Editorial
Like Anambra, Rivers must rise or sink!
The ugly drama currently being displayed on the stage of the political theatre in Rivers State ought to be disconcerting to all Nigerians and all lovers of democracy across the world. It is a tragi-comedy that foretells of greater danger to the entire country given the implications that could be gleaned from the nuances surrounding the sad episode with regards to the nation’s political development and the wider firmament – democratic ethos.
We are troubled not just by the development alone, we are saddened greatly by the fact that today’s dramatis personae are unwilling either to look at history or are determined not to learn from it and therefore replicating the same acts, just the way they were played decades ago, which resulted in disastrous outcomes.
Yes, while much of the reasons for the failure of the various attempts to grow Nigerian democracy – believed to be the major trigger to waking up the sleeping giant many have described the country as, could be linked to the activities of individuals, especially the power mongers that came at various times – the greater culprits, had always been the institutions.
No other institution is as culpable in this outside the police – the most visible of the security agencies – and the judiciary. They rank the highest, and when added to the electoral umpires who conducted elections at various stages, no one needs look further. They are the vector carrying the dangerous disease that has afflicted Nigerian democracy or what looks like the caricature of it as we are witnessing presently.
Sadly, nothing seems to have changed from what happened in the past. Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, the French journalist, who wrote in 1849: plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose – the more things change, the more they remain the same – could not have had anything in mind than the Nigerian picture – past and present. The major factor at the root of this malaise had always been the independence of the institutions.
1n 1962, George Sodeinde Sowemimo, presiding over the trial of Obafemi Awolowo, failed to let the former Premier of the Western Region and opposition leader in the First Republic go home a free man, but sent him to jail, because he was constrained by weight of the interplay of extraneous factors between the federal authorities and the regional forces controlled by the late sage.
Here is what he said in the now famous – my hands are tied – speech before sentencing him: “Whatever others may say, this is my personal view. I am not speaking as a judge but as a Nigerian. Here we have one of the first Premiers of the autonomous region standing trial. If you were the only one before me, I would have felt that it was enough for you to have undergone the strain of the trial. I would have asked you to go. But I am sorry, I cannot do so now because my hands are tied.”
Nigerians now know the consequences of Awolowo’s incarceration. In fact, many people swear that it was the main reason for the January 15, 1966 bloody coup, which swept away Nigeria’s first attempt at self-governance. Obviously, the subsequent degeneration of the polity including Nigeria descending into an internecine civil war that clamed an estimated four million lives, did not teach any lesson.
For if it did, the politicians who came between 1978 and 1983, would not have upped the ante in bad democratic behaviour, which resulted in their being excused by the military once again. Again, unfortunately, both the police and the judiciary constituted the tag-team in that outcome. They completed what the Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO), which is today’s version of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) started.
With the judiciary’s infamous 12-two-thirds of 19 states verdict and Sunday Adewusi’s Mobile Police team, especially, providing cover to ensure that the oddity stood, the stage was set for the further degeneration in the system, so that by the time 1983 happened with its notorious landslide victories, nobody was left in doubt that Nigerian democracy, or what was left of it had gone kaput completely.
Who would have forgotten the role of the police and the judiciary in the political volcano that enveloped Anambra State a few years ago? Who could have forgotten how Raphael Ige, an Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG), led a team of his men to practically abduct Chris Ngige, a sitting governor from his desk.
But for fate which played a fast one in saving the situation, nobody knows till date how that heist would have ended, The ex-governor was already being spirited to the land of the unknown. It took that miraculous call he made to Atiku Abubakar, then Vice President, through the phone he borrowed from Igwe Peter Nwokike Anugwu of Mbaukwu, who chanced by to stall the horrible macabre dance.
Today, like the scenes from the same reel, Nigerians are being suffered with a similar movie. Few weeks ago it was Edo State. Today it is Rivers. The relay race between the judiciary and the police and vice versa, since the Rivers schism started unfolding between Siminalaiye Fubara, the Governor and Nyesom Wike, his predecessor and now Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), seems to be getting to a crescendo.
Like the Anambra episode, the battle is all about godfatherism – a phenomenon, which has assumed a completely different meaning in Nigerian than other lands where it is being practiced. Again, like in other states, it is also about the seizure and control of the so-called “political structure,” an euphemism for control of power and tools for sharing corrupt patronages, largesse and dividends.
What is the issue in the instant case? Like other states across the federation currently in frantic run to beat the deadline for enthroning elected officers or lose revenues from the Federation Account, Rivers obviously did not want to be caught napping. So, Fubara had scheduled the Rivers’ edition for Saturday, October 5, 2024.
But Wike and his group, seem sworn to scuttle the move. What did they do? The courts, of course! There, they met Justice Peter Lifu of the Federal High Court, Abuja, who acceded to their request. Specifically, in a case filed by the All Progressives Congress (APC) he ordered INEC not to release the voters register to conduct the election.
What was the reason? He agreed with them that the voters register ought to have been displayed for claims and objections 90 days before the election. Now picture this. On July 19, the same Lifu, had ordered the same INEC not to release the same register to the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission (RSIEC), for the same purpose.
So, if the said register was not released as Lifu directed through that ex-parte order in July, how would the RSIEC have attained the 90 days threshold? What then is the state supposed to do in the face of the obvious threat that its councils would be denied the revenue to conduct their affairs? What then is the fate of the millions of people that would be so affected?
Answers to those questions are still buried in the sands. What is left is that Fubara, obviously desperate to save the situation, seems to have found some loophole to navigate out of the troubling maze. Among some of his reasons for going ahead with the election, regardless, was that he already had the register even before his traducers went to court. So, the horse, for him had actually bolted out of the stable.
Now, if indeed peace was actually part of the bouquet the naysayers are bringing to the table, what is wrong with returning to the court to test Fubara’s claim after the election? Surely proving that the governor lied, would obviously be enough ground to declare the process inadequate and therefore nullify the election, would it not. So, why resort to this strong-arm tactics?
Yet, as observers are still chewing the implications of their streak of successes at the courts, including Monday’s direct orders that they must stay away from the polls, the police interpretation appears even more astounding. Yes, the court prohibited the Inspector General of Police (IGP) and the Department of State Services (DSS) from providing security for the election. But that is where it stopped.
So, on what ground did the police stand in their attempt to take over the RSIEC office and insist that the polls must not hold? Quo warranto? That was the question Fubara put to the police authorities on Friday, when he practically placed his life on the line and dared the police to kill him first before stopping the election. We join in asking this very important question.
Unfortunately, Kayode Egbetokun the police IG appears not in the mood to look in the direction in his determination to execute the matter his own way. Not even the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), a clearing house for lawyers in Nigeria is in agreement with the IG. It said so on Friday. Afam Osigwe, NBA President, particularly expressed the disgust of the body to the entire saga.
Hear him: “We agree with the statement issued by the Chairmen of NBA Branches as we find it deeply troubling that the Police would brazenly issue a statement that they would shirk their constitutional responsibility of providing security in Rivers State in purported compliance with an order of court. Even if a court has directed the Police not to work with the Electoral Commission on Rivers State, nothing says the Police should not provide security for peace and order of Rivers State.
“The refusal to provide security is not only unconstitutional but also illegal, immoral, and a dangerous signal that invites lawlessness and undermines democracy. It is, in every sense, a direct attack on the democratic rights of the people of Rivers State and, by extension, Nigeria as a whole. In fact, it threatens our democracy.
“The Nigerian Bar Association condemns, in the strongest possible terms, any attempt to undermine the scheduled elections in the 22 Local Government Areas of Rivers State by refusing to provide security. We will continue to closely monitor the situation as it unfolds. We call on all security agencies to rise to the challenge of protecting lives, property, and democracy during this critical time.
“Furthermore, we urge the Inspector General of Police to launch an immediate investigation into these troubling report that Policemen sought to cart away electoral materials and ensure that any errant officers involved are swiftly and appropriately disciplined, regardless of whose interests are affected. The NBA has also taken note of the conflicting judgments from the Rivers State High Court and the Federal High Court in Abuja concerning the scheduled Local Government elections. It is deeply disheartening and amounts to judicial rascality that courts of concurrent jurisdiction are issuing contradictory orders on the same matter.” We could not have agreed more.
The consoling part was that the players caught in the ugly incidents were punished. In the case of Anambra, Ige was booted out of the police immediately the heist against Ngige failed. Not only him, Wilson Egbo Egbo and Stanley Nnaji, two judges caught in the web of the Anambra crisis were equally excused from their judicial duties abruptly. Not even their powerful godfathers could save them.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in power appeared to spare some thought for their image. But this obviously is not so under the APC, a party of the so-called democrats, who had taken over to entrench democratic ethos in Nigeria. Nobody seems to hear anything about punishment for bad behaviour.
Interestingly and ironically, the eventual triumph of Ngige over his traducers, seemed to have signalled the new face of politics in Anambra. It marked the successful dislodging of the godfather syndrome in the state, which hitherto made the perfect example for showcasing governance failure in Nigeria. Today the opposite is the case. Who knows how the case of Rivers might turn out?
Fubara actually mentioning the state on Friday while speaking to reporters in Port Harcourt over the development appears an indication that he is attempting to recreating the Anambra magic. Quite heartening should that be the case. Anambra remains the test-kit for the good, the bad and the ugly of Nigerian politics and the triumph of one over the other.
For Egbetokun, history also beckons. He ought to have quietly left the police on September 4, when he attained the mandatory 60 years retirement. Had he resisted the lure of office, he might have saved himself from becoming another Sowemimo. Even after becoming the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Sowemimo practically etched his name across the pages of history.
Many remember his my hands are tied declaration today than his attaining the position of the CJN. Egbetokun still has a lee-way to navigate himself out of the airtight cage politicians seem to have forced him. He could insist on toeing the line of resistance by sticking to the best practices in patriotic move to save Nigeria, or throw in the towel, damn the consequences to save his name from further damage. Yet, still, he could go the whole hog and end it all in predictable tragedy! His call!
It began less than 10 minutes after taking the oath of office. In his address to the nation, he uttered those three-letter words – subsidy is gone. The ink with which he signed the documents declaring him President was yet to dry.
That was it. From that moment, Nigerians have known nothing but poverty, tears and death. It was a declaration that came out of impulse rather than articulacy. It was not even contained in his original speech prepared for the occasion. But it sprouted out – from a rash, unthinking and impetuous mental construct.
But the effect was instant, the impact direct. From that moment, Nigerians have never known peace. Every thing took a cue. Minutes after, the news broke that the price of Premium Motor Spirit, otherwise known as petrol had jumped from N189 to N550. It was that instant. Today, it hovers around N1,500.
The effect: Within minutes, transportation cost quadrupled. So too, commodity prices. Caught unawares, marketers, who had earlier thought it was a day of the rains as customers rushed to their shops, soon became suspicious and then got wiser – these were not ordinary customers but smart alecs playing a fast one on them.
They stopped selling, retrieved the items they could from those who had not disappeared with their goods and closed shop to study the situation properly. Hours after, they responded. A plate of eba and soup, went up from N200 to N1,000. Prices hit the rooftops.
In fact, the vehicle transporting what used to be Nigeria, which had been moving at a horse and buggy pace in the days of Muhammadu Buhari, stopped abruptly, engaged the reverse gear and began galloping backwards. That has remained the ugly, parlous tale of the Tinubu days, since May 29, 2023.
Now, the expectation would be that the President and his government that wrought such a horrendous punishment on the polity, would themselves take some blows. But nada! Instead, the opposite was the case. Within months of plunging the citizens into the untold hardship Tinubu went on a binge, spending money – in the words of Olusegun Obasanjo, former President – like a drunken sailor.
Few weeks after, as Nigerians were reeling and gasping in pain from the impact of their new situation, 469 newly-minted Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs), rolled out from factories in Japan, where they were produced into the premises of the National Assembly for the just inaugurated members.
Put the cost at N100billion – that is N160million for each unit, plus other charges. Reason: The lawmakers needed the vehicles because of their good suspension system, to navigate the so many bad roads in Nigeria. Yes, you heard right. How could they think well and make good laws after the hassles of the bad roads? Tinubu saw reasons, acquiesced and voila!
But it did not end there. Tinubu suddenly realised that Kashim Shettima, his deputy, needed a new home “befitting” his new office. Pronto! A voucher of N21billion was raised and he had it. Till date a haze still hovers over the project.
The last news that was heard was that Number Two refused to take residence because the entire environment, including the toilets was wired to the teeth to monitor him. And Number Two needed privacy.
Again, in the same weeks, Oga Patapata, also realised that Madam needed to transport more comfortably. Pronto! It was arranged. Another voucher was raised for cars for the Office of the First Lady. Cost N1.2billion. Of course, madam needed the comfort for peace at home.
Naturally, since transportation is not done by land alone, he also took care of that. For the sea, a yacht was procured. Cost N5billion. Because the birds in the presidential fleet were not good enough, Tinubu did the needful.
He enriched the fleet with the one befitting of his status and had it transformed to mimic the US Air Force One. To complete the status symbol project, he also added a replica of The Beast, the US presidential automobile.
Ironically, the funds used in procuring these luxury lifestyle, came, not out of productive ventures of Nigeria, but through borrowing. Today, Tinubu has practically borrowed Nigeria blind, doubling or even tripling that of his predecessors.
Meanwhile Nigerians had upped the ante from mere groaning and skreiching. Citizens, unable to take it anymore, now stop their hitherto sleek vehicles on the Third Mainland Bridge and plunge into the Lagos lagoon to end it all. The option is now more rampant than remote and occasional.
Many others, taking the Socrates option, now drink hemlock and many more simply sleep off without any intention of waking up. That is where we are. That is the new Nigeria – the Tinubu Nigeria. But there is more.
Terrorists and the landlords of the forest, having now discovered that the Commander-in-Chief has other fancies than security and welfare of the people – the constitutionally-declared primary purpose of government and scant regard for the citizens, have practically gone haywire. They have taken over and established their authority.
Presently, outside those wantonly slaughtered or butchered in their homes like animals at the abattoir, incinerated alive while sleeping on their beds, among other forms of decimation, many more citizens are now spending months, going to years as victims of captivity with them in various forests in Nigeria.
In their rampage, the terrorists have since broken all barriers considered out of place hitherto. One of their escapades is the present videos of the school children and teachers taken from Oyo State. The gory imagery captures the current Nigerian story.
For instance, on Thursday, just as the sound of heavy celebration was going on in neighbouring Ogun State as the world marked the Ojude Oba yearly carnival, two of the victims, one of them with a toddler on her back, were pleading for their lives, as others went through various forms of torture, including heavy whipping like beasts.
Don’t forget that the terrorists had earlier slaughtered one of their colleagues. In the new video, the totally terrified women, informed that they had chosen another victim to be similarly eliminated. Yet, no word about rescue! Terrible!
Interestingly, if not painfully, Tinubu’s response, in the few cases he bothered, was to see the crisis through the politics lens. His most recent reaction was to tell the world that the harvest of attacks and carnages ravaging the country, were sponsored by his political enemies, intent on shoving him out of power. That to him was all that mattered.
Now, where are your powers as C-in-C? They are mostly found in the most disgraceful economic and political acts of impunity. Nigerians now waking up to hear of the award of brain-dazing contracts such as the N15trillion Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway and Badagry-Maiduguri Highway – with scant regard for official regulations, is now becoming more common than rare.
Few days after one of the teachers was beheaded and the video of the hideous act made to circulate on the social media, the President and his All Progressives Congress (APC), party, rolled out the drums of his winning the party’s ticket to contest the 2027 presidential election.
To say that it has been three years of weeping, wailing, mourning and gnashing of the teeth, is a clear euphemism. There is no starker way of putting it than calamity – pure, unmitigated catastrophe – disaster.
Then comes the big question. Nigeria is already breasting the tape of these ruinous years of the first term. Suppose Tinubu succeeds in renewing his tenure by January next year? Will Nigeria survive five more years of a life like the last three? What will be left of Nigeria? Is there a way out, outside shouting – God forbid!?
Now that Nyesom Wike, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has fully executed his plot against Siminalayi Fubara, Governor of Rivers State, where would it be placed in terms of identity, nuances, ethos and history? Where would it be placed in democratic arrangement and value? In other word, by what name would it be called?
So, this is what President Bola Tinubu’s much-advertised democratic credentials is all about? This is what being listed among the arrowheads in the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), the body that fought relentlessly against the late Sani Abacha and his henchmen has finally come to?
Is this where “The Last Man Standing” – apologies Tony Elumelu – has ended up? So, after wedging an epic battle for and through Lagos State, against then President Obasanjo and practically defeating him, even if perceptibly, in all the struggles – such as running government without federal allocation for years and surviving the political onslaught that took away other South West states like a tsunami, it has come to this?
Don’t forget that it was this selfsame Tinubu that served as the bastion of opposition in Nigerian politics from when he was Governor of Lagos State, not only standing up against Obasanjo, but undertaking the relentless battles that led to the All Progressives Congress (APC), winning the war eventually in 2015.
So, this is what all the struggles, the speeches, the colloquia, the meetings and the strategies have come to – the end result? So, the definition of democracy, to Tinubu, is selling the dog to buy a monkey – replacing democratic bad-behaviour with democratic-heist? So, this is it?!
Make no mistake about it. What you saw play out in Rivers is nothing but Tinubu at work. It is all about him, it is for him. Never make the mistake of adorning Wike in the toga of a powerful man. That would be a fatal error of judgement. Every power he exercises, real, imagined, inferred or contingent belong to and are exclusive to Tinubu.
Take away the President and Wike would turn to a political meek-lamb or a jellyfish. Fubara would have eaten him for lunch a long time ago. So, Tinubu it is – the reason the klieglights must be beamed on him. That is why he must carry the can in this odious construct in Rivers in particular and the entire Nigerian political scenario in general.
With the picture that assaulted Nigeria regarding the APC primaries that have just held, what is different from the edition we saw in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of old? Is it not worse or the worst in real and imagined terms? What then has Tinubu been fighting all these years?
Incidentally, where we have Wike today, we had Lamidi Adedibu, the Amala Politics exponent, Tony Aneni of the Mr. Fix-it fame and the Uba brothers in Anambra to whom the political firmament in Nigeria once bowed, among many plethora of examples.
So, there is nothing really new about the development, but for the fresh dimension that has been introduced into the narrative by the Wike phenomenon, which is totally novel. Before now it was a case of one behemoth in a political party rampaging the system.
But today, it has gone beyond that. Wike has developed the penchant for taking no prisoners. In his own strange construct, he has now coalesced the entire APC and PDP structure into his shoulder basket, from where he dispenses favours.
Imagine Kingsley Chinda, purchasing APC governorship election form, as a PDP federal lawmaker without first resigning from his original party. That is how wacky it has become. Wackier still is that nobody – not even the APC apparatchik has been able to raise a finger. Why? Obvious answer – the Tinubu factor.
Now, here is the danger. By the heist in Port Harcourt adding to the sequence of political oddities and absurdities since the Tinubu years, it has become obvious that Nigeria is headed towards a Paul Biya’s Cameroun, a Yoweri Musaveni’s Uganda and Zimbabwe under the late Robert Mugabe.
Tinubu, has shown obvious incapacity to tackle the parlous economic crisis in the country with 150 million Nigerians plunged into multidimensional poverty and many more growing the list daily, while also displaying uncommon powerlessness towards addressing the debilitating state of insecurity.
Under his nose citizens are daily being forced from their homes into the forests by terrorists, with some of them taken from their crutching positions, positioned before the camera and slaughtered – heads cut off like animals at an abattoir and video images freely displayed on social media.
Yet, by what has now happened in Rivers State, it has become obvious that Nigerians are not being factored into the whole equation and if they were, scant regard is paid to their opinion, ending in their powerlessness to change the situation. That is the tragedy!
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