Sokonte Davies: Politics And Opposition In Kalabari Land (2)

Still on the back ground, when Biafra seceded, it was unconsciously usurped by the NCNC political structure and the civil service of Eastern Nigeria. As such, NCNC members gained so much ascendancy in politics and civil service and to consolidate that advantage it hounded and labelled members of the AG and NPC, as federalist rebels and saboteurs.
This pattern so prevailed in Kalabari land from Kula to Bakana. The NCNC became so notorious in expression of support and loyalty to Biafra that members of the NPC the Action Group became fugitives in self-imposed exile, gallivanting from creek to creek to save their lives.
Even those who went on self-exile had their relatives arrested on vicarious allegations and finger pointing of being saboteurs.
The NCNC as the regional majority party, was notorious and inebriated with majoritarian politics. The party developed a conspiracy literary patterns of apologia, instigating inquisitions, witch hunting and rewriting the histories of Eastern Niger Delta Communities to appease the whims of her members mostly involved in kingship and chieftaincy wrangling in exchange for their support. Members of the NCNC were a government of their own. For not liking your face or having any flimsy issues of philandering differences, they label you a rebelled to the Biafran soldiers.
Most of our people that were arrested and taken to the Biafran hinterlands never returned. It was brother against brother.
What started as party opposition politics and petty hate and rivalry in the first republic soon crystallised  to genocide in  Biafra  and later Nigeria.
May 1967: As Kalabari towns started to fall to federal troops, the Tide of horror turned. The battle cry changed instantaneously from “go to Niger’ or “ga Niger” to Oshobe! Commando de Boro ; Oshobe! Commando de Boro, Oshobe! One Nigeria.
The advantage of politics and its opposition hatred changed hands as Action Group and NPC members who had fled on account of hate and bitterness arising from opposition politics came in as federalist and liberators.
The federal troops were not an army of liberation but punitive measures. It ushered in new regime of brazen bloodletting and gory decapitation of the Kalabari humanity on the cursed alter of rancour and divisions at which background is the politics of opposition- the type Hon. Sokonte Davies is preaching against his former benefactors and primary constituency by inciting the general public to shame them to world.
In Bakana, there was the sory of a Dr C I. Berepiki, a PhD in education; a top civil servant in the Eastern Nigeria Ministry of Education in Enugu.
When Bakana fell to federal troops, the Bakana federalist gave him out to federal troops to be shot on account of being a Biafra supporter. But according to tradition, he was able to prove his innocence that despite supporting Biafra he did nothing inimical to the existential interest of his people especially about the sacking of Bakana into Izi Item in the Igbo hinterland.
But the people of Bakana are mostly pointing to a section of Kalahari where the NCNC- Biafra civilo -mi litary was dominant with primordial traditional hierarchy tussle as responsible for their woes. It is to vent their anger on this latter issue that the federalist gave him out to be shot But the federal troops did not see any reason to waste this prominent and amiable man. So, the soldiers devised a clever ruse between the kill hims and the spare hirns. The soldiers took him to the swamp and creeks and shot into the air and provided him means to escape to Port Harcourt. This way the kill hirns were fooled and assuaged They jubilated and dispersed He escaped to Port Harcourt and was absorbed into the Rivers State Ministry of Education. After the civil war, Rivers State was whose of qualified teachers so to fill the gap, he and his committee recommended to the state government to open teachers training colleges to train teachers to fill the gaps in primary schools This is how teachers training colleges at the grade two level to fill primary school teachers gaps came into existence. He was appointed the rector of’TT’C Regina Celi in Bodo; he came back to Bakana and other Kalabari towns for unqualified teachers to register for training and certification as grade two teachers. Indigent primary six holders whose parents could not afford secondary education were encouraged to use this opportunity to train as teachers.
My proof reader’s mother read from primary six to first degree in primary education. In Bakana about four of my elder friends whose parents could not afford secondary education, they all enrolled in this scheme and became trained teaches. This is how teacher education blossomed in Kalahari land
Some read from primary six to first degree, masters, and PhD in education. He also made sure Kalahari got one of the T. T. Cs sited in Degema.
This is the type of man that the hate and bitterness of the Kalahari opposition politics gave out to fedeal troops to be wasted. After the T. T Cs, the Advanced Teachers College to fill secondary school gaps was born and later the Rivers University of Education ( Ignatius Ajuu University of Education now).
In Tombia, Hon. Sokonte Davies’ home town,kingship tussle divided along the lines of political opposition- as of the general patterns I have extrapolated above. But Tombia’s case became a disgusting fratricide of a Peloponnesian war. At several time the town has been burnt down by factions who see themselves as NCNC- AG, Biafra or Nigeria, to one faceless group or the other until the unification and pacification of Tombia by Farah Dagogo. That there is Tombia today and Hon Sokonte Davies has a place to call home is because there is Farah Dagogo now in the national assembly.
During the primary election for Sokonte’s secood tenure into the national assembly, Hon. Sokonte was ambushed by a clever chap from Bille with the Bonny section of the constituency. He was defeated in the primary. It was Farah who single handedly reversed that result in Sokonte’s favour. I hear today, Hon Sokonte is in political opposition to Farrah and he is shaming Hon. Farrah, his Kalahari people and the PDP, his benefactors. What an ingrate.
I have to teach Hon. Sokonte a lesson in our political horror through our history of politics of opposition. Now if you read between the lines of my anecdotes and the historical- political analysis there in, you will see that people were killed in the Kalahari holocaust not because Igbos brought Biafra or Nigeria brought liberation and her brigand federal troops but because there is an existing structure of politics of opposition and hate ingrained in our psyche and fuelled by irredentist politicians like Hon. Sokonte Davies of the time, who preached a hate ideology of meddling and shaming the opposition even when political actions and the wills are tailored for the general good.
In politics there are levels and phases and our reactions at any time give out our level of political intellect.
The event that Hon. Sokonte is shaming is a mere spectacle of political symbiotism- Gov. Wike wants presidential politics; the Kalahari section of the PDP wants the Governorship of Rivers State in 2023 and the completion of their trans Kalahari road.
There is a popular political allegory of the bear and the hunter. The hunter wanted the fur of the bear and the bear wanted the hunter for food so they negotiated. You scratch my back, I scratch your back.
Sokonte’s shaming of his people for negotiating politics is nothing but a partisan nuisance and political opposition atavism.
If the Kalahari people on whose name and back he rode to political stardom should evolve a pan- Kalahari ideology, Kalahari governor 2023 to turn their backwaters of marches and swamps into an economic centre, the organisers of the event had the political acuity to wean it of politics and the PDP by not allowing politicians and political appointees to speak at the event.
The event featured the creme de la creme of Kalabari politicians and traditional rulers.
Hon. Sokonte was invited as a prominent son and former representative. He declined the invitation so that he can shame people.
He doesn’t know the gory past and misapplication of opposing views, he doesn’t aspire with us in our economic and infrastructural development, how did he represent us in the national assembly? Or this is just another case of systemic fluking created by our aberrant politics. Sokonte, ama bebe buru; ngeribo buru pakiri.
This is a pristine dialectics of’ the whole against the part” bequeathed to the Kalahari Kingdom by our great King Amakiri.

By: Sogbeye Douglas
I am not a frontline politician. I write as a kalabari elder and publicist.
Douglas, a public affairs analyst lives in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.