@Suanu'sBog


As a young concerned citizen of Rivers state, I have watched with mixed feelings the recent crisis that has engulfed the state chapter of the All Progressives Congress, APC. I am so concerned not as a member of the party but considering the general impact such crises will or can have on the bid of the party to fit into its main opposition mandate to critically tackle the current PDP administration of Gov.Nyesom Wike as well as proffer an alternative platform and candidature to Rivers People in the 2019 General Elections.

Centre of the crisis is Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, who is the Leader of the party in the state and is alleged to be the South-South Leader of the party as well. The blame ball dropping at the table of Chief Amaechi is for obvious reasons which cannot be overemphasized.

Amaechi is one of the luckiest Nigerian politicians who from a very humble and rumoured poor background have grown into affluence and prominence in our polity. His political career is traced to Dr.Peter Odili who he worked for at his health facility called Pamo Clinics and Hospitals Limited in Port-Harcourt until 1992.

Thereafter he ventured into politics on the heels of Dr.Odili serving as Secretary of the now defunct National Republican Convention in Ikwerre Local Government Area of Rivers State, Special Assistant to the Deputy Governor of Rivers State, Sir (Dr.) Peter Odili, Rivers State's Secretary of the Democratic Party of Nigeria (DPN) caretaker committee, member of the Board of West Africa Glass Industry as well as Risonpalm Nigeria Limited, Speaker Rivers State House of Assembly, Chairman of Nigeria's Conference of Speakers of State Assemblies, Governor of Rivers State, Chairman, Nigerian Governors’ Forum, Director-General of the All Progressives Congress 2015 Presidential Campaign and currently the Honorable Minister for Transportation, Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Apart from the few years he worked at Odili’s Pamo Hospital, Amaechi owes all He is now to Nigeria’s taxpayers’ money from active involvement in politics. From that humble beginning, Amaechi is one of Nigeria’s national political figures.

For the purpose of this piece, I shall revisit key moments in Amaechi’s political life. One of such is how he became the Governor of Rivers State.
To say the least, many are still of the strong opinion that Amaechi ascended the seat of power in Rivers on the basis of “betrayal”. Betrayal of who? Sir Dr.Peter Odili of course. Amaechi owes a large chunk of his political glory to the former Rivers State Governor. Some people even claim that Amaechi was a “houseboy” to Dr.Odili. But whichever is the case, Odili is the brainbox of Amaechi’s political success story till date.
Considering all he had gained from Odili’s support before 2007, many political observers then had expected Amaechi to show immense gratitude and loyalty to his boss by accepting his decision on who succeeds him(Odili) as governor. However, a smart Amaechi couldn’t exercise patience into the mid of Odili’s second tenure when his obvious plot to succeed his boss by all means became obvious. That was the beginning of his fallout with his benefactor as he (Amaechi) launched a campaign against Odili, and verbally attacked his image.
He fought so hard and finally secured the governorship ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in 2006 against the ‘desire’ of his Boss. However Dr.Odili later outsmarted him temporarily by substituting his name for that of his cousin, Sir Celestine Omehia, whose loyalty was not in doubt (An act he later blamed on Abuja influence). The end of the episode was the bruising of Odili by a Supreme Court victory for Amaechi. The fact remains that if Amaechi had listened to and showed the required painful loyalty to his Boss then, he may have ended up not becoming the state governor, which would have in turn closed other political doors for him somehow.

Narrating all that transpired regarding the emergence of who succeeds Him and the subtle role of Mr.Amaechi, Dr.Odili in His book “Conscience and History” said:

“By 2001, barely 2 years into my first tenure as Governor of Rivers State the subterranean scheming for who will succeed me started among the young political team I had built since 1994/5.
One of our elder Statesmen (now late) one day said to me 'Your Excellency, you have made the Governance of Rivers State look so easy and sweet that some of these your young men think it's a 'piece of cake' and are already positioning to succeed you. They have no idea how tough it is to govern Rivers people. It is when you leave office that people will know" - (Chief A.K. Dikibo)

I finished my first term and won the election for my second term 2003-2007 most comfortably with minimal opposition. However with the approach of 2007 elections the subterranean schemes gradually came to the fore among the young men who were aspiring to succeed me. In the firm belief that power comes from God I decided to maintain a taciturn disposition about my preference.

As time passed, the race narrowed down and front-runners began to emerge and pressure for direction from me started being mounted by the party leadership and caucus.

I sustained my resistance to be dragged into the dog-fight for the primaries. After a protracted 'ping-pong' between me and the caucus I decided to conduct an intelligence search, deploying the necessary tools available officially and undercover. My search narrowed down to [b]Rotimi Amaech[/b]i, Austin Opara and Abiye Sekibo for various reasons. I presented these to the caucus of the party who still insisted that I name one person. I still held my taciturn grounds.

My intelligence further revealed that while I was being goaded to name one of them as my preferred choice, behind the scene plots by some of the members of the caucus, to skew the primaries in favour of their own choice, with the connivance of some family members and Abuja Big Wigs were going on. The plot was deep and had gone far before I picked it up very close to the primaries. 1 felt 'Betrayed' and 'Set up' for ridicule. 1 therefore decided to intervene and ensure that a transparent process that would produce a popular winner democratically, was put in place. That is how Rotimi Amaechi emerged as the flag bearer of the party for the Governorship election in Rivers State.

This appeared not to have gone down well in Abuja, for a yet to be disclosed reason. Again suddenly, the EFCC came after Amaechi with all sorts of allegations, arrested him and had his travel documents seized. Rotimi Amaechi was incarcerated between the 12th -15th December, 2006 same period the spurious investigation and 'interim report' by the EFCC was being cooked up against me. He too, like my commissioners, was released as soon as I announced my withdrawal from the Presidential primaries on the 15th December, 2006 but his travel papers were still being held by the EFCC. We agreed and I supported him to challenge his disqualification and indictment legally. After the-Convention we all went back to Port Harcourt but the battle to get him off the PDP ticket raged on till late February, 2007. I made several trips to Abuja to secure the sustenance of Amaechi's ticket as the Governorship candidate of the PDP in Rivers State. The National leadership and the Presidency were clearly bent on not allowing the Amaechi ticket to stand. I fought back as much as 1 could. EFCC was unyielding in their resolve not to allow Amaechi as the candidate for Rivers. I was asked to nominate somebody else severally, and severally I refused to do so. At a very strange meeting at the Villa one night I was pointedly asked how come I had only one choice for my succession after 8 years in office. The last straw was the threat by Nuhu Ribadu to resign his position as EFCC Chair and apologise to Nigerians if Amaechi was allowed to be the candidate.

The shock of it all was President Obasanjo telling me that he did not want to be blackmailed so I should effect a change. I refused, and went back to Port Harcourt that night fully convinced that one had to take ones destiny in one's hands – Abuja was clearly not in a position to morally stand by us. Then started our legal battle for our State matter against the EFCC consideration of our defence options - "Self protection" is the key to survival.

My struggle to sustain Amaechi's ticket in spite of the obvious vehemence by Abuja leadership against it, continued.

Then came the zonal rallies for the Presidential campaign in Port Harcourt for the South/South. At this event the flag bearer for the various States in the zone were to be recognised by President and national leadership of the Party.

The flagbearers for Cross River, Delta, Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom and Edo States were acknowledged and given their FLAGS. Rivers was said to have "K-Leg" and would be sorted out later.

The night preceding the rally gave birth to this ugly development when the national leadership was directed to ask me or rather instruct me to name a replacement for Amaechi or have one named for me the next day. It became obvious that I had lost the battle to save Amaechi's candidacy. I immediately sent for Amaechi and broke the sad news to him before anyone else could hear it. The need to constructively face the reality had arisen. We toyed with the idea of optional replacement for him. We eventually settled for CELESTINE OMEHIA - his cousin albeit reluctantly for reasons of peer- group and family rivalry. I felt that the State interest should over ride other considerations. Amaechi's reluctance was however not in doubt".

To axe Odili further despite his final victory, Amaechi went ahead to set up the so-called Kayode Eso 'Truth and Reconciliation Commission'.

From becoming the governor of the oil rich state, Amaechi launched his political dynasty and brought on board his own disciples. He reigned supreme in the state for almost seven years of his eight years tenure without any rivalry until his defection to the then newly formed All Progressives Congress, APC gave rise to one of his “boys” to wage war against him.

The second key issue of the Amaechi political life that I would also consider is how the Governorship flagbearer of the APC emerged in 2014.
Ahead of the 2015 general elections, there were high hopes that as an incumbent, Amaechi has all it takes to retain the state for his new party. This perhaps attracted more people to vie to take over power from him. Ofcourse it was to be keenly contested with many political observers pushing forward the candidature of Magnus Abe from the Ogoni axis of the state.

Surprisingly, Amaechi shut every other candidate out and announced in the name of a strange “consensus” that Dakuku Adol Peterside was the governorship candidate of the party. This undemocratic move angered many supporters and members of the however, a relative peace prevailed as moves were later taken to pacify the aggrieved members. Magnus Abe particularly was later given the senatorial ticket of the party. The strange fact that characterized all of the afore-discussed was that 99.9% of the party’s candidates lost the 2015 elections to Nyesom Wike and his team in what was described by legal icon Prof.Itse Sagay as the “bloodiest path to victory”.

Reacting to the elections in Rivers State and the decision of the Supreme Court, Prof.Sagay said:
“The judgments are very perverse, particularly relating to Akwa Ibom and Rivers. Everybody knows that there were no elections in those two states.
“Everybody knows that people like (Rivers State Governor, Nyesom) Wike climbed into the governorship seat over dead bodies and over bloods of human beings. There were no elections, they wrote the results; the evidence is there.
“What the Supreme Court has done is to set the clock of electoral excellence and fairness and credibility back by, I do not want to say a thousand years, but certainly it is taking us back to where we were before Jega came in and sanitize the system.
“We are going to have primitive and barbaric electoral culture; ‘kill as much as you can, destroy as much as you can, create as much catastrophe, but if you can find yourself on that seat, you are confirmed, regardless of the means by which you got there’.
“That is a very major setback to democracy and the rule of law.”
Amaechi’s party lost all in Rivers State and at such never contributed in any meaningful way to the victory of President Buhari. The rest is now history.

Ahead of the 2019 elections, as the party tries to launch a comeback, it is unfortunately enmeshed in another round of silence but obvious crisis. This time again solely related to who also gets the governorship ticket of the party. Like was the case in 2015, so many persons are said to be interested in getting the flag of the party, the handling of these rightful aspirations by the Supreme Leader of the party popularly called “The Lion” is what appears to be setting the party ablaze.

Amaechi was reported to have bluntly told Senator Magnus Abe to kill his rumoured governorship ambition in 2019 again. This godly move by Amaechi obviously might have angered Abe who went underground to launch his own political group within the party so as to mobilize fully to dare the god of Rivers APC ahead of the governorship primary election. The reaction of Amaechi to that move by Abe is part of what has further fuelled disunity in the ranks of the party.
While Abe seems to be waxing strong, the supremacy of Amaechi appears to be waning. This may not be unconnected to the solidarity support Abe seems to be getting from Rivers People across party borders.

With the doggedness and ruggedness of Governor Wike, his perceived performance especially in terms of projects delivery and his intimidating style of politics, the Rivers State chapter of the APC cannot afford to plunge itself into another round of dangerous self-inflicted crises. This is why Amaechi must do the needful.

If he fails to deliver in 2019, the implications will be so huge both in the state and at the federal level. This time, it will not only be about his financial contributions to the “reelection” of President Buhari or whoever gets the presidential ticket of the APC but how many votes Rivers State contributed to that bid. Apart from that, if another leader of the party is noted to have contributed more towards the success and victory of the party in the state, the nomination right which solely lies in the palms of Amaechi may fall off therefrom. This may not only deny him the opportunity to retain his ministerial seat (if Buhari recontests or wins) but will also throw him into political oblivion.

Acknowledging the challenges that lie ahead, Amaechi while speaking at a grand reception held in his honour by the Ikwerre Youth Movement recently said:
“…….this is our last battle; outside this, we (I) are (am) finished politically. If we win, we take over and if we lose we go home.” *bracketed words mine.
But the battle will begin from the way he handles the party’s primary elections especially that of the governorship. If He mismanages that, then he is as good as going home politically in line with his own prophecy.

To this end, I am passionately appealing to Mr.Amaechi that he urgently needs to take the following steps:
1. Show true leadership: The crisis that has been so far witnessed in Rivers State is a clear indication that Amaechi has failed in its position as a leader of the party. His actions, approaches and speeches have further divided the party and aggravated what now seems like a deep crisis. He should urgently review his actions generally and ensure they are in the best interest of the party.
2. He should be fair to all members of the party with political ambitions. He should act like a father to all aspirants, carry them along, attend their functions and show no bias, ill-will or discrimination towards any aspirant or tribe.
3. He should embark on true reconciliation with all aggrieved members or factions so far existing in the party in the state.
4. He should set aside his overbearing ego and listen to all in line with true leadership qualities.
5. He should use his position to empower members of the party especially those who lost loved ones and property during the massacre unleashed on the party members in the state.
6. He should cal all his Pro-Groups on social media attacking fellow party men and women to order in the overall interest of the party.
7. He must assure and reassure members of the party that he will ensure free, fair, and credible primary elections in the party ahead of the 2019 general polls
8. He must realize that Rivers People are watching keenly and realigning speedily ahead of the 2019 polls, his act must be such that builds and revives hope in the populace as a credible alternative instead of a political lord who wants to enslave us to his enclave.
9. He should avoid any temptation to be reappointed officially as the Director-General of Buhari’s reelection campaign organization.
10. H e should consider resigning as a Minister, nominate another credible Rivers Person to take his place and be at home to work assiduously towards the victory of his party in 2019.

Mr.Amaechi must realize that if he fails to act rightly this time and his brother (Gov.Wike) capitalizes on the crises to harvest key souls from the APC, then his political career is good as been over because if the APC manages to win at the centre without any meaningful voting contributions from Rivers State, some elements within the party may deny him all necessary compensations this time.

Source: http://www.suanusblog.com/2018/02/the-implications-of-unending-rivers-apc_23.html

Amechi should come and read this oh



Apc is going home 2019

Recently, his party men at national level protested against his appointment as Campaign DG saying he is too temperamental and immature

He should realize that outside Rivers oil money, nobody has any respect for him
He is always fighting

Wike has paralized rotimi
Amaechi is a loser just like asiwaju...

cc:
OAM4J, Mynd44
This piece deserves a snake status na
so that Amaechi or those close to him can see it