In the now common pattern of induced amnesia in Nigerian politics, we seem to forget that when Governor Chibuike Amaechi left the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and moved over to the All Progressives Congress (APC), it was Rivers people, and not any single individual, that rose up in defence of President Goodluck Jonathan and the party. Without the public support for the president and the party at that crucial moment, the billions of naira spent by a former Minister couldn’t have saved the party from total collapse in Rivers.
Yes, the former Minister was in the front line in the effort to save Rivers PDP from being orphaned, but was fully supported by party grassroots across the state, who saw it as a duty to contain Amaechi’s needless attacks on Jonathan. This avalanche of grassroots support gave confidence to serious-minded PDP stakeholders to rally round the former Minister to rescue the party. It was a collective effort, and today it sounds totally absurd for any single person to claim sole credit for that rescue mission.
We seem to have also forgotten, in a hurry, that in many respects, Amaechi and Rivers PDP executive council were hurriedly stampeded out of the party. The former Minsiter knew very well that unless Amaechi leaves the party, he could never achieve his plot to seize party machinery which shall then become a veritable vehicle for delivering his ambition.
Amaechi had complained bitterly about the president’s wife, Patience, and her impertinent meddling in the way an elected governor should run the affairs of the state. Amaechi rejected the interference which soon snowballed into the ugly incident at Okrika with the snatching of microphone from the governor and dressing him down in public. In all these, the plot was simply to put more fire. It was fait accompli. Today the interference that Amaechi tried to contain has since matured into a full-scale annexation of Rivers PDP by a four-man team of Felix Obuah (chairman), Walter Nedam (secretary), Nyesom Wike and Patience Jonathan.
To most careful observers, although we see only Wike in the frontline working hard to convert his privileged position to achieve his ambition to govern our state, the main engine room of this plot is Mrs. Jonathan. Wike has so ingeniously designed the ubiquitous political arrangement that he can get Dame Jonathan to do virtually everything he wants in the state, even at the federal level. By giving the politically naive dame the illusion of full control of all levers of power in the state, Wike smartly wrapped her around his fingers. For instance, Wike used her to nominate and fill all federal appointments allocated to Rivers. Thus, the two used this federal patronage to build their nest of loyalists, who now parade behind Wike, struggling hard to massage his inordinate ambition. Dame Jonathan never hesitates to summon party functionaries and openly promotes the political ambition of Wike, against all decency and decorum. We were all shocked to watch her arrive Port Harcourt the other day, and within hours drove to the personal residence of Wike to announce that “Wike is a good party man who deserves to be appreciated”. Rivers people are worried that the two could be so selfish and myopic as to expose Mr. President to serious electoral risks in a state that PDP is clearly an opposition party.
Interestingly, it is not only in Rivers that Patience trends. Only recently, the Oyo State chapter of the PDP had to cry out through a press statement warning her to steer clear of Oyo politics. Although her handlers denied it, there might be some truth in it. The same goes for Bayelsa and Abia states. That is how far she has gone in meddling in party matters that require experience and tact. Didn’t we hear that she kept a governor from the South South waiting for hours at her Abuja ‘office’, and the man had to explode with anger? Or we didn’t hear right. Didn’t she visit Wike’s home in Abuja and literally prostrated before him thanking him for a job well done, thus attempting to intimidate other governorship aspirants? Or we didn’t hear right?
Many Nigerians, I am told, who can no longer withhold their embarrassment and anger against her conduct are beginning to ask a number of questions. They want to know if President Jonathan cannot call his wife to order, or is he enjoying his wife’s condemnable style of attracting more enemies to him, at a time she should be winning more friends for her husband? Does the president not think that with what is happening within the PDP family in Rivers, there is now the risk of Amaechi’s candidate winning a state that is so clearly PDP? Has it ever occurred to Mr. President that he could lose Rivers in the presidential election, if his wife is not stopped? Does Mr. President support the injustice and inequity associated with political power resting in the hands of people from the same geo-ethnic area of our state since May 1999? What really is his position? On this matter, silence cannot be golden. For his information, the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) is rapidly losing its cultivated viewership on account of his wife’s near monopoly of airtime during most of its news slots. Does the president realise that such public resentment is growing, and could harm his re-election bid in 2015? Why is Mr. President silent and looking on helplessly as his wife desecrates her high public status as our First Lady in pursuit of crass political power without any regard to his feelings as the leader of the party?
Let me make my position absolutely clear, and I want to be quoted on this: those promoting Wike’s candidacy for the governorship position in our state are taking the riskiest gamble of their political life. Two, it will be near impossible for him to win in a general election because of the selfishness that is clearly obvious in his ambition. Three is Wike’s confidence in the power of political thugs to deliver. Four, this state and our party do not lack qualified aspirants or candidates for The Brick House, Port Harcourt, and it sickens me that Dame Jonathan is not allowing us to widen or multiply our options in the search for a suitable person for this important position. Does Patience want to be Wike’s running mate to consolidate their hold on power as Port Harcourt rumour mill has it? And, in any case, there is this growing feeling within the party that the time may be right to separate Uche Secondus from his job of Deputy National Chairman, as he has brought shame to the leadership through the manipulation of the membership of the Rivers electoral committee for the last delegates’ exercise which was a total sham. And lastly, wouldn’t it be proper for the PDP, as a disciplined party, to simply disqualify Wike for allegedly importing armed thugs to Legacy House, Abuja on October 9 and also smuggling his cronies into the State Congress Election Committee?
Soon, Dame Patience would realise that she is not the first to be Nigeria’s First Lady, Her excesses may rub off negatively on Mr. President’s chances in 2015. And that worries me.
• Eldred Omubo-Brown wrote in from Rivers State.