“Name anything bad in man and it is precisely in the soil of political struggle that it grows with particular liveliness and abundance”.-Maxim Gorky?
Port Harcourt, the Garden City, Capital of Rivers state, Nigeria is in a state of katzenjammer resulting from the gourmandism of the political actors in the state. The appetite of these actors is being serviced by a rakish and decadent political system that precludes the rule of law that is supposed to be the quintessence of any democracy.
The Rivers State embattled Governor, Similaya Fubara, and his team in Port Harcourt have been prolonging their headaches by refusing to take the correct analgesic. All their energies are on battling Nysom Wike, who derives his oxygen from somebody. No ex-governor can successfully torment an incumbent governor the way Rivers state Governor is facing today unless supported by a superior power, the Presidency.
The reason why governors are indispensable in their states is because as the saying goes, goats follow the man with the palm fronds. Therefore, if the goats in Rivers state are refusing to follow the man with the palm fronds who happens to be Governor Fubara, they must have been privy and apprised of another person carrying even greener palm fronds. Twenty-five out of thirty-two legislators and the majority of the local Government Chairmen in Rivers cannot overlook their governor and even abuse him publicly for nothing, they must have been adequately assured of greener pastures.
The person who offers and provides these greener pastures is the real enemy that Fubara and Rivers people should focus on. If Governor Fubara sacks somebody today and the person gets a juicer job the next day what other signs do you need to know where your problem is coming from?
Firefighters advise that when you have a fire challenge, always try and locate the base or the source of the fire as quenching the flame may bring it down but will not eliminate it. What Governor Fubara and his team in Port Harcourt are doing is fighting the flame that is Wike. The base and source remain President Bola Ahmed Tinubu who holds the knob on Wike.
Perhaps Governor Fubara was the one who boxed himself into this very needless corner when he misread the crisis and put his destiny in the hands of his enemy unknowingly by going to Aso Rock to make peace accord with an agenda drawn by his political predators.
The Rivers state legislators and local Government Chairmen refused to follow their governor because they were enjoying the cover of a bigger raincoat which Fubara and his spin doctors ought to know and understand that Wike is a trusted political adjutant to Tinubu.
And to also know that for Wike, if hurting the state to keep himself pertinent, closely connected, and appropriate to the system why not? Why should Wike mercy anybody who is trying to obstruct his devious and disingenuous act for his master?
Governor Fubara is just realizing that he has a choice to make, either to follow Wike blindly or confront him frontally. Luckily for the governor, public opinion and law are favourable to him but he should not rely on that alone while dealing with two political guerrillas like Wike and Tinubu. The duo are oracles in grab-and-run politics? Already they have tactically reduced Fubara’s legal chances by deluding him into an unconstitutional peace agreement.
What is worth noting in all the Rivers brouhaha is that Rivers state people are collaterally responsible for the situation having indirectly fueled most crises in the state by compromise. Since this political dispensation in 1999, no state has produced more political drama than Rivers State.
This is one state that has allowed the oil money they make through the 13% derivation to affect their political behaviors negatively. It’s one of the few states that has maintained one political party ruling it since 1999 yet it has not failed to be at the forefront of every political crisis in the country.
Today, it would be difficult in the real sense of it to decipher which of the front three top political parties in the country, the APC, the PDP, or the Labour Party are in charge in the state.
The incumbent Governor is supposed to be of the PDP, but even he cannot sincerely say which party he belongs to realistically speaking. The grassroots support he enjoys today is mostly of the Obidient Movement. Members of PDP in the state are divided into two, one led by the former Governor and Minister of the FCT who are APC at heart but PDP in body, and the other led by the Governor, who is also one leg elsewhere and another in PDP. That tells a lot about the future of PDP in that state all necessitated by the endless crisis driven by inordinate ambitions.
The main opposition party in the state, the APC led by the former Governor, Hon Rotimi Amaechi exists in the state skeletally as a party whose body has been taken over by Wike’s PDP.
So, politically speaking, three parties are ruling Rivers state remotely today, and who among them eventually takes center stage will depend on how the current political uproar in the state eventuates.
If for instance, Wike utilizes the support of Aso Rock to bulldoze Fubara out, then APC will have its way going forward. But if Fubara survives and retains his position he would decide between APC, Labour, and PDP where to go depending on the electoral potentials ahead. But the question is, why is Rivers state like this, a money-miss-road state kind of attitude? Why can’t they have peace?
This is what this conversation intends to unravel. Is it in the character and DNA of the people and their leaders? What really is their problem? What are they practicing – ‘moneyocacy’ or democracy? Follow me as we unveil the genesis of this persisting crisis in Rivers State that is largely engineered by ambition.
At the center of all the political impasse in Rivers State is the ambitions of their leaders. Since 1999, all Governors in the state have allowed their Presidential ambition to determine and control their political behaviors.
Dr Peter Odili, Rivers state Governor from 1999 to 2007, did not hide his desire to be President and he was almost getting it until blackmailers did their job on him before the man with the yam and the knife then, President Olusegun Obasanjo changed direction. The Rivers state resources that went into that project cannot be quantified.
Then came Rotimi Amaechi, Rivers State governor from 2007 to 2015 whose ambition also was unhidden. He could not get it but invested Rivers money heavily in the man who later became, General Muhammadu Buhari and that fetched him a Ministerial position for nearly eight years.
Then came the crisis genius, Bar Wike, Rivers Governor from 2015 to 2023 whose ambitious intoxication was of the highest grade. In 2018, he embarked on what he called the Rivers project, to single-handedly sponsor and deliver then Governor of Sokoto state, Aminu Tambuwal as the Presidential flag bearer of the PDP for 2019 with a view of him emerging as his running mate.
The National Convention of PDP was even taken to Port Harcourt to ensure a hitch-free agenda. But the former Vice President Atiku Abubakar took the ticket and picked Peter Obi as his running mate. That was Wike’s first baptism of what national politics was like. The river resources that went into it were enormous, to say the least.
But rather than get downcast and discouraged, Wike was instead fired up to realize his ambition of either President or Vice in 2023. He virtually appropriated his party the PDP for this purpose and was pumping in money to every corner of the polity. In a desperate move to impress the Caliphate, after sponsoring Tambuwal in 2018, he still dolled out half a billion naira to a local market that got burnt in Sokoto and another N200m each to Kaduna and Benue IDP camps and N300m and N200m respectively to wives of public officers in Lagos and Ondo states, etc.
In a further move to clear the way, virtually all political personalities especially in PDP were on heavy payroll for Rivers money while who was who in Nigeria visited Rivers state to commission projects, and each got spoilt with Rivers largesse.
Wike injected further crisis in his PDP to create room for his ambition of either a Presidential or Vice Presidential ticket for 2023. But as it happened in 2018 Atiku defeated him this time significantly helped by two of his old allies, Tambuwal and Prof Iyorchia Ayu who was brought in by Wike to be the National Chairman of the party to replace his brother, Prince Uche Secondus who he felt was an obstacle to his dream.
Having failed woefully twice to get the needed recognition nationally, Wike decided to unmask his feelings and went on headlong to establish his mendacious G.5 PDP Governors. First, he wore the garb of fighting for a Southern President but weakened it by his desperation to get the Vice Presidential ticket of the party. Having failed he found an ally in another party’s flag bearer Bola Tinubu of the APC ostensibly to undermine his party.
In all these, only God can quantify the enormity of Rivers state resources that have gone into political crisis engineered by the ambition of their governors at any given time. Governor Fubara who appears to be the only apolitical governor in the state, is already being punished for his posture of refusing to use Rivers money to nurture the ambition of the man who brought him.
Wike is publicly regretting bringing Fubara and calls it a huge political mistake he hopes to correct soon. We recall that Odili also regretted bringing Amaechi and of course, Amaechi is still regretting even knowing someone called Wike and recommending him to Goodluck Jonathan for the Ministerial position. What a state?
Even as we speak, Rivers state wealth is still being thrown away to outsiders in a desperate bid to get political power control.
From Odili to Fubara, Rivers state ground is bleeding with the amount of their commonwealth frittered away by their leaders outside the state in pursuit of elusive ambition. Turning a garden city into a sharing jungle city vertically divided by politics. God help us.