OPINION: Wrecking crew democrats

DAYS after Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu was declared winner of the majority of the ballots cast in Rivers state in the February 25 presidential election, an All Progressives Congress [APC] governor of one of the northern states expressed shock at the victory. His shock was not due to a pleasant surprise but incredulity of the win. He said publicly while grinning that the APC only asked the then opposition Peoples Democratic Party’s [PDP] governor of Rivers state, Nysom Ezenwo Wike, to help the APC candidate Tinubu to secure a minimum of 25% of the votes in that critical state.

The northern governor was dumbfounded and he said so with a childlike innocence.In mid-2022, candidate Wike had lost the contest in the primary election for the presidential flag bearer of the PDP for the February 2023 election in controversial circumstances. He believed, rightly or wrongly, that he was set to clinch the ticket before a northern governor allegedly violated the primary election rules which orchestrated a gang up of delegates from the north against his aspiration, and in support of one of their own, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, former vice presidentof Nigeria [1999- 2007], the eventual winner of the contest. Wike could not swallow that defeat.He built an alliance with four other PDP governors, the so-called G5, andthen launched a bitter battle against his party and its candidate Atiku. He publicly endorsed Tinubu, the candidate of the ruling APC and promised to deliver Rivers state voters to him in the presidential election.

Since the inception of this democratic dispensation in 1999, no other party had won the governorship of Rivers state, not even the coalition of many parties that formed the APC in 2015could pull that off. Indeed, no other political party had won up to 25% of the votes cast in that state. In a sense, Rivers was a one party state [PDP] for 24 years. Wike is an action man. He took no chances in actualizing his promise to deliver Rivers state to Tinubu. He was physically in the field and in the frontlines of hot spots to provide executive cover for the ‘snatch, grab and run’ election strategy of the APC. It worked to the extent that the will of the people of the state was thwarted. Latter day unofficial but credible results of that February election in some areas of the state showed that Wike who was on the ballot as a proxy actually lost including in his home of Obio-Akpor local government area.

But officially Wike delivered on his promise because the only authentic election result was the one declared by the corrupt and crooked ‘Independent’ National Electoral Commission [INEC]. The reward for Wike’s over performance was his coronation as the federal capital territory [FCT] minister, a powerful portfolio handed to an opposition politician. There were grumblings inside the APC on the installation of Wike in the heart of the federalcabinet. But who would dare speak up, and out, in an extant kakistocracy? And to rub it in, the President, Alhaji Tinubu, promptly removed the FCT from the strictures of the federal government-wide Treasury Single Account [TSA]. The TSA was designed by the President Goodluck Jonathan administration to bring visibility and accountability to tracking and use of government monies.

The regime of the affliction called Muhammadu Buhari who recently marked 81 years actualized the policy. For Tinubu, Wike should not be constricted by the stringent requirements of the TSA. It appears that Tinubu cannot adequately reward Wike for the magic of February 25. But the ‘Emperorhood’ of Abuja is still not enough for Wike. He would not stop breathing down the neck of Simi Fubara, the man he installed as the PDP governor in Rivers state, while he is away working for the APC government at the centre. Fubara was Governor Wike’s accountant general of Rivers state. Wike is the archetype PDPC politician. Wike is a typical manifestation of the saying that what counts for a politician, especially the Nigerian Madevariantis not consistency but expediency. He is ‘onye nuru ebe onu, ebe ona anughi ana agu ya’ or the field is greener on the other side.

On consistency and expediency, Minister Wike had repeatedly said he would not vie for the presidency. He did and failed at the first hurdle. He had said he would not lobby for vice presidential pick. He did in PDP but he was rebuffed. He had also said he would never accept another ministerial post [he was a junior education minister before becoming governor]. He was offered FCT ministry and he accepted. More importantly, Wike severally said he would never play godfather whenever he left the governor’s mansion. He has left the mansion in Port Harcourt but reneged on the promise not to play god. And the attempt to be in control of two fiefdoms is the reason for the current turmoil in Rivers state, a golden goose that lays the crude oil egg which is the lifeblood of Nigeria.

The fight-to-finish in Port Harcourt between Wike and Fubara for the control of the politics of Rivers state has more dire and cataclysmic implications for Nigeria than many are willing to acknowledge. Oil wells, oil wellheads and pipelines litter the nooks and crannies of the state. When the state sneezes, Nigeria catches cold. Former President, the late Umaru Yar’Adua realized that much. He resorted to granting amnesty when Rivers state and parts of the Niger Delta were seized by militants in the mid-2000s. They crippled the production and export of crude oil. Nigeria suffered a choke hold. A currently struggling Nigeria will surely suffer immediate asphyxiation [suffocation] if the experiences of the 2000s were to repeat themselves. And there have been no shortage of warnings about that possibility by the Ijaw Nation, kinsmen of Governor Fubara.

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Between Wike and Fubara everything is profane. They and their supporters have turned themselves into wrecking crews. But for the enormous cost on the people, the state house of assembly has become a circus. Their shows leave ashes in the mouth of the people. In one day 27 [now 25] legislators claimed they had left the PDP and joined the APC. To boot they orchestrated a viral video showing the decampees waving the flag of their new party, the APC, and singing the new national anthem and national pledge combined… ‘On your mandate we shall stand…’ Just as earlier witnessed in the chambers of the Economic Community of West African States [ECOWAS] and the National Assembly [NASS], the loyalty of everyone present to Tinubu irrespective of country of origin [for ECOWAS delegates] and party affiliations [for NASS members during 2024 Budget presentation] must never be in doubt. So the Rivers decampees were on cue. Tinubu is unravelling before our eyes but this will not stop us in the near future from asking ourselves how we got wherever this will land us.

Are we a country of ostriches? In Rivers state ‘democrats’are wrecking democracy and its institutions.In Rivers state ‘democrats’are wrecking democracy and its institutions. The activities of the assembly are paralyzed in spite of the pretensions of the five Fubara lawmakers. The state’s 2024 budget was passed same day it was presented. No law may have been broken. But can we say the same for process. And democracy is about process. Due process. The presentation by the governor was done in the governor’s sitting room. Some say this breaks the law but who cares? After all, the state house of assembly complex has been bulldozed by theExecutive arm as part of the fight for supremacy between Wike and Fubara. In a democracy the Legislature, Executive and Judiciary should be co-equal arms of government. Does that obtain here?As usual, the judiciary has been sucked in with one court recognizing the Fubara Speaker of the assembly while another court ruled that an ill-defined status quo in the assembly should be maintained. Court rulings notwithstanding, the assembly factions of five and 25 respectively are still purportedly conducting in separate venues the business of the house by passing bills including money bill and local government autonomy bill. Democrats at work wrecking democracy. When the dust settles as it will eventually do, the people of Rivers state will pick up the bills which will come in the form of lack of governance, absence of representation and the costs of reconstruction. But pray, how do they recover institutional memory and possibly files and fixtures from the demolished house of assembly complex? How do you repair and restore broken trust between and amongst the various communities in the state? How do you allay fears and suspicions about domination and exclusion? Howdo you bind the wound-physical and psychological in an enduring manner? Nibbling and doing violence on democracy is not limited to Rivers state.

Until recently Ondo state hadbeen in the news for the wrong reasons. An ailing governor, who from reports in the public domain appears incapacitated, refused to do the needful. The cabinet and the lawmakers shirked their responsibility. The governor is a senior advocate of Nigeria. He held on to office while people around him used the power of the office for their own ends. Governance was not only paralyzed for months but allegations of serial forgeries of the signature of the governor were rife. Since 1999 our rulers have consistently constituted themselves into wrecking crews of our democracy. In Enugu state under Governor Chimaraoke Nnamani, minority lawmakers seized control of the assembly with the support of the governor.

The laws they enacted are still in the books of the state. A similar thing happened in Edo state under Governor Godwin Obaseki. During the era of former Governor Peter Obi, the PDP dominated Anambra state lawmakers moved their sittings to Asaba, the capital of neighbouring Delta state from where they impeached the governor elected on the platform of the All Progressive Grand Alliance [APGA]. The impeachment was subsequently struck down by the Supreme Court. In the same Anambra state, acolytes of then President Olusegun Obasanjo never stopped terrorizing governors in disregard of the norms of democracy. They had the backing of a strongman. We have also lived through a season where Bayelsa lawmakers were bused to Lagos to impeach their governor.

Former governor of Oyo state Rashidi Ladoja was also illegally impeached and forced from office in January 2006. Several years after,the Supreme Court ruled that his impeachment was unlawful. In our democracy there are no consequences for bad behaviour and undemocratic actions. So when the dust in Rivers and Ondo settles, we will move on until another absurdity rears its head elsewhere. We will paper over it and still pretend to be moving on with our hollowed out brand of democracy.

AUTHOR: UGO ONUOHA

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Articles published in our Graffiti section are strictly the opinion of the writers and do not represent the views of Ripples Nigeria or its editorial stand.

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