Arise, Rivers Elders …Towards Post-Election Unity

Wike and Amaechi

Two Igbo adages often  make profound impact on me, anytime they are voiced by the right persons.
The first is, ‘what an elder sees sitting, a child cannot see even while positioned on the tallest tree”. This underscores the magnitude of experience and wisdom that come with age.
The other is, ‘An elderly woman does not sit by and watch the pregnant goat deliver in its tetters. This is because as a mother, the aged woman should appreciate the rigours of childbirth, and  ought to empatise with the she goat, even if it is barely an animal?
Both adages highlight the near clairvoyance of the aged and the duty they owe society in times of challenges. They are expected to speak up when necessary, offer correction when needed and restore hope when society seems utterly hopeless.
Since the process leading to the last general elections, Rivers State has remained a battle field of sorts. Brother pitched against brother. Friend against friend. Community against community, all in the name of partisan politics. To say that true peace has eluded the state is to state the obvious. But the danger is that the gradual polarization of the people is getting to heights that silence cannot address.
This is not the first elections that would be held in the state. Upon return to democracy in 1999, Dr Peter Odili of the People’s Democratic Party was elected governor and there-after Rivers State came together as one indivisible people. Infact, all known oppositions simmered down and Rivers people worked towards the progress of the state.
In the process leading to the choice of Odili’s successor however, there was what became known as ‘K-Leg’, thanks to the then President Olusegun Obasanjo. Then Speaker Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi who won the primaries was denied the party’s ticket resulting in a protracted litigation but he was restored governor by the Supreme Court. With that judgement, then incumbent Celestine Omehia, was unseated.
Even so, there was not much rancour. Rivers State did not experience the kind of violent, division that characterized the process for the choice of a successor to Amaechi. That was the emergence of the All Progressives Congress (APC). For a minority state, not familiar with opposition politics, Rivers has always partnered with the northern majority in pursuit  of national interest.
So when the APC emerged, with a pre-dominantly Yoruba following and some minority northern parties, many Rivers politicians were naturally skeptical. They had worked with the PDP for about 16 years and found movement to the new party very risky.
But incumbent Governor Amaechi did not think so, and moved to the APC, with a determination to deliver the state to his new party in all elections.
The governor repeatedly threatened to punish the PDP’s presidential candidate then President Goodluck Jonathan with Rivers votes and ensure that his re-election was truncated.
That threat, was inspite of the fact that President Jonathan’s wife is from Rivers, and Jonathan, thus a son-in-Law to the state. Secondly, he Amaechi was elected on the platform of the PDP and could not easily decimate the party which has ruled the state for four tenures of  four years each. Thirdly, there was the factor for an Education Minister who owed it a duty to work against the death of the PDP in the state, the platform that sought to re-elect President Goodluck Jonathan. The fourth reason was that the whole of the South -South and South-East were united behind a Jonathan re-election, and Rivers State could not be expected to be different.
These indeed were some of the currents that fuelled the political dispute that laid the foundation for the polarization of the state. The other was Amaechi’s determination to use all the power at his disposal as governor, to ensure that his new party won the state, not minding the expected resistance of the party that had ruled the state since return to democracy, and gave him the platform to emerge as  governor.
So,a confident Amaechi swore, that not only would Jonathan lose Rivers State in the presidential elections but also that Chief Nyesom Wike who had them emerged as flagbearer could never be elected governor.
In the end, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Rivers votes in favour of President Jonathan and Wike returned as Governor of Rivers State.
And because of the amount of bitterness that characterized the process of those elections, former Governor Amaechi allegedly refused to hand-over to his valid successor, in person of Governor Wike. What the new governor had to work with were bits and pieces gathered together from ministries.
No political process has been characterized by so much bitterness.
With that setting, a protracted legal battle was imminent and went through the whole hug. In the end, the Supreme Court re-affirmed Chief Wike’s election, after the Rivers State Governorship Elections Petition Tribunal and the Court of Appeal had in separate rulings annulled the election.
Unfortunately, however, the Appeal Court also annulled the election of all three senators and nearly all members of the House of Representatives. Of the membership of the state House of Assembly, nearly three quarters were ordered to go for re-run election.
The re-run elections to the National Assembly will hold on Saturday March 19, 2016 as planned by INEC.
Expectedly, Rivers State has come under another intense political heat as former governor Amaechi and other state officials of the PDP exchange hot words.
Prior to this, there had be unsubstantiated allegations by the APC about plans to eliminate its members. But in a radio interview last week Amaechi fell short of threatening to use Federal might to win the elections by all means and at all costs.
The truth is that, in all the threats and counter threats, the battle ground will surely be Rivers. A worse case scenario would be the usual senseless killings and destruction of property.
In such a situation, Rivers would still be the ultimate loser.
Should Rivers elders then sit by and do nothing while politicians destroy the state which they won after years of agitation? Is it that all those who fought for the creation of the state are all gone and left the state for toddlers when the state was created?
Apart from politics, there are structures upon which the state thrives.
There is traditional rulers council, there is an ensemble  of statesmen, there is a forum of  apolitical elite, there is the leadership of the Christians and there are community leaders.
How can all these groups sit by, look the other way and watch our beloved Rivers State become a perpetual political battle ground? For how long will the state bury its young over reasons that do not elevate humanity?
For how long would the ambitions of few men and women, determine the course of events in the state?
Answers to these questions should indeed worry our elders and opinion leaders. They must rise up now, call themselves together, reason and fashion a plan to stop the further militarization of the state in the name of politics. These ought to be peace times, politics  is a game that produces winners and losers and not dead bodies.
Most importantly, politicians ought to see elections as a process of getting the peoples permission to serve and not to grab leadership by force. It should be a solemn walk with genuine demonstration of preparedness to serve and get the peoples sympathy in the process.
It should not be one to be  acquired by force or through intimidation. Accounts of elections in recent past have shown that to rig successfully, a political party must have the people behind it. But an even bigger obligation is the honour of accepting defeat and the grace of celebrating victory.
To forge ahead as a state, politicians must realize that there was Rivers before their political parties, therefore they must play the game according to rules and not covert the state into a battle ground.
My Agony is that many of the elders are directly of indirectly a part of the problem and are prepared to remain deaf and dumb. Methink it takes a few to start something and it will spread afterwards.

Soye Wilson Jamabo