Rivers State: Government on furlough (2)
While Nyesom Wike helped buffer some of these political deficiencies by deftly managing the governor’s political base, the former national security adviser, late Andrew Owoye Azazi, helped manage the governor’s relationship with the president. Azazi, an intelligent military spy, understood the persona of the governor; he could tune the governor’s psychology. He understood that the governor was not a bad man, but one who needed plenty of time to manage, and Azazi gave him that time. Unfortunately, the president does not have that much time, the General is no more, and Wike has gone his own way.
As I write, the state ministries of health, environment and others are on strike because the governor has refused to shift his grounds; the state university is still in chaos, and ASUU chapter leaders revolting; his political platform, the Peoples Democratic Party, in the state is out of the governor’s control, and the governor himself has been suspended by a party he has sacrificed so much for. He has scores to settle with his benefactor, Odili, his former chief of staff, and most founding members of the party in state. What exactly could be wrong?
As speaker of the Rivers State House Assembly, the governor presided over the most peaceful assembly. He managed his relationship with every member of the legislature so well that they usually were unanimous in their votes. He was loyal to his party and to his boss Peter Odili; even when he disagreed with his governor, never did he question Governor Odili’s position in public. So when did his disloyalty begin?
The gradual erosion of the governor’s enigma in the state began just after his election as the chairman of the very influential Nigeria Governors’ Forum. While it offered the governor a national platform, it quickly became a major distraction for him. With all these responsibilities, one would have expected the governor to delegate certain crucial responsibilities to his deputy, Tele Ikuru – who by my estimation is the smartest technocrat in the Amaechi cabinet – but he didn’t. The impact of the governor’s absence began to reflect on the progress of his many laudable projects, especially with a severely sidelined and under-used deputy governor.
The beautiful modern health centres he started across the state are yet to be completed; the wonderful primary and secondary school buildings across the state are yet to be completed; the mega hospital started since the year of his inauguration is stalled; the monorail project is failing; the urban water scheme yet to take off; hundreds of roads in the city completely failed and sufficiently solicitous of rehabilitation; the trans-Kalabari road and several others have remained stalled, and have become puns for political bargaining.
In a space of twelve months the governor suspended 13 local government council chairmen (Okrika, Obio/Akpor, Andoni, Ikwerre, Akuku-Toru, Asari-Toru, Okrika, Ahoada-West, Ahoada-East, Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni, Opobo/Nkoro, Emohua and Ogu/Bolo) and the reasons put forward by the state government for the sacking, in all cases, were absolutely ridiculous.
The shameful incident at Rivers State House of Assembly is an ignominious and reprehensible indictment on the electoral process that begot those legislators and also shows the calibre of men (boys) that the governor and his former chief of staff Nyesom Wike imposed on the people of Rivers State. These two political gladiators handpicked these members when the going was good. Most of them (except the well-bred likes of Josiah Olu, Onari Brown, Otelemaba Amachree, Barikor Bariate, and Chigbo Eligwe) are inveterate thugs and intellectual invertebrates, lacking in core and substance.
Politics is about survival. And one way nations and presidents survive is by instilling fear in their adversaries. President Obama’s calm mien in the United States has not helped him much in towing his policies. Democratic senators have expressed their concern about Obama’s inability to effectively use traditional presidential whips.
In their masterpiece titled ‘Obama in the doldrums’, John F. Harris, Jake Sherman and Elizabeth Titus, political editors for Politico, revealed that a wide variety of congressional Democrats and presidential scholars in the United States have said in interviews that there is a major decisive factor behind Obama’s current paralysis: his own failure to use the traditional tools of the presidency to exert his will.
They wrote: “Obama does not instil fear — one of the customary instruments of presidential power. Five years of experience, say lawmakers of both parties, have demonstrated that there is not a huge political or personal cost to be paid for crossing the president.”
The nature of presidential intimidation varies with civilisation and in a country like Nigeria, it may happen in the brashest form. There is always the ‘Mr. President doesn’t need to know’ moment in every presidency anywhere in the world, when surrogates of the president use presidential nexus to pummel political adversaries to the extent that system allows.
While President Jonathan ‘may not need to know’, his surrogates are spearheading a calculated onslaught against Governor Chibuike Amaechi. The president’s silence is a deadly wink of approval, and the governor understands the intrigues because he himself is master of intimidating political adversaries. My only concern is that in the continued pummelling of the governor, the zealous presidential surrogates backed by the federal apparatus may not have an end-game strategy, and this kerfuffle may get really ugly.
The intention of the anti-Amaechi brigade is to bludgeon the governor to submission. However, I do not think the governor has ‘submission’ in his DNA; so like a stubborn child, he will rather fight till he dies. Already, the government of the state is troubled. The legislature is on a furlough; the only active commissioner seems to be the commissioner of information, whose major goof in the ‘Chidi Lloyd scandal’ exposed the frustration in the government’s information management mechanism.
In a quiet but lethal way, a pseudo state of emergency has ‘occurred’ in Rivers State. When a governor ceases to be the chief security officer of his state, technically his government has been grounded.
I am sure Governor Amaechi is ready for truce now, but those who understand his psychology tell privately that he hates defeat (just like the president). The governor is apprehensive of the president’s history with his old adversaries, like Timipre Sylva, who after a truce with the president still got axed. For Mr. President’s surrogates, they really do not see any political consequence in the state; they calculate that with or without the governor the president will win the state if he decides to run in 2015. They are very correct, but there are wider implications unforeseen.
In all these, my fear is that I do not see the change agents in the Nyesom Wike camp. The resurrection of the Restoration Team, the same folks who under Peter Odili recklessly plunged the state into a steady decline on all fronts, portends nothing better than danger for the state. The state is between the devil and the deep blue sea. But like the children of Isreal (in the Bible), the people of the state need a Moses who will part the sea, because onward they must.
Alabo-George writes from Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
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