Nigeria: A nation of ‘great’ fighters?

By Idang Alibi . . .

With the confirmation, last week, of President Muhammadu Buhari’s ministerial nominees which included Rotimi Amaechi and Babatunde Fashola, Nigerians, especially the people of Rivers and Lagos states, will heave a huge sigh of relief.

The machinery of Buhari’s government, it is hoped, will now move more smoothly and more confidently. And for the poor and apolitical peoples of Rivers and Lagos, they will be especially happy that the ministerial matter has been finally laid to rest because governors Wike and Ambode spent over 80 per cent of their executive time and the resources of their states to fight against the emergence of Amaechi and Fashola as ministers.

As the two governors were utterly defeated in their titanic fight against those two strong men, it is the hope of all reasonable men that the two governors will now pay more attention to issues of development of their respective states which they practically abandoned in the insane fight against Amaechi and Fashola.

While it lasted, it was so nauseating. When my close friend Sule Oyofo told me that Akinwunmi Ambode (they were contemporaries at UniLag in the early 80s) was a very good man, I was happy for Lagos State, noting that that state seems to be always blessed with very good governors. I usually rely on word of mouth testimonies like that about people to form my opinion of them because I consider that a more reliable aid in getting the character portraits of people than the usually laundered one we see in the media.

Surprisingly, a few days later, Ambode commenced his great demolition job against Fashola’s reputation. All the energies in his veins were deployed to that fight. It looked like that was one of the major campaign promises he made to the people of Lagos state. Some said he even boasted privately that when he is done with his destructive job, Nigerians who think Fashola was such a good man will not be able to recognize him again. I was shocked and confused.

Is this the good man Sule had told me about? Is destroying the character and reputation of someone one of the job schedules of a governor who is elected to deliver what we Nigerians call ‘’democracy dividends’’ to his people? Up till now I have not been able to reach my friend Sule to rebuke him for, as it were, misleading me. I would have asked him what sort of good man will spend all his time fighting to destroy his predecessor instead of concentrating his efforts to better the well- earned record of that predecessor.

As to Wike, he acted true to what some call him behind his back- Nyesom Wicked! He has always been known as a dogged fighter. He secretly and publicly launched what can be described as ‘’Operation Stop Amaechi At All Cost from Becoming Minister’’. Any and everything was said and done by him and his hirelings to portray Amaechi in the worst possible light. If a church thanksgiving service was organised by him supposedly to thank God for his victory at the poll, it will turn to a forum where the officiating priests will describe Wike as the liberator and Amaechi as the Pharaoh of Oppression of Rivers state.

If traditional rulers paid a courtesy call on Governor Wike, it will sooner or later become a forum for Amaechi bashing and Wike’s praise singing. The news bar of AIT was retained and it became the medium of choice to demonise Amaechi and portray Wike as the only good guy in town. The only narrative we heard from Wike was that Amaechi did nothing good in all his eight years for the people of Rivers state. Everything he did was evil. It is only the saviour Wike who is out to do good, to heal the sick and to bind the wounds of those who were hurt by Amaechi. Even when the former Deputy Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives, Chibudom Nwuche, acted as the only weighty voice of reason from Rivers state warning that the war being waged against Amaechi was unwise as it could jeopardise the chance of the state from getting a strong person like Amaechi at the federal level, Wike ignored that appeal. He was too consumed by his quest to destroy Amaechi to care about any well-meaning appeal no matter from which quarters it was coming from.

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He rushed out a white paper on the findings of the kangaroo judicial panel instituted by him to probe Amaechi’s government in one last dish effort to stop Amaechi from confirmation by the Senate. When Wike sensed that Amaechi may scale the hurdle and could be sent to the Niger Delta ministry, he sponsored some youth to say that Amaechi will not be a fit and proper person to man that portfolio as he was not a man of peace and harmony! How can one man be so bent on stopping another man from becoming something when he himself has become what he so desperately wanted to become?

And in all of these, the question I often ask myself is: why is it that our democracy seems to produce ‘fighters’ and not thinkers, leaders and developmentalists? Is our nation at war that we seem to have so many fighters? What are they fighting for or against any way if it is not petty politics? When are we going to have leaders who will initiate desirable fights against our real enemies which are poverty, underdevelopment, bad roads, unplanned habitations, slum dwellings, chaotic markets and traffic, etc?

Wike and Ambode were so immersed in their futile quest against their enemies that they even forgot one vital fact. Wike was once Chief of Staff to Amaechi and Ambode was once Accountant-General and Commissioner for Finance in Lagos. If Amaechi and Fashola were corrupt and evil, could they, in all honesty, be free from the dirt of those men? The unbridled quest for vengeance blinds men even to their own hurt.

I am immeasurably happy that ‘great fighters’ Wike and Ambode were defeated by the Senate and their wishes utterly aborted. This is to teach them, and all of us, a lesson, namely that vengeance belongs appropriately to God. Yes, we are all human and know that it hurts when the man on the seat feels, for whatever reasons, that you should not be the one who should succeed him as governor. Yet, by the grace of God, you succeeded him. Is that not enough revenge? Why then that after you have succeeded him, you forget God and decide that you will use your puny power to stop him from achieving his own desire? Why do you think that God will support you to win against him when He did not support him to win against you? Do you think God is partial, especially in favour of unrighteousness men like you?
Let all personal political fights cease and let the fight for the growth and development of Nigeria begin immediately, please.

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