This piece is based on anecdotes of the experience of two individuals in Rivers State separated by the 20 years between the Second and Fourth Republics. The objective is to explain, not justify, certain behaviors from the perspective of what society inadvertently orders based on the actions of authority figures and the docility of civil society. The first anecdote is my personal experience in the political arena during the Second Republic while the second deals with the undercurrents that Rivers State was embroiled in during the 2019 general elections as a result of the resolve of Rt. Honourable Chibuike Amaechi to unseat his bosom friend, Governor Nyesom Wike, from office. This is an endeavour in psychoanalysis; the commonality of the behaviours in the anecdotes is what to ruminate on towards avoiding ordering disorder in future.
From rock musicianship during the late 1960s to early 1970s, I navigated through Radio Nigeria, Port Harcourt as a disc jockey, had a brief stint at College of Education, Oromineke and travelled to the US in 1973 for further studies. Returning in November 1979, Hon. Engr. Victor Masi, then Minister of Works, introduced me to Governor Melford Okilo who directed that I be appointed General Manager of Rivers State Newspaper Corporation but was advised otherwise as a result of the mandatory National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme; I was, therefore, deployed as Senior Special Assistant (SSA) to the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), allocated an official car and moved into Suite 459, Hotel Presidential, Port Harcourt where I took residence for the service year. My immediate boss (Prof William W. Ogionwo) assigned me to cover Executive Council (EXCO) matters, which required that I attend EXCO meetings with him; a rather meteoric rise in the system.
At 11.00am every Wednesday, the governor, his deputy, commissioners and those of us who were executive messengers, gathered in the Banquet Hall and had brunch during which we chatted and quipped virtually at status parity before settling down to business. At EXCO, I sat behind my boss and to my left sat a consummate gentleman by name Boma G.E. Charles who was Permanent Secretary (Cabinet) and so sat behind the Head of Service (HOS), Chief Ekuku Wokocha. Incidentally, it was Mr. Charles who, as Permanent Secretary (Education) and Chairman of Scholarship Board, signed my scholarship documents in 1973; the account of that fateful day belongs in another episode and there I was sitting next to him in functional parity. Again, in the political plans of succession of National Party of Nigeria (NPN), a few young people were being groomed for various positions in the future; I was slated for SSG come 1987. Naturally, my pituitary gland started expanding, illusions of grandeur set in and I started floating in the clouds with a bloated sense of self-worth, so to speak.
At breakfast one morning, the manager of Hotel Presidential whispered that I should bring back the monthly renewal paper. Prof Ogionwo was out of town and so I took the paper to the HOS who had equal mandate. He looked at it, looked at me and wrote “No” on the paper and circled it with red ink. For a second, I was confused; so, I went back to my office and sat, head in hand. Shortly thereafter, Precious Ngelali, who I introduced to the hotel arrangement, strolled by with his Caucasian wife, greeted and said he was going to see my “brother” (HOS and I are from the same place) for the usual paper. I did not want to discourage him, so I said “good luck buddy.” In less than 10 minutes, Ngelali swung by with the paper signed. Goodness gracious!!! I was livid with rage. Just then, my secretary rushed in and announced that SSG needed my attention. Gladly, I rushed to him, welcomed him, quickly tidied up his directives, reproduced the monthly approval paper and he signed. That did it. I stormed into the HOS’s office, showed him the approval and said so many unprintable things to him. Everybody in the room scampered for a hiding place while he and I engaged in a shouting match in English and Ogba. It took the timely intervention of Captain Elechi Amadi, who I had become acquainted with, to take me out of the office.
Now, think of it: a youth corper?! A bloody blinking youth corper?! In a shouting match with the HOS?! Unthinkable! I had not even entered the first rung of the bureaucratic hierarchy while the HOS was at the apex of the structure. We were worlds apart in the system but, for me, the system and its structure did not exist; I had not been groomed in the norms and culture of the bureaucratic system, so it did not exist.
That was 1980; fast forward to 1999. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi held no job in any formal organization in the strict sense of the term; so, from nowhere, so to speak, he contested for election into Rivers State House of Assembly and lost, according to the Electoral Commission. However, he went to court, was declared winner and, subsequently, elected the Speaker of the House. Following eight years of Speakership, he vied for gubernatorial candidacy of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), won but was set aside in the K-Leg saga; his kinsman, Barr Celestine Omehia, took his place and was elected Governor of Rivers State. However, Amaechi went to court and was declared winner in total disregard of the “vote and be voted for” requirement of the electoral law; he was sworn in as Governor of Rivers State. So, Amaechi was taught that the way to the apex of the superstructures of public office is by undermining the system.
In summation, the two dramatis personae shared exactly the same bloated state of mind as a result of their meteoric rise in the system; the difference is in the circumstances: whereas the effrontery and outburst of the youth corper were limited to the Office of the Head of Service, the latter case resulted in state-wide insecurity, the death of so many people and the near violation of the vote. In either case, the point is that when you take someone who never held any employment in a formal organization and undermine the system by hoisting him on the structure, you have succeeded in exploding his pituitary and thus creating a superman that would have no regard whatsoever for the processes and procedures of the system.
The gospel truth is that in the two instances, the system was undermined resulting in the aberrant behaviour of the beneficiaries. It is therefore recommended thus: (1) appointees to political positions should have certain basic experience or be subjected to seminars and psychological reprogramming at the takeoff of the appointment and (2) granted that there are requirements for election into the legislature, there should also be certain other stringent requirements for appointment to the position of Speaker, given the strategic position of the office. The second recommendation will, naturally, raise the bar for entry into the legislature as most constituencies would desire to field candidates who possess the requisite qualification for Speakership; it will therefore create room for more qualitative, mature and circumspect individuals and, hopefully, guard against our ordering disorder in the future.
Dr Osai lectures at the Rivers State University, PH.

Jason Osai