Chris Anucha, Port Harcourt
The March 9, 2019 governorship election has already been lost and won in Rivers State. The contest would have been keen, tough and unpredictable, if the All Progressives Congress, APC, did not allow in-fighting to rob it of the opportunity of fielding candidates for state, National Assembly and governorship positions.
Also, it would have been more interesting and challenging, if the Senator representing the Rivers South-East Senatorial District, Magnus Abe, had clinched the party’s governorship ticket. Rivers people would have experienced a real political battle between him and Governor Nyesom Wike. The two men are political heavyweights in their own rights.
No doubt, Abe would have been a stronger contender than Tonye Cole. The Ogoni, who have been feeling cheated and marginalised by other ethnic nationalities in the politics of the state, would have seen Abe’s election as a challenge and an opportunity to elect one of their own, as governor of the state. The Ogoni have been complaining that they have not been able to produce governor, deputy governor, Speaker of the House of Assembly, among others, since the creation of the state. And Ogoni has a very large population like Ikwerre and Etche.
Unfortunately, leaders of APC in the state behaved like a demented hen that broke its egg and scooped the content, discarding the shell, unknown to it that what it did was to kill one of its chicks before the egg is hatched. The intra-party crisis eventually nailed the coffin of the party, thereby, stopping it from fielding candidates for governorship, national and state assemblies in the general elections.
Party members are too divided to see the bigger picture. The two factions – led by the Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Amaechi, and Magnus Abe – were busy and too committed to in-fighting, rather than uniting and forming a common front to fight a common enemy and the ruling party in the state, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. The self-inflicted injury saw the two factions in and out of courts, seeking for cure for political virus that had already incapacitated the state chapter of the party.
As the party was steering towards the rocks, leaders of the warring factions (Amaechi and Abe) never saw the need to put their house in order, through negotiation, lobbying and concessions, as is usually the practice in politics. The two leaders behaved in manner that suggested that APC was their personal property, and that the opinions of other members of the party didn’t matter.
However, Senator Abe on his part debunked this. According to him, he had made personal efforts, aimed at resolving the crisis within the party, but his efforts were said to have met a brick wall, mounted by Amaechi.
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For instance, he disclosed how he made efforts and kept the reconciliation window open, which, he said, Amaechi rebuffed. One of such efforts was when he granted interview on television, radio stations and national newspapers, saying that Amaechi is his leader. According to him, when the minister heard it, he quickly issued a press statement in Abuja, rubbishing his claim. The minister, in his disclaimer, had told the world how he ceased to be Abe’s leader, after he betrayed him, having made him what he is today, politically.
He said when Amaechi realised the need and importance of reconciliation, he didn’t approach the issue with an open mind and in the spirit of give-and-take. The senator had complained bitterly about how the minister was only interested in what he (Abe) was ready to give up, as one of the conditions for restoring peace to the crisis-ridden party and not what his preferred candidate, Tony Cole, was ready to give up. And as the internal crisis was raging, Governor Wike, a grassroots man, whom Amaechi and those in his camp accused of sponsoring Abe to foment trouble in APC, was busy strategising, mobilising, reaching out and looking out for loopholes (legal) that would help him to put a wedge on the political wheel of his opponents.
Meanwhile, both Abe and Wike have denied the allegation by the minister. For instance, Senator Abe regarded Amaechi’s allegation as an insult on him. In his reaction, Abe explained that though, a governor, Wike remained his junior both at the Bar and in politics.
“I see Amaechi’s allegation as an insult. Wike is not my superior, both at the Bar and in politics,” he fumed.
With the incapacitation of Rivers APC as far as 2019 general elections are concerned, Governor Wike, as it stands now, has no serious contender. Some people thought the Abe group had the slim chance of being recognised by the court, to contest the election, using the indirect primaries supervised by the State Executive Council. But the hope was again dashed when the Appeal Court in Port Harcourt threw out the suit on Thursday, February 21, 2019.
The truth is that most of the people parading themselves as governorship candidates in the state are unserious persons and opportunists, who are after campaign funds that would accrue from such enterprise or business venture. Others just want their governorship candidacy to reflect in their curriculum vitae or profile. Without doubt, some of them joined the governorship race with a view to attracting the attention of the governor for a possible negotiation for financial reward. Indeed, many of them are not professional politicians.
Already, and according to Jerry Needam, the media aide to the Chairman of the state chapter of PDP, Chief Felix Obuah, 54 of such political parties have collapsed into PDP while their candidates have endorsed the candidacy of Governor Wike. Some of the governorship candidates don’t even have the capacity to campaign in the 23 local government areas of the state like the governor. They cannot be said to be grassroots politicians, as the governor, who formed a group, the Grassroots Development Initiative, GDI, even before he was elected into office in 2015. It was the GDI that he effectively used to reach all the nooks and crannies of the state.
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The governor has everything working for him as far as the governorship election in the state is concerned. With Abe out of the race, Wike stands the chance of winning majority of the votes in Ogoni land. The same can be said of Etche, Ikwerre, even the riverine areas where Tonye Cole and Dumo Lulu-Briggs come from.
Though, some people believe strongly that Lulu-Briggs merely has the outward body of Accord Party, but his soul is with APC. The same school of thought believes that Lulu-Briggs emerged, as ‘Plan B’ for APC, should the party fail to field any candidate as result of the internal crisis. That could also be the reason Lulu-Briggs supported President Muhammadu Buhari’s presidential candidacy, and urged his supporters to vote massively for the president.
However, it is erroneous for anyone to believe that all members of APC would vote for Lulu-Briggs, as an alternative to Tonye Cole or Magnus Abe. As it stands now, the governorship contest in Rivers is between Governor Wike and Wike, perhaps, and others. It is only a court declaration or natural cause that can prevent him from being sworn in a second time, as the governor of the “Treasure Base of the Nation” come May 29.
It may remain so, even if court declares that the APC candidate should contest tomorrow.
