Gang of Four

Four of them first went to Port Harcourt on July 15 to visit their embattled Rivers State colleague Rotimi Amaechi. They were greeted at the airport with a barrage of missiles thrown by pro-Presidency protesters.  Five days later another set of four governors, three of them overlapping, went to Abeokuta to meet with former President […]

Four of them first went to Port Harcourt on July 15 to visit their embattled Rivers State colleague Rotimi Amaechi. They were greeted at the airport with a barrage of missiles thrown by pro-Presidency protesters.  
Five days later another set of four governors, three of them overlapping, went to Abeokuta to meet with former President Olusegun Obasanjo. They arrived at his farmhouse shortly after President Jonathan left. Another two days later, four of the governors went to Minna where they held talks with former military rulers Ibrahim Babangida and Abdulsalami Abubakar. On Saturday last week, several newspapers reported that another set of four governors met with President Jonathan at the Aso Rock Villa in Abuja. The Presidency did not confirm that such a meeting actually took place. If indeed it took place, its outcome did not stop the men from continuing with their Henry Kissinger-style shuttle because four days later, they went to Sokoto and met with former President Shehu Shagari. They also visited Second Republic vice president Dr. Alex Ekwueme in Abuja last Saturday.
Now, there are five governors involved in this shuttle: Adamawa’s Murtala Nyako, Kano’s Rabi’u Kwankwaso, Jigawa’s Sule Lamido, Sokoto’s Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko and Niger’s Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu. However, they went to each meeting in combinations of four. At each stop, one of them found an excuse to stay away. Wamakko was not in Port Harcourt; Babangida Aliyu was not in Abeokuta; Nyako was not in Minna; Kwankwaso was not at the State House meeting and Aliyu was neither in Sokoto nor at Ekwueme’s house. I do not know if these Ogas at the Top attach special magic to the number 4 the way the late Cypriot President Archbishop Makarious attached special luck to the number 13. Maybe they were moving in groups of 4 so that somebody in the PDP secretariat will christen them as the Gang of Four, Nigerian version.
Gang of Four. It conjured up in my mind an old image of the Peoples Republic of China in the tumultuous days soon after the death of Chairman Mao Zedong in September 1976. It particularly reminded me of the glossy magazine China Pictorial that as a secondary school student I used to go and buy at Emir Yahaya Road in Sokoto. In 1976-77, several editions of this magazine featured numerous pictures from what it called “The Campaign to Decisively Throw Out the Wang-Zhang-Jiang-Yao Anti-Party Clique.” Hundreds of Chinese workers, peasants, students and soldiers fell over themselves on China Pictorial’s pages to castigate the “Gang of Four,” four top Communist Party officials led by Mao’s widow who were accused of perpetrating the excesses of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in 1966-76.
Already, it looks like a campaign is underway by PDP and the Presidency to “Decisively throw out the Nyako-Lamido-Wamakko-Kwankwaso-Aliyu Anti-Party clique.” Presidential adviser Doyin Okupe described their Port Harcourt visit as “political drama” which is “clearly intended to create fear, despair and sense of apprehension among the citizenry.” PDP chairman Bamanga Tukur’s media aide Oliver Okpala said the governors were expected “to express their grievances privately to the party leadership or the reconciliation committee…before seeking audience with other Nigerian leaders.” He also said their “peripatetic vision has contributed in no small measure in overheating the polity.” The President’s Political Adviser Ahmed Gulak described them as “ingrates” and said “they are acting the script of some elements bent on distracting Mr President and causing confusion where none exists.”
This is ominous because PDP recently set up a disciplinary committee headed by old warhorse Dr. Umaru Dikko to try anti-party activists. For now, it is their accomplice Amaechi that is lined up to appear before Dikko’s [kangaroo] panel. The Gang of Four governors could be the next in line. Will they get the Chinese treatment, harsh criticism followed by expulsion from the party? I still recall the statement issued by the Communist Party of China [CPC] Central Committee in 1976 when it expelled the Gang of Four. It was reproduced in the defunct Newbreed magazine. There was a short introduction to the publication, probably written by Newbreed’s editor-in-chief Chris Okolie. It described the CPC statement as “verbose and full of ideological rhetoric.”
If the Dikko panel and PDP’s National Executive Committee borrow a leaf from the Chinese, we could soon see a statement expelling “Port Harcourt street brawler, Rivers State Assembly invader, illegal private plane operator, opposition events’ attender, Presidency’s wish defyer, opposition parties’ collaborator, suspension order defyer, party court dragger, Bayelsa oil wells’ stealer, derivation money spendthrift and First Lady irritator Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi from all his posts” as Rivers PDP leader and probably from the governorship of Rivers State as well.
The Dikko panel is likely to identify Admiral Murtala Nyako as the leader of the Nigerian Gang of Four, since he speaks on their behalf. It will then visit him with the fate of Madame Jiang Jing, the former actress and Mao’s last wife who was also named “Great Flag-Carrier of Proletarian Culture” during the Cultural Revolution. She was identified as the Gang of Four’s leader. CPC’s statement said it decided “to expel the bourgeois careerist, conspirator, counter revolutionary double-dealer and renegade Jiang Jing from the party once and for all and dismiss her from all posts both inside and outside the party.”  PDP’s statement  could say that it decided “to expel the rotten mangoes’ peddler, sour milk dispenser, forcible cow inseminator, parallel party branch sponsor, Obasanjo loyalist, party rebels’ spokesman, National Chairman disrespecter, party elders’ sideliner and sailor turned ship-wrecker Murtala Hammanyaro Nyako” from the party.
Next, CPC dealt with Wang Hung-wen, who was the third top ranking Chinese leader at the time. It said it decided “to expel the bourgeois careerist, conspirator, counter revolutionary double-dealer and new bourgeois element Wang Hung-wen from the party once and for all.” PDP is likely to follow this classic example. It would say it expelled “Obasanjo loyalist, body frame flaunter, serial political quarreler, talakawa championship claimer, shoot from the hip-per, President’s poll defeat predictor and arch Jonah Jang double crosser Sule Lamido” from the party.
The next in CPC’s line of fire was Yao Wen-Yuan, top party propagandist, former editor of Shanghai’s Liberation Daily newspaper whose November 1965 article “On the New Historical Beijing Opera Hai Rui Dismissed from Office” launched the Cultural Revolution. It said it resolved “to expel the bourgeois careerist, conspirator, counter revolutionary double-dealer and alien class element Yao Wen-Yuan from the party once and for all”. The African copycat PDP would say that it has expelled “slanted cap wearer, National Chairman’s phone calls disregarder, National Working Committee’s summons refuser, rebellious welcome rally organiser, Speaker’s rebellion instigator, more-personal-than-party-popularity claimer Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko” from the party.  
CPC then dealt with Chang Chun-chiao, Communist Party secretary and also Mayor of Shanghai city. It said it decided “to expel the bourgeois careerist, conspirator, counter revolutionary double-dealer and Kuomintang special agent Chang Chun-chiao from the party once and for all.” Compared to Shanghai, Kano City is but a small ward. PDP would announce its decision “to expel party sideliner, achaba trade prohibiter, street urchins’ deporter, Kwankwasiyya anti-party group’s sponsor, performance credit monopoliser, rooftop inscriber and Red Cap of Rebellion wearer Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso from the party once and for all.”
The last of the five rebel governors will then take his turn. Encapsulating all the fine CPC examples of dealing with the Gang of Four, the Dikko panel is likely to recommend and PDP’s NEC is likely to approve “to expel anti-party activist, largest party in Africa underminer, political insurrectionist, former Heads of State’s house criss-crosser, President Jonathan double crosser, one-term agreement alleger, revisionist advocate of zoning agreement and APC special agent Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu from the party once and for all.”