Those gallant governors

This has resulted in protracted crisis between the president supported by his cronies at Wadata House and some governors of PDP extraction resulting in the unfortunate recalcitrance of both the president, leadership of his party and some governors that have decided to play the lackeys which unfortunately has turned Rivers State into a battlefield of […]

This has resulted in protracted crisis between the president supported by his cronies at Wadata House and some governors of PDP extraction resulting in the unfortunate recalcitrance of both the president, leadership of his party and some governors that have decided to play the lackeys which unfortunately has turned Rivers State into a battlefield of political persecution simply because the governor of that state Rotimi Amaechi belongs to the majority camp that is opposed to President Jonathan and the tendency he represents.
Today, there are five PDP governors that are going round the country on behalf of the majority 19 mobilizing support for the eventual showdown should President Jonathan and his gang insist on going ahead with their plans to hoist him over Nigeria in their party primaries and eventually 2015.
The Electoral Commission, I never for once believed that with all the machinations of the PDP sponsored crisis of registration and the court cases would make INEC blink and fail to register APC. I am happy it did not succumb to cheap blackmail and thus, my confidence on Attahiru Jega and his men became further strengthened.
With Bamanga Tukur at the helm of affairs in the PDP, I will believe Murtala Nyako who said recently that the PDP is on its way to the grave and they will be there to bury it. I share this belief and I tell all those governors especially those that have staked all in the struggle to save the PDP and the nation that under no circumstance should they blink.
I am sure that the meeting between President Jonathan and the five governors last weekend was aimed at finding solutions through probably appeasing their grievances so that the president may have 2015 first and then all other things shall be added unto it. Those who fix for the president may wish to at this juncture make him stoop as low as possible.
That in my view is simply a political strategy whose consequence in the future is better imagined. Remember the former vice president Atiku Abubakar in 2003? Remember the Obasanjo trick and trap which unfortunately the former vice fell for? The oral tradition had it that as at the time the PDP was meeting to elect its candidate for the 2003 presidential elections, Atiku had 14 of the about 19 governors of the party behind him and they had told him point blank that General Obasanjo was a bad product and could not sell.
They asked Atiku to contest for the party’s ticket, but had to give in to Obasanjo’s antics on the eleventh hour and Baba was re-nominated and eventually contested. The rest is history. The battle that Atiku had with the Obasanjo’s government was amazing. But for the fact that Atiku was the strongest Nigerian politician of the day, he would have been utterly disgraced out of office.
In fact Obasanjo commissioned a kangaroo committee which found Atiku guilty of wrong doing and went ahead to instigate young Turks in the cabinet to openly harass the vice president and even tried to walk him out of the federal executive council meeting on the grounds that he lacked the moral authority to sit in council after having been found guilty of misdemeanor.
The reason behind this digression is to again remind the governors that there should be no retreat no surrender in their quest to send President Jonathan back to Yenagoa. The president and his fixers can go any length at this material time to deceive the governors because his defeat is eminent and only God can save him. This fact is very visible and clear to the government in Abuja despite their weak understanding of political issues.
The truth of the matter is that Nigeria has never had it this bad. I see on one of the billboards that are being erected across the country for President Jonathan and his vice that ‘collectively they make Nigeria safe.’
I am wondering the degree of insensitivity that this government is made of. Nigeria, safe? How? President Jonathan himself did mute recently that the security challenges the nation is facing today were worse than those faced in 1967 to 1970. What safety are President Jonathan and his vice Namadi Sambo talking about?
Under this government, life has lost its sanctity. The nation’s economy has never been under dire stress as its being under Jonathan. The pilferages in the economy remain unabated while massive corruption seems to be on the increase. Social services are all time low and the fear is that those who are in authority are either deliberately giving the problem a no understanding or truly out of the stuff that they are made of, they believe things are getting better.
It is clear that with the division in the governors’ forum, President Jonathan and his handlers have lost out to the governors and the political brinkmanship of Bamanga Tukur and the rest of them is further widening the gap and the possibility of any remedial measure that may be put in place to help the president to have a soft landing at the end of his tenure in 2015.
As one commentator on Facebook said a few days before the first National Executive Committee of the PDP under Bamanga Tukur when it was contemplated that the chairman was going to be given the boot, Bello Anka prayed that the plan mustn’t succeed because it was clear that if any more focused politician eventually took over as the chairman of the party, the possibilities of salvaging what remains of the PDP was probable and in the opinion of Mr Anka that was not in the interest of Nigeria and Nigerians.
Many citizens share Bello’s view and pray that the internal convulsion within the PDP would see it to its grave sooner than later. We know where nineteen governors are. We also know where the renegade sixteen are. What remains a confusion is the position of the gentleman in Damaturu. Sitting on the fence? That is not an option in politics. The governor would be more respected if he joins the Jang gang than to remain silent when it is not golden.
It was Frantz Fanon who said that neutrality is not position and that anyone who claims neutral in contentious social, economic and political issues is either a coward or traitor. I don’t want to think that the Yobe governor is either. He should take a position that is in line with the aspirations of his people no matter what that position may be.
I think the sensible thing that those governors in the Jang gang should do is for the reasonable ones amongst them to retrace their steps and save the nation from this endemic failures that have the potency of costing us the unity of the country.
Posterity will judge everyone on the basis of his contributions in history. There is the need for our politicians to realize that what is critical is that all hands must be on deck to bequeath a worthy legacy to this generation and those yet unborn.