage was welcomed to the deathly feast. It was with such intense desperation, that members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) fought for the soul of their party last Saturday, at the Eagle Square, Abuja. Again, farther up north, political desperados where out with their knives butchering our constitution in Taraba state crisis.
If the shark had landed in a saner environment, the country’s environmentalist would have gathered to help steer the poor thing back to its habitat; or at least mourn the mishap and worry about the desperate and ignorant hackers. But this is Nigeria. Unfortunately, our country’s resources is treated not differently from the unfortunate shark, and what happened in Abuja last week was a show of the acute desperation between the desperados that have been helping themselves unhindered to the ownerless Nigeria. As the leaders of the PDP have boasted several times, there is a greater intensity in the internal struggle for the control of their party than in the actual election. And the reason is simple.
It is a common practice among these hackers masquerading as politicians that when a candidate wins the party primary of the ruling party, the party would provide the cudgels to hack the system apart, while the party go ahead to rig their candidate into office. But who knows, the impeding decimation of the amorphous sea animal called the PDP, may make the political environment safer. While awaiting the benefits of the tectonic political upheavals across the political space, it is interesting to appreciate the variant forces at play, particularly in the PDP. Check out the disparate amalgam, known as the ‘new PDP’. Their new leader Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has under his wings Governors Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu, Murtala Nyako, Sule Lamido, Rabiu Kwankwaso and Aliyu Wamakko who are all General Olusegun Obasanjo’s political apologists. Now remember that Atiku Abubakar and his erstwhile principal, Obasanjo are sworn political enemies. At the rear of the splinter group are Abdulfatah Ahmed who is beholden to his godfather, Senator Olusola, and Governor Rotimi Amaechi, who is oscillating as man alone.
The men and women they left behind in the ‘old PDP’ are also desperate and disparate bedfellows. Check out the leaders; President Goodluck Jonathan, Chief Tony Anenih, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, Chief Edwin Clark, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, Dame Patience Goodluck and the motley of governors mainly in the South-East, South-South and North-central. Interesting on the day the new apparition appeared, this paper carried an interview where President Jonathan’s new godfather, Chief Clark, was raining abuses on General Obasanjo, the retiring godfather of President Jonathan, for his maneuvres over who flies the party’s presidential flag in 2015. So, obviously all that is at stake for these political scavenging is not about how to help Nigeria to its feet; rather, it about being at the most vantage position and having the best cudgel to cut the best part of the country’s resources.
No doubt, it is the same desperation that has hitched the major political actors against one another in Taraba State. To be at the driver’s seat, the hackers in that state now treat the constitution upon which their legitimacy depends, as an ordinary piece of paper. But we must remind the dramatis personae and even the commentators that it is in the overall interest of our country and Taraba in particular, that, there are enough provisions in the constitution to bring the orchestrated debacle in Taraba state to an honourable end. Talking of honour, what is ordinarily expected of a sick man like Governor Suntai is for him to talk a leave from his position and go to the hospital for treatment and after that, if it is necessary, take a leave to rest to ensure full recovery. But the holders of political offices in Nigeria are not a gang of workers, and Suntai knows. They are hackers, unconscionably hacking away the common resources put in their care, and that is why Governor Suntai, his deputy Garba Umar and the Speaker of the state House of Assembly are desperately seeking a hold of the vantage position of the state governor. It has nothing to do with the interest of the people of Taraba.
In the circumstance, the law should come to our aid. In my humble view, Governor Suntai has fulfilled the requirement of Section 190(2) of the 1999 constitution as amended, by transmitting “a letter to the speaker that he is now available to resume his functions as Governor”. Unfortunately, the constitution did not give the legislature any say upon receiving the letter. But where as alleged by those seeking to take over the state, the letter to the speaker was forged, the constitution provides under Section 188 that the Governor of the state can be removed from office “for gross misconduct in the performance of the functions of his office”. In the present circumstance, if they can substantiate that the purported signature on the letter to the speaker was forged; that clearly constitutes gross misconduct on Governor Suntai’s part, for which an impeachment process should be initiated against him. Unfortunately, the actors are all desperate, and riding roughshod over the constitution is all fair for these hackers.
