Delivering Rivers PDP from its past

“There is little choice in a barrel of rotten apples”. William Shakespeare Long before President Muhammadu Buhari presented his list of ministerial nominees to the Senate, many Nigerians had waited with animated anticipation to see what role Mr Chibuike Amaechi will play in the present administration. The former two term Speaker of the Rivers State […]

“There is little choice in a barrel of rotten apples”. William Shakespeare

Long before President Muhammadu Buhari presented his list of ministerial nominees to the Senate, many Nigerians had waited with animated anticipation to see what role Mr Chibuike Amaechi will play in the present administration. The former two term Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, two-term Governor of the state and former Chairman Nigerian Governors’ Forum, had also served as the Director General of the Buhari Presidential Campaign Organisation, which scored an unprecedented upset in the annals of Nigerian politics with the defeat of the erstwhile ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and enthronement of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Formerly a leading member of the PDP, Amaechi left the party in November 2013. He joined and not only helped to build the APC, but fought his former party with so much gusto, especially through his active challenge to the return to power by the former President Goodluck Jonathan, that he became one of the PDP’s most hated foes. Hence when Amaechi’s name featured in the President’s team, attention shifted to what commensurate portfolio he would handle.
This expectation was however disrupted by a development in which the three serving Senators from the Rivers State under the leadership of Senator George Sekibo, all elected on the platform of the PDP, protested his inclusion as a ministerial nominee on the basis of a petition from a Port Harcourt based advocacy group. The Senate formally received the petition and referred it to its Committee on Ethic and Privileges. Amaechi in turn resorted to the court, leading to a development which compelled the Senate to follow its rules that place matters in court out of bounds for it until such are disposed of.
The general expectation was that having reverted the petition against him to the appropriate Committee and awaiting its outcome, the Senate would have proceeded to screen Amaechi along with other nominees. But that did not happen for reasons many associate with the muted threat from his traducers to disrupt the Senate proceedings if the man was screened. In a recent article titled ‘Alas Rivers State Politicians Are Still Mad’, veteran journalist and broadcaster Chief Tonie Iredia lamented over the sickening depth to which politics in the Rivers State had sunken. The Amaechi saga it would seem has demonstrated that the odious situation is not confined to the state but is now being played out in the hallowed precincts of the National Assembly, and maybe beyond.
Contemporary circumstances indicate that the origin and trajectory of Amaechi’s saga are not difficult to track. Given his antecedents while in the PDP, his move to APC would translate to his former party shooting itself in the foot as it clearly misread his potency as a political factor; at least not until former President Goodluck Jonathan fell from power. Since then, all around PDP circles in the South-South geopolitical region and even beyond, the common sing song was that “Amaechi had betrayed his brother Jonathan”. Yet romantic as the chant may be, it betrays a lack of appreciation of that dynamic factor, which makes partisan politics to revolve more around interests and issues, than personalities and filial connections. 
More pointedly, Amaechi’s current travails at the Senate cannot be separated from the grudges against him by the Rivers State PDP, which has an extension at the national level where the acting National Chairman of the party Prince Uche Secondus, is playing a script that is not difficult to conceal. The underhand role of Secondus is amply accentuated by the circumstances under which his nephew and former Deputy Governor of Rivers State Mr Tele Ikuru, abandoned his principal Amaechi, by resigning from office and dropping the APC to return to the PDP, just a few days to the last general polls. It is no gainsaying that even Ikuru is now a key member of the ‘Bring Amaechi Down’ lobby.
However if Ikuru’s reversal is seen to be in bad faith, he is not alone as the same story goes for Chief Nyesom Wike, the current governor of the state. He served as Chief of Staff to Amaechi all through the first term of that administration during which much of the developments associated with the allegations in the petition before the Senate, took place. Following his split with his principal Amaechi and subsequent appointment as Minister of State for Education by former President Goodluck Jonathan, Wike’s political agenda for the state seemed to be built on an anti-Amaechi mindset. In this enterprise he was soon to secure the services of a most disposed ally in the person of the former First Lady Mrs Patience Jonathan, who shared a common belly ache over Amaechi. The capacity the duo built up in serving as nemesis for Amaechi and by implication the Rivers State, played out before all Nigerians. It was as if Amaechi needed to be destroyed, no matter what it would cost the Rivers people. 
Hence with respect to the ongoing campaign to demonise Amaechi, the question is on what basis will Ikuru and Wike and any other politician in the same mould, be exonerated from being complicit in whatever is good, bad and ugly with the administration. This question enjoys relevance not only for card carrying members of the various political parties, but also independent minded Nigerians like this humble author, who bear no party affiliation and do not carry the card of any party. However while the members of the various parties may opt to see the drama from their partisan perspectives, this author and his co-travelers are disposed to view the situation from a cost benefit angle, with respect to the overall interest of the Rivers people. This is more so given the privilege afforded him to serve sometime as a Director in the Rivers State Newspaper Corporation (RSNC), and Editor-in-Chief of The Tide group of newspapers, published by the (RSNC), at a time that easily qualifies as one of the golden seasons of that title. 
It is against such a backdrop that this author wishes to advise the Rivers caucus in the National Assembly, in particular the Senators to back pedal on the campaign of bringing Amaechi down, through denying him the mere exercise of being screened as a ministerial nominee. Much as they may feel justified in their enterprise, their exertions amount in the public domain to little more than a poorly executed act of self-serving vendetta, driven by misguided impunity. Such acts largely contributed to discredit the politics of the past and denied the PDP the opportunity of building vital political capital, thereby earning for itself the loss of power at the centre.
They need not be reminded that all through Nigeria’s political history minority entities like the Rivers State do not enjoy standing in opposition to the party in power at the centre. And in the context of present political realities, the Rivers State is squarely in this undesirable position of diminished choices. This leaves Amaechi remaining perhaps the most potent factor for driving the interests of the Rivers State in the administration of President Buhari.
Operating in opposition at the centre and ruling in some states of the federation like Rivers offers the PDP some opportunities for recovery. But that is only possible if the leadership embraces the vision of reforming from the shenanigans of the past including wasteful sorties in vendetta. States in a similar position where the ruling government is not APC are shedding their grudges to strategize and exploit the best of both worlds in terms of securing dividends of democracy for their people. That is the synergy Rivers people expect from their senators in the Red Chamber, and not to resurrect ghosts from the past, in order to define responses to present day political challenges.