Interest groups and individuals strategise to outdo one another in the race for governorship tickets of APC and PDP in Rivers State, Assistant Editor (South South), JOE EZUMA, writes.
With Governor Rotimi Amaechi’s successful outing in his Saturday, October 25, 2014 mega rally in Port Harcourt and declaration of former Minister of State (Education), Nyesom Wike, to run for Rivers State governorship on the ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the tempo of political engagements in the state has been on the crescendo.
The rally, which marked the governor’s seventh year in office, drew together bigwigs of the party, including its four presidential aspirants – General Muhammadu Buhari, Atiku Abubakar, Rabiu Kwankwaso and Sam Nda-Isaiah – to the Garden City.
The obviously excited governor had described the gathering as a test of popularity between him and his opponents. TheNiche, however, learnt that apart from being a popularity contest, the rally was strategic and symbolic. It, for example, offered the governor the opportunity to showcase his numerous achievements in infrastructural development revolution, of which the ultra-modern stadium venue of the event was part.
Declaring that the APC would eclipse the PDP in February 26, 2015 elections, Amaechi challenged the PDP to field its best candidate for the governorship election in 2015, insisting that the All Progressives Congress (APC) will retain the governorship seat in the state.
He added that, apart from rhetoric and political grandstanding, the PDP has nothing to offer the people of Rivers.
“Anyone in the PDP can say what he or she likes. We have an unparalleled record of achievements which our people can attest to. I can assure you that next year, we will be in government to see them off. I tell you this: anyone who served in government and stole the commonwealth of the people will not rule our state. Thieves will not rule Rivers State,” the governor had declared.
“The day I was told that the president was planning to remove me from office, I called for a prayer session in Government House. I told them at the end of the prayer session that although this fight will continue, we are going to win and that the God I worship has told me we are going nowhere.
“They have the president, the army, the police and security agencies. But there is something they don’t have. They don’t have God. I fasted, prayed and cried to God for 10 months to become governor. Let them go and start their own. They can go to Jerusalem 50 times. God has already decided what will happen in Nigeria in 2015. Take it from me, there will be change in Nigeria: change for good or change for bad, but there must be change in Nigeria,” Amaechi emphasised.
The rally and declaration of intent by Wike the same period became the twin events that have affected political activities in the state. A PDP governorship aspirant, Tonye Princewill, who apparently was rattled by the turnout at the rally, while condemning the use of unsavoury language at the rally by Amaechi, nevertheless, cautioned his party to gird its loins and brace up for a gruelling encounter with the APC in 2015, as he feared it would not be easy.
He however sneered: “We all know how crowds are gathered in this business.”
This is just as Wike’s entry into the PDP governorship race has equally put APC under serious tension. This is especially as Amaechi will not be a frontline fighter, but would merely fight for ego in 2015, given that he is on the last lap of his two-term tenure.
Rumbles in PDP
Wike’s entry in the 2015 race, which had been subject of speculation, threw off-balance over 15 governorship aspirants, mostly from the riverine part of the state that had been campaigning for a governor of riverine extraction, banking on the assumption that the presidency and the national leadership of the party would prevail on Wike to drop his ambition. They had also anchored their hope on what one of them, Nimi Walson-Jack, had described as democratic morality that is based on sympathy and sentiments rather than voting strength and popular expression.
Thus, the other PDP aspirants were jolted to reality when the party announced that its ward congresses would hold in the state on Saturday, November 1, 2014. Curiously, on the night of Friday, October 31, 2014, unidentified arsonists attempted to burn down the PDP State Secretariat at Aba Road, Port Harcourt.
PDP, however, pointed fingers at the APC and its agents as perpetrators of the action.
Walson-Jack, one of the governorship aspirants from the riverine axis of the state, had called for the postponement of the congress till critical issues affecting the party were resolved.
He expressed concern in a statement he made available to the media that “the many submissions of the concerned and aggrieved members made to the party through its South South zone of the party’s National Integration Committee are yet to be treated, adding that unless the issues raised are adjudicated upon and resolved, the planned ward congresses would only consolidate illegalities and injustice.
The party, however, went ahead and held its congress, with the agitating aspirants boycotting it. They include Beks Dagogo-Jack, Dumo Lulu-Briggs, Major Lancelot Anyanya, Sampson Ngerebara, Walson-Jack, Sen. Lee Maeba, Silver Opusunju, Bernard Mikko, Pawariso Samuel Horsfall, Oseleye Ojuka and Princewill.
Others were Capt. Nwankwo Sunday, Prof. Don Baridam, Tamunosis Gogo-Jaja and Mrs. Abieatedoghu Bob-Abbey Hart.
The aspirants in a communique signed by their spokesperson, Sotonye Iju-Dagogo, alleged that they were deceived into believing that there would be a level-playing field for all of them, and accused the state leadership of the party of breaching the procedures leading to the delegates’ wards congress.
Deepening crisis in PDP
Crisis rocking the PDP further deepened, as the 16 governorship aspirants, who had earlier boycotted the ward congress and called for its cancellation, also boycotted the appeal panel set up by the national headquarters of the party to look into complaints emanating from the ward primaries. The group insisted that the three-man panel was severely compromised because two of the members – Afam Okeke (chairman) and Lambert Oparah (member) – were aides of Wike, who is also an aspirant.
Walson-Jack vowed that the appeal panel was a sham, stressing: “The appeal panel will listen to appeals from those who set it up. It is clear from the characters of those selected for the appeal panel that it has been compromised from the onset.
“We, the group of 16 governors acting under the coalition of governorship aspirants, do not have any iota of confidence in the so-called appeal panel, and we will have nothing to do with it. We will not and cannot give legitimacy to a sham. Let them regale themselves with the premeditated charade they have since designed for the interest of an aspirant against the collective interest and electoral fortune our party.”
The dissenting aspirants claimed that delegate-aspirants, who could not participate in the ward congresses because officials of the secretariat of the PDP refused to collect the nomination forms they purchased at the PDP national headquarters in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, after the officials at the state secretariat in Port Harcourt refused to sell nomination forms to them, had also boycotted the appeal panel. Operating under the coalition of governorship aspirants, the group of 16 governorship aspirants also reiterated their demand that the principle of rotation and zoning enshrined in Chapter 7(3)(c) of party’s constitution be upheld, if the party would not want to lose the state in the 2015 general elections.
They vowed that, unless their grievances regarding the purported ward primaries were addressed, the fortunes of the PDP in the 2015 general elections may be adversely affected.
The aspirants, in a protest letter to the National Chairman of the PDP, Adamu Mu’azu, faulted the process that culminated in the conduct of the ward congresses in the 23 local government areas of the state, adding that the “conduct of the ward congresses contravened the constitution of the PDP and due process”.
Princewill, who spoke on behalf of the other aspirants, told journalists that the “state chapter of the PDP does not have a properly constituted executive committee in all the wards and local government areas in Rivers”.
He added: “The PDP in Rivers has not undertaken any registration of new party members and did not revalidate old members as required after the exit of Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi to the APC. In addition, the party did not display party registers at the various wards prior to the conduct of the ward congresses as stipulated by the PDP constitution and guidelines”.
The aspirants also urged the national chairman of the party to call the national deputy chairman of the party, Uche Secondus, to order, alleging that he was supporting a particular candidate which disqualified him from participating in the process leading to the selection of a governorship candidate for the party in the state.
Princewill declared: “The congress had already been done. The panel that came from the national headquarters to conduct the ward primaries had already been settled and the electoral umpire had already been compromised. All their planning was in vain. For them, the congress was just an opportunity for the masses to fight and destroy things. They do not care if Rivers people die, as long as they win. We do. We care; and that’s why we stayed away.
“The Wike-led exco in Rivers doesn’t realise we are several steps ahead of it; none of the key aspirants were involved in the congresses. That should be a signal for the party. Our silence will speak louder than our words. In the end, PDP will either sit up and address this sham or lose Rivers.”
APC option and the riverine/upland dichotomy
With the unfolding scenario in the PDP and Wike’s emergence, what is left for the APC is to zone its governorship to Rivers south-east, analysts have suggested. Although the party, has already decided to zone its candidate to the area, according to insider source, it has not decided exactly which part that embodies the geographical terrain of both riverine and upland.
The Ogoni and its allied sub-tribes comprising five local government areas of Eleme, Oyigbo, Tai, Gokana and Khana make up the upland section of the zone, while Ndoni and Opobo/Nkoro make up the riverine section of the zone.
Prominent aspirants from the zone in the party include Senator Magnus Abe from Ogoni and Dakuku Peterside from the Andoni Opobo/Ngoro.
How the APC, which has been advocating powershift to other areas of the state, will harmonise the intricate web of interests in the zone remains a puzzle to watch. If the party chooses its candidate from Ogoni, it would have satisfied the burning desire of the area to produce governor. It will also gain large voter turnout from the area, which boasts of about 400,000 votes more that the entire riverine area put together. But it would also have equally failed to address the campaign for power to shift to the riverine area of the state.
But if it chooses its candidate from the Opobo/Nkoro axis of the zone, it may have satisfied the riverine powershift campaigners but would have failed at the same time to fully assuage the quest of the Kalabari/Okrika, Igbani core riverine and Ijaw natives who are unarguably the rump of the riverine areas. The extent to which the APC successfully addresses these issues would determine the extent it would tackle the PDP challenge in 2015.
