Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State and his predecessor and now Minister of transportation, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, have resumed the age long verbal attacks on each other, after many months of ceasefire.The two prominent Ikwerre sons were at each other’s throat all through the Dr. Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, and have continued to be political enemies since then.
Wike, as the minister of state for education was against Amaechi for his perceived disrespect to the former president and his wife, Dame Patience, who actually started the war before it escalated. Wike’s grouse against Amaechi became too glaring, when the minister became the Chairman of Nigerian Governors’ Forum, which later became too powerful under him, and formed part of the forces that led to the defeat of Jonathan by Muhammadu Buhari in 2015.
Wike had termed Amaechi a sell-out, political prodigal son and a Niger Delta son, who joined forces with ‘outsiders’ to frustrate and force his brother (Jonathan) out of power.
But the minister saw Wike as an opportunist, who took advantage of the disagreement between him and the Jonathans to advance his political ambition. Indeed, he accused Governor Wike of fuelling the animosity, with a view to using it as a ladder to climb to the governorship position.
Consequently, Amaechi did all he could to stop Wike from succeeding him in office. But he lost the battle when the Supreme Court finally gave judgment in favour of the governor.
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However, not a few people thought that the two brothers would sheath their swords, sink their differences and work together in the interest of the state and Ikwerre ethnic nationality. Instead, they continued to demonstrate through their actions and those of their aides, that their differences could be anything but reconcilable. This is even after many fruitless efforts by the socio-cultural group that bind Ikwerre people together, Ogbako Ikwerre, to reconcile their two prominent sons. At every slightest opportunity, Amaechi and Wike abused each other publicly and sometimes, they allowed their aides to do the dirty fight on their behalf.
But at a time, the two appeared to have secretly reconciled their political differences and reached a secret pact, this fueled the speculation that the crisis currently rocking the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Rivers State was as a result of secret pact between Amaechi and Wike. The alleged secret pact is known by many, as Ikwerre Agenda.
According to those who hold this view, the Ikwerre Agenda was a secret agreement between the two, playing to the gallery and deceiving Rivers people to believe that they are enemies, while allegedly working underground to ensure that Wike completes his eight years tenure in office. According to this school of thought, too, that was the alleged reason behind Amaechi, disallowing Senator Magnus Ngei Abe, from clinching his party’s governorship ticket, as it was believed that it is only Abe that could give Wike the run for his money during the 2019 governorship election.
On the contrary, Amaechi and his group have not ceased to accuse Governor Wike of sponsoring the unending crisis in the Rivers APC, with the sole aim of achieving his second tenure ambition. But Wike has since denied the allegation of instigating crisis in Rivers APC.
Meanwhile, the two political gladiators have gone back to the trenches, shortly after the APC rally, held on Tuesday, February 12, 2019, at the Adeokiye Amasiemaka stadium, the same venue the former national chairman of APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, nicknamed Amaechi, “the lion of Niger Delta”, in 2015.
When it was the turn of Amaechi, who is also the Director General of Buhari Presidential Campaign, to speak at the rally, and in his characteristic manner, the minister took permission from the president to sing what many, especially those who speak and understand Igbo language, believe to be war song. He also recalled how Governor Wike, whom he said, he made the Obio/Akpor Local Government chairman and facilitated his being a minister, and how Wike and the former president used security agents to intimidate him and APC in the state, to submission. Besides singing the Igbo war song, he literarily challenged Rivers PDP to a political fight at the battlefield (2019 general elections).
Unfortunately, the APC rally in Rivers State ended on a tragic note, as fourteen persons (12 females and two males) died during the stampede, which occurred, as people were trying to rush out of the stadium, through one exit point. First to fire the first shot after the tragic rally was the Rivers State Commissioner for Information, Emma Okah, who blamed the tragedy on poor organisation by the APC.
Also, during a broadcast by the governor on February 14 over the botched February 16, and March 2, 2019 general elections in the state, the governor did not disappoint many of his supporters, who had been expecting him to adequately give a deserving reply to Amaechi’s war song, having said little about Amaechi’s “war threat” during a political rally at Rumueme, along Ikwerre Road.
The governor, during the broadcast, condemned Amaechi’s utterances in strong terms, and accused him of planning to bomb INEC office in Port Harcourt.
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Wike said: “Against this backdrop, we are worried by the repeated infantile threats by the APC and in particular, the Minister of Transport and Director General of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, Rt. Hon. Rotimi Amaechi, at last Tuesday’s APC Presidential Campaign, to unleash needless violence on the state during the general elections.
“Having woefully failed to foist his business partner and political godson on the state, Rotimi Amaechi would rather have the state destroyed, than to allow the people to exercise their franchise by electing leaders of their choice from among the political parties and candidates that have been cleared by INEC to contest the general elections in the state.
“Consequently, credible intelligence has linked Rotimi Amaechi and his cohorts in the factionalised APC to prevent the peaceful conduct of the general elections in Rivers State with the support of some unpatriotic military and police officers.
“The security officers have been detailed to provide effective covert and overt operational covers for Rotimi Amaechi’s armed militants and thugs clad in military camouflage and fake police uniforms to bomb INEC offices, cart away or destroy voting materials at Registration Area Centres, and disrupt the voting processes across the state on a scale that will force INEC to abruptly call off the elections on grounds of insecurity.
“Several Hilux vehicles painted in military colours and gunboats donated by the Executive Director (Technical) of the Nigerian Ports Authority, Hon. Sokonte Davies, have already been handed over to the militants to aid and enable them carry out the ferocious attacks on the state and inflict the most devastating havoc on lives and property across the state.”
“While we sympathise with Rotimi Amaechi over his frustrations and loss of political relevance in the state, his present political travails, painful as they are, do not justify his criminal conspiracy with security agencies and misguided militants to unleash terror and violence on a peaceful state he once badly administered.”
This may likely be the final battle between Governor Wike and Amaechi before reconciliation in the nearest future. The reason is that nobody is going to stand between the governor and the Brick House on March 2. Though battle-weary and fractured because of the intra-party crisis in Rivers APC, Amaechi is not ready to give up, even if it means only barking at Wike without biting