Rivers State: Government on furlough (1)

Those who think the current political happenings in Rivers State will bludgeon the governor of the state, Chibuike Amaechi, into some kind of acquiescence are sorely mistaken. This is so because the governor has nothing like fear in his DNA. Not as if he is so brave or such a man of great courage, but simply because he will not, and never thinks about consequences. Those who call him brash, arrogant and uncouth do so simply because they do not know him. These traits they describe did not just drop from the skies when he began his political career; that has been the persona of the governor.

I do not agree that the governor does not respect the president. I think he does. However, I perceive from my understanding of psychology that the governor has just not enough courtesy to pay to anyone, naturally; and man cannot give what he does not have. It is therefore unfair to expect the same level of composure and social compliance from every individual.

Through the scope of a psychoanalytic lens, all humans are described as having sexual and aggressive drives. Psychoanalytic theorists believe that human behaviour is deterministic. It is governed by irrational forces, and the unconscious, as well as instinctual and biological drives. Due to this deterministic nature, psychoanalytic theorists do not believe in free will. Legendry psychologist Sigmund Freud determined that the personality consists of three different elements, the id, the ego and the superego. He concluded that due to the instinctual quality of the id, it is impulsive and often unaware of implications of actions.

I have been till now more of an observer than a critic of Governor Chibuike Amaechi, not because his performance as governor has fascinated me, but because I believe his disruptive emergence as governor was by the finger of the Most High. The advantage of his entry mode is that the insignia of the Peter Odili administration had been stripped off by providence, and he rode majestically into the state on the high crest of the waves of anti-Odili sentiments. The people desperately yearned for that departure, so much so that the rumours of atmospherics between the governor and his estranged godfather excited the masses.

His early years as governor were marked with action, landmark stride in infrastructural development and effective social schemes targeted at the grassroots, and it was a significant break from the past. Amaechi was everywhere. He rode on his impressive power bike with the unmistakable verve of a typical ‘Port Harcourt boy’. He appeared in neighbourhoods unannounced, popped into local bars, restaurants and fast food kiosks for a meal with his usually small team of escorts. He personally supervised projects he had initiated in the state, and like a young man building his first little bungalow to impress a new wife, he was in a hurry. The expectation was very high, and so were the stakes. And candidly, in those years even his political adversaries had to be quiet.

Governor Amaechi’s vision for his state was clear and unambiguous, and he had the nerves to deliver. His zest was infectious, and in just a few months he had become some sort of local Bill Clinton. People wondered how he could have been speaker for eight years and was unable to sell this vision to Peter Odili. It was clear that he came in very prepared, and he had great social intercourse with the state. And so at the expiration of his first term, I voted for him for a second. He didn’t need to campaign.

On all counts of his political ascension, the governor had ridden on the back of political heavyweights and godfathers until his sudden victory at the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court verdict and the circumstances that drove Amaechi and his men to court changed the political landscape in the state. It was an instant funeral for all political godfathers in the state, and the making of an all-powerful governor, loyal to none. This was the beginning of albatross for the state, because as they say, absolute power, unchecked power, corrupts absolutely.

The absoluteness of his powers (with a very plastic legislative arm), his popularity induced by infrastructural transformation engineered by his administration coupled with his usually misinterpreted aggressive persona, transformed Amaechi into some sort of ‘Asiwaju’ of Rivers State. Dreaded by royal fathers, elders and politicians who fear his impudence and flippancy, the political space was set for a home run by the governor. It was an unchallenged home run that triggered complacency.

Being more of an activist, the governor has never been a gifted grassroots connector. The engine of his political machine was domiciled in the native wits of his right-hand man, Nyesom Wike. While Amaechi focused on delivering the dividends, Wike was the ‘native doctor’ responsible for servicing the political machine. Wike, like Okonkwo in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, grew in fame, and became known in all the political crevices of the state. But just after the inauguration of the governor for a second term, things fell apart, and the centre could no longer hold. Amaechi began to scan for the viruses in his political machine, but what he failed to understand was that the engine was gone.

It is sheer ignorance to idolise any party in the Rivers crises. They are one and the same family and variegated satellites of the political chess master and evil genius of Rivers politics, Peter Odili. Odili ran the state with his own set of Machiavellian rubric, and all his protégés have found a way to develop theirs. His political house was codified on concentric layers of betrayals and disloyalty, which spurned after the death of Marshal Harry.

Governor Amaechi’s Machiavellian methods are derived from the former. His is pitched on a haughty, unyielding and contumacious spirit. While these traits work for revolutionary activists, they seldom are productive for democrats.

The governor’s erratic outbursts range from the tacky to the jaw-dropping. The cascading support of stakeholders, especially of the Rivers-Ijaws, has deepened the chasm of the upland/riverine dichotomy in the state. It has degenerated to an embarrassing point that many Kalabari-Ijaw progressives in the state privately express support for the ceding of their (Soku) oil wells, which are duly Rivers’, to Bayelsa State (as long as Amaechi remains governor). For them, it is a political stroke that the governor deserves for ignoring their area in his development agenda. This move has a political consequence, but like the governor, right now, they simply do not care. 

Alabo-George writes from Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

Send reactions to:

comment@businessdayonline.