Tag: South-South

As the elections tribunals round off their activities across the country, many election results from the March 28, and April 11, elections, have been thrown into the trash can. It is all over the country, but the unfolding scenario is more precarious in the South-south geo-political zone of the country, where, a fortnight ago, the tables turned against the governors of both Akwa Ibom and Rivers states.

In Akwa Ibom, the state’s election petition tribunal invalidated the election results in 18 out of the 31 Local Government Areas in the state. Four days later, it was the turn of Rivers State where the election petition tribunal sacked Nyesom Wike as the governor and called for fresh election within 90 days. Few days later, the Supreme Court dismissed the case filed by Wike against the sitting of the tribunal that had, four days earlier, issued him a red card. As if this was not enough, the Rivers Election Petition Tribunal also sent 19 members of the Rivers State House of Assembly, who are mainly PDP members, packing.

In a month from now, precisely on December 5, election will take place in Bayelsa State where voters will elect a new governor. Seriake Dickson, the incumbent governor will slug it out with Timipre Sylva, a one-time governor of the state. While Dickson will be flying the PDP’s flag, Sylva will be flying the APC’s flag. It is not the first time both of them are going to the battlefield. Both are contesting for a second term as governor and they seem to have a balance of terror.

In all these elections, perhaps, it is the election that may come up in Rivers State that is most disturbing. First, Wike has gone to the Appeal Court to test the validity of the tribunal’s judgment. Assuming the Appeal Court upholds the judgment of the tribunal, the responsibility to decide who becomes governor between Nyesom Wike and Dakuku Peterside, will fall on the voters in the state. It will be the greatest fight ever between the PDP and the APC, the two political parties that are fiercely engaged in a supremacy war in the country.

For 16 good years, 1999 to 2015, the PDP dominated the political scene, while the other parties miserably trailed behind. It took the amalgamation of at least four other political parties to dislodge the PDP from its stranglehold on the nation. As it is well known, Rivers State is one of the economic arteries of the country and so, any party that controls the state automatically has access to its petro-dollars, notwithstanding the crumbling international oil prices.

The PDP’s loss of the presidency to the APC in the recent presidential election is one mystery that the party has found difficult to believe. And having lost the centre to the APC, the PDP would do anything to stave off a defeat by the APC in the coming election in Rivers. As a matter of fact, it is clear that neither the PDP nor the APC will let go, without giving a good fight. Already, the political scene in the state is very militarised and tense. And if the saying that when the going gets tough, only the toughest gets going is true, then Wike may as well have an edge over his opponent. Reason? Given the current political scenario in the state, only a politician that is rugged could withstand the prevailing political climate in the state. This is because it seems elections in Nigeria, are only meant for those who can dare.

At the moment, the killings and brigandage that attended the 2015 election in Rivers State is yet to abate. In most part of the state, people have been living in fear, the fear of the unknown. For instance, in Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Area, ONELGA, of Rivers State, widespread killing and destruction have become the order of the day since the beginning of the 2015 electioneering campaign. It is believed that the killings are perpetrated by some misguided elements within the communities, but no one is bold enough to come up with any clue and the security agents in the state are carrying on as if nothing is happening at all. The same thing is happening in Ahoada East, Ahoada West and Abua/Odual Local Government Areas, the four Local Governments that made up the former Ahoada Local Government Area, ALGA.

It is obvious that what is happening in these local governments is worse than the Boko Haram episode in some parts of north-eastern Nigeria. Just about a few weeks ago, the elders of Akabuka, one of the communities in Egi Clan of Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Area, met and a suggestion was made that they should go and talk to their children to stop the incessant killings, kidnappings and looting. That night, the hoodlums broke into one of the old men’s house and killed him. They further demanded that the immediate younger brother of the deceased should pay them a ransom or face the same fate.  It is estimated that no fewer than 100 persons have been gruesomely dispatched to the great beyond in the area since the outbreak of the violence. The most astonishing thing is that the killers are faceless and nobody seems to care, not even the security agencies.

Worst affected by the ongoing silent killings and destruction is Omoku, the headquarters of the local government where all the houses are almost empty as most of the residents have voted with their feet to avoid impending gruesome deaths in the hands of these roving merchants of death. In Omoku today, or in any other part of that local government, it has become almost a taboo for anybody to operate an electricity generator as the sound of any generator at all is an indirect invitation to death. In the past, Omoku was a bubbling commercial and industrial town, next only to Port Harcourt in terms of business opportunities. This was where most of the oil workers working with Total and Agip Oil companies operating in the area resided.

As a result of the disturbances, all the workers have relocated to Port Harcourt, Owerri, Benin City and other places where their safety could be guaranteed. Even those who have no jobs have deserted the areas for fear of losing their lives. At a point, the authorities of the Federal College of Education, Omoku and the Community Secondary School, Erema, had to forcibly close down when some unknown people came to demand for some money for settlement with the threat that if their demand was not met, they would resort to kidnapping the students and teachers. Since there was no money to pay to the faceless people, the schools promptly closed down to avert any ugly developments.

With a situation such as this, who can guarantee a free and fair election in Rivers State? From the prevailing scenario painted above, there is no doubt that people may have to vote with bullets rather than their thumbs if an election comes up in the state any time soon. That is the danger in having a rerun election in that state. I do not think the situation will be anything different in Bayelsa State in the election slated for December 5. The two states – Rivers and Bayelsa – have been known to be the hotbed of militancy and electoral violence for quite a long time. The same thing goes for Akwa Ibom State where the politicians may resort to violence to undo one another.

From the look of things, there is trouble, great trouble, in the horizon in the South-south of the country and the government should rise up to nip in the bud, the impending catastrophe that now stares the country in the face.

• Concluded.

The 2015 general election may have come and gone.  What remains now are the ripple effects of that election. The election was basically a two-horse thing: on the one hand was the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, the party that ruled the country like a behemoth for 16 years – 1999-2015; the other party is the All Progressives’ Congress, APC – an amalgamation of some political parties that came together in order to be able to uproot the dominant PDP at the 2015 elections

Though the APC achieved its aim by uprooting the PDP at the centre in the election, nevertheless, the party’s outing in the South-south geo-political zone was nothing to write home about. In that zone, the APC did not win any gubernatorial contest. Besides, in the presidential election where the party fielded Muhammadu Buhari, the incumbent president as its presidential candidate, the party also performed woefully. In the presidential election results in the South-south, while Goodluck Jonathan, the then president and PDP presidential candidate scored a total of 4, 714, 725, Buhari and the APC scored a miserable 418, 590 representing less than 10% of the total votes cast at the election.

The implication of this was that the South-south geo-political zone may have rejected the APC at the polls. But what Buhari lost in the South-south at that election was more than compensated for with the phenomenal votes he garnered in the North and South-west of the country. It was apparent that the 2015 election was characterized by all forms of electoral malpractices in all parts of the country. The only saving grace was that Nigerians were unanimously determined not to be driven to the precipice by the outcome of that election.

Now, the cookie seems to be crumbling and crumbling fast. Last week alone, the table turned against the governors of both Akwa Ibom and Rivers states. First was Akwa Ibom where the state’s election tribunal invalidated the election results in 18 out of the 31 Local Government Areas in the state. Barely four days later, the Rivers State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sacked Nyesom Wike  as the Rivers State governor and called for fresh election within 90 days. In neighbouring Bayelsa State, in the next few weeks, precisely on December 5, voters will troop to the polls to elect a new governor. The contest is between Seriake Dickson, the incumbent governor who is contesting on the ticket of the PDP, and Timipre Sylva, a former governor of the state and candidate of the APC. Both of them are contesting for a second term as governor.

Therefore, in the next few weeks and months, attention will be focused on the elections in the South-south geo-political zone of the country where the APC – the ruling party at the centre – will possibly put in everything to make in-road into the heart of South-south politics. The three afore-mentioned states – Akwa Ibom, Rivers and Bayelsa – are major oil-producing states in the country with huge petro-dollars. Perhaps, many observers of the politics of the South-south saw the shockers in both Akwa Ibom and Rivers states coming. To many, the tribunals’ verdicts were merely a confirmation of widespread allegations that the April 2015 governorship elections in the two states were tainted by widespread discrepancies and electoral malpractices.

From all indications, the battle ahead is Herculean as both the APC and PDP will be locked in a war of supremacy. In Akwa Ibom, Godswill Akpabio, the former governor, now a senator of the Federal Republic, has recently become a regular guest of one of the country’s anti-graft agencies on allegations of monumental financial misappropriation. He was instrumental in installing Emmanuel Udom, the incumbent governor of the state, in what is generally regarded as a clandestine way to plant a surrogate that would keep watch over his back and cover his tracks. In that case, the coming election in the 18 local government areas of the state, as ordered by the election tribunal, will be a do or die affair for Akpabio, a man believed to have amassed more than enough ‘war chest’ while in office, to be able to prosecute a successful election in the state. He will surely give the APC a good run for their money in that election if only to save himself from the clutches of the anti-graft agency that is now all over him.

Similarly, the result of the impending election in Rivers State may go either way. In the first instance, the two main gladiators in that state are Wike, the sitting governor and Rotimi Amaechi, the immediate past governor of the state. Amaechi is the backbone of Dakuku Peterside, the APC’s governorship candidate in Rivers. Both Amaechi and Wike were like five and six a few years ago, until politics tore them apart. In fact, those who are close to the duo, say, Wike was like Amaechi’s godfather, a Rock of Gibraltar of sort behind Amaechi’s exploits as a former governor of Rivers State. He was alleged to be Amaechi’s Man Friday until they fell out. Both men are said to be very conversant with the intrigues of power such that they know each others’ strength and weaknesses, a knowledge they will be ready to deploy to individual advantage. That is why the coming contest promises to be a battle royal.

The preponderance of opinion is that if care is not taken, Wike may outsmart Amaechi once again in the next election. But it all depends on the outcome of the Supreme Court judgment in the case filed by Wike against the sitting of the electoral tribunal that has now given him the red card. Added to this is the fact that in the last five months that Wike has been in office as governor, he has tried to demonstrate some semblance of leadership through some populist actions. These actions include, paying the salaries of university and judicial workers who were being owed several months salaries before he came into office as well as embarking on massive filling of pot holes on major roads in Port Harcourt. And contrary to the initial fears that his regime would witness the escalation of the activities of touts on the streets of Port Harcourt, he actually removed the Transport Marines otherwise known as T-Marines and replaced them with regular police. This move brought sanity to the otherwise chaotic traffic administration in the state.

As for Amaechi, his ‘opponent’, a good number of people believe he started well as governor and did well for the state particularly in his first term but inexplicably derailed during his second term. This was the time he acquired so many enemies and took several actions that did not go down well with people. Such actions include some of the properties he demolished like the Teaching Hospital that was demolished under the guise that a better monument would replace it but which has remained desolate till date.

Mention is also made of the cultural centre housing several halls and other conveniences which was demolished and acquired by Silverbird Group. People say that the Silverbird Cinema built on that land is nothing near the edifice that was originally there. The mono-rail project which his government spent so much on but which has led to nowhere is another sore point for the former governor. Above all, a good number of people are of the opinion that Peterside, the candidate of the APC, who had earlier slugged it out with Wike and will still face him again in the coming election, is more or less an Amaechi stooge who will continue his (Amaechi’s) agenda in Rivers State. And they may not want a return to the past which should better be forgotten.

• To be continued.