Governor Chibuike Amaechi In 2013

The year 2013 has come and gone with its actors and villains, comedies and tragedies. Indeed Governor Chibuike Amaechi cannot be displaced as one of the major key players in the state and national political space last year. The two-time Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly shot into political prominence after taking over from Senator  Bukola  Saraki as the Chairman of Nigeria Governor’s Forum(NGF). It cannot be argued that he has in the past three years at the NGF transformed the body into a major pressure group. Inadvertently, the NGF became the vehicle through which the dogged Rivers governor sped into national limelight.

With  internal wranglings in the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) growing into a monster of defections in the past few months, the battle over the party leadership structures and the approaching NGF elections became a catalyst for the current national anxiety ahead 2015 elections.

Perhaps that was why the Chairman Board of Trustees of the PDP, Chief Tony Anenih visited the state in April 2013 as part of efforts to appease aggrieved party stalwarts by meeting Governor Amaechi and other PDP faithfuls.

Anenih, accompanied by other members of the BoT, made the plea when he visited Amaechi  in Port Harcourt.

Anenih’s visit to Amaechi had coincided with a statement by the party penultimate Tuesday that its National Working Committee (NWC), headed by the National Chairman of the PDP, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, and BoT were not working at cross-purposes.

It was rumoured that Amaechi along with his supporters were preparing to dump the ruling party for another one, possibly the Action Congress of Nigeria which was still battling to register its new coalition with the Gen. Buhari led Congress for Progressive Change(CPC).

Amaechi’s romance with governors and members of the merging opposition coalition preparing to form the All Progressives Congress (APC) was said to have piqued the leadership of the PDP which felt that it was an indication that the governor might quit the party at anytime.

Anenih’s meeting with Amaechi was held behind closed doors, but a source at the meeting had revealed on the basis of anonymity that while the BoT chairman said Amaechi remained an asset to the party, Amaechi gave conditions for his continued stay in PDP.

Amaechi said he would remain in the PDP only if the presidency stopped meddling with issues concerning his chairmanship of the NGF and resolved the oil well dispute between Rivers and Bayelsa States.

He was said to have insisted that the presidency stopped using a serving minister from the state to stoke crisis in the state and the state executive of the PDP.

He said: “Chairman, like we did say to you, PDP in Rivers State is peaceful. We also have told you that we produced two million votes for the president. So we thank you for coming.

“All we are saying to you is tell the party to please treat us well so that we can encourage our people to continue to vote for PDP. We are members of PDP and we will remain members of PDP.”

Barely few weeks after Chief Anenih visited, Justice Ishaq Bello literarily pulled the red carpet from the governor’s feet.

The battle over the soul of the party in Rivers State had lingered for months in an Abuja High Court while the PDP chiefs were busy trying to reach out to the aggrieved parties. But Amaechi dismissed what he called an attempt to use the court against him as a defilement of the country’s justice system. Speaking through his deputy, Engr Tele Ikuru, Amaechi declared before a huge crowd of supporters who had gathered that Saturday at the front gate of the Government House, “I think as a nation one area we should not allow mud to go into is the judiciary. As a nation, one area we should not allow to become a thing of play is the judiciary. The temple of justice has been desecrated.

“Nigeria arise, Nigeria arise. If we do not rise, we will lose our country. As a nation, any day we allow the temple of justice to be desecrated we’ll lose our country. Any day a poor man cannot go to the court and state his case and get justice that country is lost’’ he cried.

Amid the incessant harassment and repeated efforts by the Presidency to politically emasculate him, Rivers State Governor and Chairman of Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF), Chibuike Amaechi, had said enough was enough calling on President Goodluck Jonathan and his handlers to hands-off the affairs of the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF), else he would quit the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and join the opposition All Progressive Congress(APC).

While the governor was battling with that, he was suspended from the party alongside governors of Sokoto State and Kano states for anti-party activities but Amaechi did not fail to reply his suspension as he headed to the court. At a youth forum in Government House, Amaechi lamented the way and manner PDP was emasculating its members without following the due process.

A fresh twist came into the governor’s travails as the NGF elections got closer. The Presidency commenced immense lobbying to foist its anointed candidate on the forum. This plan was resisted by the Northern Governor’s Forum(NGF), Dr Babangida Aliyu. Both the Northern Governors Forum and the Progressives from the APC states in the West teamed up for Amaechi, whom they believe was very outspoken and brave to confront the FG policies.

Disagreement had simmered between the presidency and the NGF over the establishment of the Sovereign Wealth Fund(SWF).

However, things came to a head on Friday 24th May 2013 when after several attempts to bar the Rivers governor from contesting the NGF elections that the forum opted for the open ballot rather than for a consensus candidate. Amaechi finally defeated Governor Jang in a clear vote of 19 to 16.

By July the party crisis and rift in the political space had grown totally sour with five members of the State Assembly pitched against 27 in the bid to unseat the governor. So on 9th July the five opposing members stole a fake mace into the Assembly Complex to impeach the governor. The plot led to a fracas in the House during which the Leader of the House used the fake mace to maul Hon. Micheal Oke Chinda representing Obio/Akpor Constituency 2.

The governor was few days after stripped of his security details, while Chidi Lloyd was charged for attempted murder and battery. The crisis also witnessed the emergence of a leadership tussle in the House with Rt. Hon. Otelemaba Amachree and Hon Evans Bipi who are both laying claims to Speakership. The National Assembly quickly intervened by taking over the functions of the House to avert further blood shed.

Governor Amaechi has not failed to blame the police for the current crisis rocking the state. He believed that the unseen hands from the presidency must have influenced the sudden removal of erstwhile State Police Commissioner, Mr. Mohammed Ndabawa who had replaced him with Mr. Mbu Joseph Mbu.

Amaechi had taken swipes at the Police for being partisan in their activities. Due to the compromised position of the police, Governor Amaechi has always raised alarm over deterioration of security.

With the crisis not abating, Amaechi had to join the ranks of the five aggrieved Northern governors- Wamako, Babangida Aliyu, Sule Lamido, Murtala Nyarko and Abdulfattah of Kwara State into the new PDP.

It was indeed glaring to him that the rupture in the PDP caused by the strong headedness of Bamanga Tukur-led exco to suppress and stifle the other voice will drag on  hence the subsequent defection to APC in November. He told newsmen after arriving in Port Harcourt why he moved. He said that the peace and reconciliatory meeting with the presidency had broken down and there was no need to stay.

“ We can’t continue the way we are. The picture painted by the PDP is as if we were begging to come back to the PDP and the issues raised were not being looked into and so it’s important that we resolve it one way or the other. What has happened is that those of us in the new PDP have decided to move into the APC with our supporters, to position ourselves for the next elections.’’

On the prospects of the reconciliatory meeting with President Jonathan with the G-7 governors Amaechi responded, “ that I can’t answer because if you look at the press release by Niger State governor, he said he will join us after a meeting with the President. I don’t know whether we are qualified for the meeting anymore. I agree with him that we were supposed to have gone for the meeting because the meeting was supposed to be on Sunday but the President said he was indisposed. So the governors met on Monday and decided to meet with the APC leadership today. And the position we took if you look at the press release was to better democracy and ensure that Nigeria moves forward’’.

Amaechi has not always failed to take on his political detractors, especially those whom he described as spent and disgruntled politicians from Rivers State whose masters are remoting them from Abuja, “their aim is to loot and share the state resources.’’ Many of these politicians he said have cornered government contracts without executing them, “ You find out that if you give some of these people money for contracts they will pocket it. History will not be fair to me if I leave with abandoned projects’’.

He also accused the wife of the president of attempting to macro manage Rivers state. He told newsmen under the umbrella of the Nigerian Union of Journalists(NUJ) that he will resist attempts to influence Rivers Government from Abuja.

On why he has decided to take such strange stance, a position many pundits have described as the betrayal of the Niger Delta over the quest to snatch a second term for the presidency he said, “ the battle by the Grassroot Democratic Initiative(GDI) is not for President Jonathan. They want to take over power and share the money’’.

He went on to say “ We are losing using a South-South President. Tell me what Rivers State has gained since Goodluck became President’’. The governor had always raised alarm over the continous ceding of state resources(oil wells) to Bayelsa and Abia States. The Ubima-born politician said that this was a ploy to incapacitate and discourage him from fighting.

Amaechi has also insisted that since politics was a game of interest, the state interest should be uppermost and where he does not find such interest then  he is bound to protest and obtainable justice.

Members of Rivers State House of Assembly, holding their meeting on Moscow Road as security operatives allegedly stopped them from gaining entrance into the Assembly Complex in Port Harcourt.