Rivers State electoral wars: Counting the costs

Dear reader, at the time you may be reading this piece, the polls rerun in some electoral units of the Rivers State would have been concluded and even results announced. But that is not to say that the uneasiness that was generated around the exercise and may be the outcome as well has also abated. […]

Dear reader, at the time you may be reading this piece, the polls rerun in some electoral units of the Rivers State would have been concluded and even results announced. But that is not to say that the uneasiness that was generated around the exercise and may be the outcome as well has also abated. The polls were in respect of filling the vacant seats for all three Senatorial seats from the state, 12 House of Representatives and 10 Rivers State House of Assembly positions. 

While most other states in the country had concluded elections into these offices during the general elections held between April and May 2015,with only marginal outstanding issues, the Rivers State case lingered until the March 19th 2016 run off polls which were declared inconclusive by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) due to outbreak of violence in several electoral stations. After these last polls in the state were marred by violence as before and registered several deaths including that of a serving National Youth Service Corps (NYSC)member, INEC issued a resolution that it will not conduct any further elections in the state until it was provided with concrete assurance of safety for its staff and the general public during any polls exercise. 

 This was the stalemate on polls in the state until the Senate passed a resolution that it will suspend plenary sessions if all outstanding polls in the River State are not concluded before the end of December 2016. Yesterday’s polls therefore are therefore a direct outcome from the intervention of the Senate. However, it remains doubtful if the leaders in the state appreciate the import of the Senate’s intervention given the utterances by them. For instance, many Nigerians have expressed disappointment with both Wike and Amaechi over some of their pre-election statements, which were considered inciting.  

Indeed, so palpable was the state of acrimony and anomy that preceded the polls exercise, that it looked as if the state was at war – ostensibly with itself, since there was no external threat to it. Simply put the ordinarily legitimate process of election was transformed into a war exercise, in which political leaders not only failed to rein in the war mongering disposition of their followers, but also degraded themselves to the despicable level of dogs of war, who went at each other’s throat, at the drop of a hat, and even for ill-defined grudges.

In response to the unacceptably tense atmosphere in the state, the Nigeria Police had also risen to the challenge by launching an armada of forces to counter any untoward outcome. According to the Inspector General of Police Ibrahim Kpotun the Police was to deploy 20,000 officers, 20 gun boats and three helicopters which ostensibly are also armed. Haba! This massive level of deployment by the Police correlates with an earlier effort by the IGP Ibrahim, who acted in consonance with other security agencies to broker peace by dousing the build-up of election related tension. As is easily recalled that initiative entailed the extraction of written undertakings to maintain peace from the two key political leaders in the state being the incumbent governor Nyesom Wike and his immediate predecessor and now Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi. 

While the military did not disclose its level of preparation for obviously strategic reasons, it was clearly not disposed to be caught unprepared, hence it would be fool hardy if not outrightly suicidal for any interest to try them for size. In any case the military is already deployed in the state for militancy action and will simply take on the opportunity of intervention in the event of poll related trouble, in their stride.  

Against the backdrop of the foregoing, it may be asked, what are the belligerents in the state fighting for? Is the fight aimed at achieving goals that qualify as the interests of the majority of the citizenry, or is the campaign aimed at settling personal scores among mutually aggrieved, rival political potentates? Besides the foregoing, are other questions such as whether the recourse to violence remains the best option for achieving their goals, and if their inclination for mutual acrimony and muscle flexing the prescribed path to actualising their aspirations?

The fact that none of the answers to any of these questions falls under the affirmative betrays a fundamental error of judgement behind the electoral wars by the leaders of the state. Seen in context, while the country expected the leaders to highlight core issues that affect the ordinary people in this one city state, such as rapid urbanisation to ensure that every local government headquarters progresses to the status of a modern city, linking the riverine communities with the upland, fighting congestion in inner Port Harcourt, restiveness of the aggrieved youth, that is responsible for the sabotage of prime national assets in the oil industry and the escalation in the rate and intensity of heinous crimes such as kidnapping, Nigerians are treated to the playout of personal vendetta and piffles.

It is significant that the situation of election related turbulence in the state has manifested consequences with different plumages and attracted sundry comments by Nigerians from all walks of life. This is expected given the strategic status of the Rivers State in the nation’s political and economic life. Firstly, as the hub of the nation’s critical oil and gas industry it cannot but attract the attention of the entire country. Hence its political fortunes may also not run without the involvement of non-indigenes. Put succinctly, the state has a cosmopolitan character which precludes the exclusive control of its affairs by only the indigenes. 

That is why its leaders should see the polls of yesterday as a dispensation that has implications beyond the mere purpose of picking legislators at different stations. Valid lessons from it include the need for them to count the cost of the electoral wars so far and be guided by the dividends of the serial misadventure, and resolve that hence forth politics in the state shall not be a matter of mutually assured destruction of each other among contestants. 

In another vein, of significance was the seemingly laid back disposition of the candidates before the polls as they betrayed total dependence on their principals to canvass for them. While their principals were sabre rattling all was silent from their front. This is hoping that they shall not end up as mere errand factors when and if elected to serve as Senators, Members of the House of Representatives and State House of Assembly.