Talking drum is coming back! From now on, we feature articles on literature, politics and other issues. This article is on the Rivers State Political Crisis. Happy reading :
Introduction
Nigeria is a country where events
happen in quick succession thus requiring a brain
with large capacity storage to
catch up with the fast pace of such disturbing
occurrences. By the middle of a
month, an otherwise unnerving event of the
beginning of the month would have
paled into insignificance as compared to
succeeding ones. Such is the
circle of scandal in Nigeria so much that Nigerians are no
longer surprised at anything.
However, there is a recent political unrest that almost
shook the nation to its
foundation, perhaps because of the involvement of the
country’s first family. It is the
crisis rocking the Rivers State of Nigeria, for which
national actors have already been
stratified into pro and anti-principal actors of the
festering crisis.
The Rivers crisis which had been
brewing for some time now came to a climax on the
9th day of July, 2013 when the hallowed chambers of the State’s House of Assembly
was turned to a theatre of free
for all, the details and implication of which shall be
discussed later in this paper.
Many analysts and social commentators have tried to
trace the Rivers crisis to a
number of sources some of which include the following:
1. Waterfront Demolition
In Port Harcourt was a sprawling
slum popularly called Waterfront. Waterfront
consisted of unapproved
settlements with their haphazard and indiscriminate siting of
dwelling houses, the totality of
which bore a signature of condoned disorderliness.
More worrisome about Waterfront
was its notoriety for harbouring the deadly social
miscreants. It was known to be a
safe haven for prime fugitives. Rivers State being a
major source of the country’s
wealth and Port Harcourt being a prime city, the
universally attendant social
vices that naturally go with such status are also present in
Rivers State, thus making her one
of the country’s flash points.
Therefore, maintaining and
keeping a breeding ground like Waterfront would be
tantamount to officially
permitting vices. And to that effect, Governor Rotimi
Amaechi moved to demolish the
structures as part of the state government’s decision
to acquire the spots for
overriding public use as permitted under the Land Use Act.
But the governor’s decision to so
demolish was greeted with resistance from the
Waterfront inhabitants, mostly of
Okrika tribe. To cap it all was a presidential
resistance coming from Mrs
Patience Jonathan who openly reprimanded the governor
in the full glare of the public.
Mrs Jonathan is also from Okrika.
Undaunted and in spite of the
first family’s opposition to the mission, Governor
Amaechi paid about N20billion
compensation and went ahead to demolish the
controversial Waterfront, thus
leaving the first family highly deflated. This singular
event seemed to have marked the
beginning of the end of an otherwise cordial
relationship, the spiral effect
of which has led to the present crisis.
2. Lamido- Amaechi’s
rumoured presidential ambition
Alhaji Sule Lamido, the incumbent
governor of Jigawa State has serially been
rumoured as nursing an ambition
to have a shot at the number one seat in the
country. As if to further
convince any doubting Nigerian, Lamido’s posters have
continuously flooded major cities
of the country, prominent among them, Abuja.
Nigerians perhaps would not have
given the posters much attention, but for the
inclusion of the ever
controversial Amaechi’s photograph in the posters as the
proposed running mate to Lamido.
Meanwhile, the re-election bid of President
Goodluck Jonathan has been on the
front burner of national discourse for some time,with opinion leaders from the
South South region of the country, the president’s zone,maintaining that ruling
the country for a 2nd term
through Mr Jonathan is nonnegotiable.
It is thus understandable how
disappointed and enraged the president’s
supporters felt seeing the
governor of a critical south-south state playing the spoiler.
The effect of this on the
existing mutual distrust and animosity between the
governor’s and the president’s
camps is predictable, and this has further worsened
the Jonathan-Amaechi’s deteriorating
relationship. Even though Mr Amaechi has
feebly denied the rumoured
ambition, his continuous romance with Alhaji Lamido is
not helping the ailing
relationship.
3. Wike-Amaechi Imbroglio
Mr Nyesom Wike, the current
Minister of State for Education and Governor Rotimi
Amaechi used to belong to Dr
Peter Odili’s political camp named ‘Restoration Team’,
the platform that won the 1999
gubernatorial election in Rivers State for Odili. From
the same platform, Amaechi was
elected into the State’s House of Assembly while
Wike was elected the Executive
Chairman of Obio-Akpor Local Government, the
richest of the 23 Local
Governments in Rivers State which is even said to be among
the top five in Nigeria in terms
of Internally Generated Revenue.
While Amaechi was further elected
the Speaker of the Assembly and later the
Chairman of the Conference of
Nigerian Speakers, Wike became the National
President of the Association of
Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON) and further
went ahead to become a member of
the Executive Committee of the Commonwealth
Local Governments Forum (CLGF).
The two friends were considered not only the
closest children of the Odili
political family but also the most influential.
After two terms as Rivers State’s
Speaker, Mr Amaechi contested the PDP primaries
for the 2007 governorship
elections and won, but he was later denied the party’s
ticket under very controversial
circumstances. Being a veteran agitator since his
student days as the president of
the National Union of Rivers State Students, Amaechi
protested the exclusion at the
law court up to the highest court in the land, where he
was eventually declared the
State’s governor even without standing the elections!
It is instructive to note that
while the struggle lasted, Amaechi made more enemies
than friends, notably among them
were his formers political associates and
benefactors. But one person stood
out and stood with him throughout. That person
was Nyesom Wike, whose support in
terms of finance and grassroots influence gave
Amaechi the needed morale booster
throughout the struggle. Therefore, as soon as he
was sworn in as the Governor,
Amaechi appointed Wike as his Chief of Staff, a
position which the latter
occupied until the end of the governor’s tenure in 2011.
Having courted more enemies and
with a brewing feud with the First Lady, Mrs
Patience Jonathan, Amaechi’s
re-election as governor was seriously threatened. At
that critical juncture, he
appointed Mr Wike as the Director-General of his re-election
campaign organization, and the
result was overwhelming. Political watchers opine
that it was Wike’s political
dexterity and particularly his control of and experience in
grassroots politics of Rivers
State that saved the PDP from losing the State to either
the Action Congress of Nigeria
(ACN) or the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) in
2011. After the elections, Wike
was nominated by the Governor as a ministerial
candidate from Rivers State, thus
elevating him to the national level.
What then caused their fight? While other facts may be responsible for the
current crisis engulfing Rivers
State, it is not unsafe to say the greatest cause of it all
lies in the bitter rift between
the two ex-friends, i.e. Rotimi Amaechi and Nyesom
Wike. With his perfect
understanding of Rivers politics coupled with his political
achievements so far, it would
require a little effort to install Wike as the next
governor of the state after
Amaechi’s second term in 2015. But this appears not
feasible in view of the political
arrangement in the state, just as it obtains
everywhere in the country. Wike
not only comes from the same Senatorial District
with Amaechi, he is also of the
same tribe with the governor, i.e. Ikwerre! And this
being the reality, Wike became
interested in a Plan B, i.e. the Senate, which
interestingly is also the
governor’s Plan B in the event the Vice Presidential ambition
does not sail through. With this
clash of ambition then began the mutual suspicion
which has dramatically developed
into open hostility that has extended to a bitter
fight for the control of party
structures in the state.
At the March 17, 2012 PDP
congress in Rivers State, Mr Godspower Ake, sponsored by Amaechi emerged the
party chairman but the election was greeted with legal tussles.
Supported for the same position
by Wike is also Mr Felix Obuah, a former local
government chairman at the same
time Wike presided at Obio-Akpor Local
Government. While the Rivers
State High Court had earlier confirmed Ake as the
authentic chairman of the party,
an Abuja High Court also recently pronounced Obuah
the authentic chairman, therefore
factionalising the party in the state along pro-
Amaechi and pro-Wike lines.
4. Suspension of the
Chairman and Councillors of Obio-Akpor Local
Government
In the heat of the passion, Mr
Timothy Nsirim, the Chairman of Obio-Akpor Local
Government, was accused of
financial impropriety, thus warranting his investigation
by the State’s House of Assembly.
In order to enable an uninfluenced audit of the
council’s account and sundry
other investigations, the Chairman, his deputy and the
entire 17 Councillors were
suspended by the House of Assembly on the 22nd of April,
2013, in the place of which the
governor inaugurated a 7-man Caretaker Committee
the next day.
While it is instructive to point
out that the affected Local Government is Mr Wike’s
stronghold, it is not surprising
that the suspension was vociferously protested as the
Assembly’s action was seen as a
further but indirect way of getting at Mr Wike with a
view to weakening his support
base.
The uproar generated by the
incident further worsened the frosty relationship
between Mr Wike and his Abuja
benefactors on the one hand and Governor Amaechiand his supporters on the other
hand. All entreaties and veiled threats to Mr Amaechito reverse the suspension fell
on deaf ears as the governor maintained that he could not violate the principle
of separation of powers because, the Council was not suspended by him but the
State’s Assembly in the course of its oversight duties. Thecat and mouse
relationship therefore continued.
5. Nigerian Governors’
Forum
Nigerian Governors’ Forum is one
of the social contradictions of the Nigerian
democracy. It is a non-statutory
club of policy makers who also style themselves as a pressure group. Before May
24, 2013, Mr Amaechi was the undisputed chairman of the Forum which has as
members the 36 Executive Governors of the Nigerian 36 states.
Before him were four
predecessors, namely Governor Abdullahi Adamu of Nasarawa
State (1999 to 2004), Victor
Attah of Akwa Ibom (2004 to 2006), Edo State’s Lucky
Igbinedion (2006 to 2007), and
Bukola Saraki of Kwara State (2007 to 2011).
As a continuation of the
Presidency-Amaechi crisis, all efforts were deployed by the
presidency to either ease the
Forum’s control out of Amaechi’s hand or whittle down
his influence and control of the
Forum. To that extent, a group named the PDP
Governors’ Forum suddenly emerged
under the leadership of an Aso Rock ally, i.e.
Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa
Ibom. Not minding the fact that Akpabio and
Amaechi had just come out of a
bitter legal tussle over certain oil wells, the
presidency did not hide its
sponsorship and preference for Akpabio’s PDP Governors’ Forum.
With the PDP having almost
two-third of the membership of the NGF, it was the Aso
Rock’s calculation that creation
of the PDP Governors’ Forum would have sounded thedeath knell for Amaechi’s
re-election as the NGF chairman. Unknown to the
Presidency and its allies in the
NGF, there were more pro-Amaechi elements among
the PDP Governors than imagined.
Therefore, at the Forum’s election of May 24, the
Presidency’s anointed candidate,
Governor Jonah Jang of Plateau was roundly
trounced by Amaechi who polled 19
votes out of the 35 votes cast, leaving Mr Jang to manage with the remaining 16
votes as a clear loser.
Being an ego tussle however, Mr
President and his men in their desperation chose torecognize the clear loser as
the winner and opted for persecution of the real winner,as Amaechi was
suspended from the PDP three days after the election. The NGF saga therefore
marked the beginning of a renewed hostility between the gladiators, with each
looking for every opportunity to launch revenge.
The Ultimate Crisis:
Attempt at Impeaching
Amaechi as Governor
The next show of superiority by
the Presidency was a plot to impeach Governor
Amaechi willy nilly. Standing in
the way of getting this done however, was the
governor’s popularity with more
than two-third of the Assembly members, herein
called the G-27. But since the
mission must be accomplished at any cost, the anti-
Amaechi forces dug into the
tactics of the Obasanjo-era. Then came the 9th day of
July, 2013 when the 5 pro-Wike
legislators, herein called the G-5 seized the House,
pronounced some unnamed 15
members suspended and the Speaker, Hon. Otelemaba
Dan Amachree impeached. Hon.
Evans Bipi representing Ogu/Bolo State Constituency
was purportedly elected the new
speaker. But before the laughable impeachment,
the G-5 had earlier in the day
descended on the G-27 with the assistance of hired
thugs. It was in the course of
the melee that the Governor stormed the House with his
entourage in what analysts have
described as an unnecessary rescue mission. The
governor’s arrival suddenly
emboldened the otherwise subdued G-27 particularly Hon.
Chidi Llyod who with the
assistance of the governor’s Aide-De-Camp (ADC), Acting ASP Debeware Semeikumo
and the Chief Security Officer (CSO), Mr Tony Iwelu, was caught on video tape
as beating the still present members of the G-5. Very unfortunate among the G-5
was Hon. Michael Chinda who was violently beaten with an improvised mace
procured by the G-5 for its illegal proceeding. Also caught on tape behaving in
manners that are clearly inconsistent with the status of a lawmaker was Hon.
Evans Bipi. He was not only seen attempting to disarm a policeman, he was also
seen sweeping a man off the ground with a punch. The fracas was serially aired
by a Lagosbased private television station.
After the violent disturbance
subsided however, the House was able to reconvene
under the speakership of the
purportedly impeached Hon. Amachree to approve the
supplementary budget request sent
to the Assembly by Governor Amaechi.
The Police’s Role
Mr Mbu Joseph Mbu is the Rivers
State Commissioner of Police whose role in the crisis
rocking the state has been one
tilting in favour of a side to the tussle. Instances of the
Commissioner of Police’s
undisguised bias are legion, some of which are touched
here:
i. Upon inauguration of the
Caretaker Committee for Obio-Akpor Local Government
on April 23, 2013 the
Commissioner of Police deployed his men to occupy the Local
Government secretariat on May 3
during which they barred the Local Government
workers from entering the
premises. The Caretaker Committee thus proceeded to
court and obtained an order of
court directing the police to vacate the premises,
particularly in order to enable
the workers’ salaries for the months of April and May
be paid. But contrary to his
constitutional role as a law enforcer, the Commissioner
of Police flagrantly and
arrogantly disobeyed the court order.
ii. While Armoured Personnel
Carriers were stationed across the city of Port Harcourt
in the wake of the crisis
ostensibly to arrest any act of disturbance, it is shameful
that elected governors of
Nigerian states who visited the troubled state were
booed and pelted with stones by a
group of protesters believed to be pro-Wike, but
no single arrest was made by the
Police in spite of the heavy security presence in
town. It has been observed that
if state governors are not safe to freely identify
with Governor Amaechi on the
street of PortHarcourt, it is predictable what would
befall ordinary citizens who dare
to openly exhibit their support for the governor.
iii. And as if to corroborate the
above, while the Police permitted ex-Niger Delta
militants to freely demonstrate
against the Governor, the same Police denied civil
society groups opportunity to
demonstrate against the disturbance, as they were
menacingly chased around Port
Harcourt by the police.
iv. While the Speaker’s security aides
were withdrawn by the Police Commissioner
before the July 9 attempted
impeachment, he provided Evans Bipi with full police
protection to prosecute the July
9 havoc.
v. While Hon. Chidi Llyod was
declared wanted and now standing trial for the role he
played in the July 9 fracas, Hon.
Evans Bipi remains untouched until date. And none
of the thugs that co-invaded the
House has been arrested.
National Assembly’s
Intervention
At the height of the unrest, the
Senate dispatched its Committee on States and Local
Governments Administration led by
Senator Kabiru Gaya of ANPP, representing Kano South Senatorial District to
visit Rivers and investigate the crisis, whereupon the Senate found it
compelling for the National Assembly to invoke the provision of
Section 11(4) of the Constitution
of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 which
provides that:
At any time when any
House of Assembly of a State is unable to perform its
functions by reason of
the situation prevailing in that State, the National
Assembly may invoke
such laws for the peace, order and good government
of that State with
respect to matters on which a House of Assembly may
make laws as may appear
to the National Assembly to be necessary or
expedient until such
time as the House of Assembly is able to resume its
functions; and any such
laws enacted by the National Assembly pursuant to
this section shall have
effect as if they were laws enacted by the House of
Assembly of the
State...
Because the proviso to the
above-quoted Section 11(5) is to the effect that
‘‘...nothing in this
section shall be construed as conferring on the National Assembly
power to remove the
Governor or the Deputy Governor of the State from office’’,
many analysts have hailed the
National Assembly’s intervention because according to them, the speaker’s
illegal impeachment was a preparation towards an ultimate
albeit illegal impeachment of the
governor by the G-5 in an Assembly of 32 members.
It is therefore reasoned that
only such an intervention can foreclose the planned
illegal impeachment which is
generally believed to be sponsored by the Presidency.
However, it is the argument of
the critics of the National Assembly’s intervention that
the ingredients that are required
to invoke Section 11(4) of the Constitution were
absent at the time of the
take-over. It is argued that after the fracas the House was
still able to sit and approve the
supplementary budget request sent to the House by
the Governor, and that such
take-over by the National Assembly is a contravention ofthe provision of
subsection (5) of the same Section 11 of the Constitution which
provides that:
For the purposes of
subsection (4) of this section, a House of Assembly shall
not be deemed to be
unable to perform its functions so long as the House
of Assembly can hold a meeting
and transact business.
State
Governor-Commissioner of Police Relationship on Security:
What says the law?
The Rivers State Commissioner of
Police’s conduct has once again thrown up the
thorny topic of ‘state police’.
Even though an elaborate discussion of the topic is
beyond the scope of this paper,
it is necessary to state the legal position as it is, on
the respective status of a state
governor and the state’s Commissioner of Police vis-avis the security of the
state. This becomes necessary in the light of the generally held misconception
that a Commissioner of Police for a State in Nigeria is not answerable to the
State Governor.
Democracy as a system of
government is made up of three arms, namely the
Judiciary, the Legislature and
the Executive. While it is not debatable that Police as a vital institution of
government is part of the Executive, the Constitution of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999
is unequivocal in its provision at Section 176 (2)
thereof that “The Governor of a State shall be the
Chief Executive of that State”.
This therefore means that a
police commissioner whose purpose is to maintain law
and order for a particular state
is subordinate to the Chief Executive of that State
who is also the Chief Security
Officer for the State.
And clearly with a view to
emphasising the governor’s superiority to the Commissionerof Police for the
State regarding the issue of security for that state, it is the specific
provision of the 1999 Constitution at Section 215(4) that:
Subject to the provisions
of this section, the Governor of a State or such
commissioner of the
Government of the state as he may authorize in that
behalf, may give to the
Commissioner of Police of that State such lawful
directions with respect
to the maintenance and securing of public safety and
public order within the
State as he may consider necessary, and the
Commissioner of Police
shall comply with those directions or cause them to be
complied with.
And as if to lay all doubts to
rest over this issue, the highest court in the land finally
answered the nagging question in
the case of A.G. Anambra State vs.
A.G.
Federation (2005) 9 NWLR
(Part 931) 572 at 616, paragraphs F-G, when the court
interpreted the provision of
Section 215(4), now Section 216 (1) in relation to a
similar constitutional issue that
arose in Anambra State and held that:
By virtue of section
215 (1)[sic] of the 1999 Constitution, the Governor of
Anambra State has power
to issue lawful direction to the Commissioner of
Police, Anambra State,
in connection with securing public safety and order in
the State.
What other explanation is
required to convince all doubting Thomases that a Police
Commissioner in charge of a State
is answerable not only to the Inspector General of Police but also to the
Governor of the State of his operation? Afterall, direction or
directive flows only from a
superior to a subordinate.
Furthermore, even though the need
to seek and obtain any permit before proceeding
on a public gathering or peaceful
demonstration is no longer necessary in Nigeria by
virtue of the landmark
pronouncement by the apex court in the case of All Nigeria
Peoples Party vs.
Inspector-General of Police (2008) 12 WRN 65, it is however
pertinent to know that the Public
Order Act, Cap 382 LFN 1990 is replete with
provisions that justify the
inferiority and answerability of a police commissioner to a
state governor. Subsections (1),
(2), (3), (4), (5) and (6) of Section 1 to the Public
Order Act are very apt in this
regard.
Findings/Observations
• Factionalising the NGF: This
seems to be a style favoured by President Goodluck
Jonathan as it is on record that
just as Governor Akpabio is currently doing,
Governor Suswam was used by the
presidency on October 30, 2010 to polarise the
NGF when he announced the then
Governor of Ogun State who also doubled as the
Southwest co-ordinator of the
Goodluck Jonathan Presidential Campaign for 2011,
as the new Chairman of the Forum
without any meeting of the Forum to so
agree/elect. The gimmick was to
destabilise the then Chairman of the Forum,
Governor Bukola Saraki of Kwara
State who had just signified his interest in
contesting the then forthcoming
presidential election, which decision did not go
down well with the Presidency.
• Executive Presidents and home Governors tussle: Since the return of democracy
in 1999, it is becoming a trend
for Nigerian presidents to be locked in a fierce
battle of relevance with their
home state’s governors or that of a neighbouring
state. Save for late Umaru
Yar’adua whose short stay in power did not afford
Nigerians the opportunity of
knowing what brand of ego politics he tended to play,
the Obasanjo era saw him deploy
all powers and tactics at his disposal towards
paralysing Lagos State just
because he did not see eye to eye with the then
governor, Senator Bola Tinubu.
Obasanjo was to later move to a neighbouring state
and coincidentally his home
state, Ogun, where he almost ran the governor,
Otunba Gbenga Daniel out of town.
The governor was however run out of PDP
eventually. Adopting the same
style, President Goodluck first went to Bayelsa, his
home state and chased Governor
Timipre Sylva out of office. Done with Sylva, who
is most likely on his way to
prison now, the seemingly gentle president moved to a
neighbouring state, and efforts
to drown the governor in the Rivers of politics are
still very much on course.
• Wike’s possible gain: It is
beyond doubt that the Presidency does not consider
Wike a friend but a comrade of
necessity. The Presidency’s disagreement with
Amaechi predated Wike’s ministerial
status. As a matter of fact, he got into the
federal cabinet as Amaechi’s
friend and nominee. The Presidency knew that when
Amaechi and Wike were together,
Amaechi was electorally invincible. Therefore,
the moment a crack appeared in
the erstwhile rosy relationship, the Presidency
penetrated and pushed the gap
further apart by fortifying Wike in the name of ‘my
enemy’s enemy is my
friend’. It thus stands to reason that
going by Obasanjo’s
vindictive style which Jonathan
seems to have imbibed, Amaechi’s downfall may
not translate into Wike’s
standing.
• A repeat of subversion: It is
interesting to note that the Rivers scenario with the
connivance of the Police is a
replay of a similarly embarrassing occurrence in
Anambra State exactly ten years
ago. Acting upon some directive from above, Late
Raphael Ige, an Assistant
Inspector General of Police led a team of policemen on
July 10, 2003 to abduct a sitting
governor, Dr Chris Ngige for the benefit of one
Chirs Uba, an ally of the then
President. While the said AIG of Police was
eventually dumped and forgotten
as he later died unsung, it is baffling that ten
years after, another superior
police officer could be willing to serve as a tool for a
similar act of treason.
Recommendations
i. There is no denying the fact
that Amaechi-era as governor of Rivers is a complete
study in developmental projects,
a fact his sworn enemies do not contest. Wike
too is reputed to be an
excellently creative administrator. That being the case,
and with the duo’s abundant
experience in the governance of Rivers State, it can
only do a world of good to the
beleaguered state if the gentlemen can sheathe
their swords and close ranks to
move the state further forward.
ii. It is nothing but a
contradiction of a civilian government such as we pretend to
practise in Nigeria for a
governor to be titled as being the Chief Security Officer
of his state but without having a
constitutionally sanctioned apparatus or outfit to
quell a mere riot! Even the
governor’s personal security is at the mercy of a
purportedly superior government.
Although, ‘state police’ as a concept is out of
the focus of this discourse, it
is however relevant to declare here that the
desirability of a state police in
Nigeria is becoming inevitable by the day.
iii. As a deterrent to anyone
with a tendency to manifest the pre-social contract
instinct, it is of utmost
importance that all legal infractions be duly punished
without fear or favour. To that
extent, while the prosecution but not persecution
of Mr Chidi Llyod should be
encouraged without any sentiment, Mr Evans Bipi’s
immediate arrest and prosecution
for provoking the July 9 disturbance is hereby
recommended.
The article written by Barr. AbdRahman Okunade and was presented at Peoples' Vanguard meeting on 11 August, 2013.
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