Andy Briggs has done a fantastic job with this piece ... wonderful and pleasant to read !!!!! AMAECHIS WAR THE ESTRANGEMENT: Most people would agree that Amaechis emergence as chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum in late 2011 set the stage for his estrangement from President Ebelemi Jonathan though others may point out and rightly so that the relationship between both leaders first began to cool when Mrs Jonathan came to Ayungubiri in Okrika her beloved home town in 2010. Most people may remember that visit as the time and place where and when Mrs Jonathan snatched the microphone from Gov. Amaechi to hand him a stern but brief lecture. Apparently the Jonathan and Amaechi households never quite put that behind them. There were governors who would be quite infuriated by the presidents 2012 over-reach in tampering with the excess crude account, even for the purpose of setting up the Sovereign Wealth Fund. They claimed that it was a breach of the constitution for the president to make any deductions from the Excess Crude Account for any other purpose than to share it among Federal, states and Local Governments of the federation. So, really the president fiddled with the states money by debiting the excess crude account for the purpose of saving for a rainy day in the Sovereign Wealth Fund and governors including those from the South West, many from the North and Amaechi were not amused. As chairman of the NGF, it was Amaechis duty to articulate the displeasure of his peers with the presidents action. As far as Amaechi and other dissenting governors were concerned, the president should have used the Federal Governments share of the excess crude money to set up the Sovereign Wealth Fund and respected the constitutional right of the states to decide what to do with their money. Amaechis articulation of the governors position was spirited but just and more often than not blunt in keeping with his character. The president had underestimated the opposition that he would get from the governors forum on the issue. President Jonathan had been grappling with an image problem since 2011. This had not been helped by well documented hand-wringing confessions in front of the camera at the bombed out Abuja U.N building and during the 2011 Independence Day Thanksgiving Service. These potent images haunted Nigerians and would embolden predators and others who would wish to do some presidential arm-twisting. Under President Jonathan, a vested interest like the Nigerian Governors Forum started wielding a level of national influence never before seen. What the Federal Government has done is merely kidnaping our money, Amaechi flashed in Port Harcourt, a city that had seen more than its fair share of kidnappers. The face-off over the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) was a disquieting development which even got the attention of international bodies in both public and private sectors. The vehemence which characterized the anti-SWF Campaign inevitably marked a deterioration in the relationship between the president and The NGF chairman Rotimi Amaechi. The NGF then took the fight a step further by resuming an old court action against the Federal Government with regards to the Excess Crude Account while state finance commissioners and accountant-generals walked out on Federal Government representatives at FAAC meetings. There could be no doubt at that point that the NGF leadership was spoiling for a full scale battle with the president over the sharing of excess crude money. This was Amaechis first case as chairman of the forum. Jonathan hawks especially from the Niger Delta were getting irritated with Amaechis media savvy challenge of the president. It would appear that the move to legal action divided the forum. Governor Akpabio refused to comment on the issue while on a visit with President Jonathan in Australia because as he revealed, he was not party to any such decision. Adams Oshiomole flatly stated his opposition to such legal action, noting that he was well consulted by the federal government on SWF. When drawn on Oshiomoles disapproval of the court action, Amaechi retorted that other governors could go to court without him. Subsequently, the Nigerian Governors Forum adopted a more conciliatory position but there was no evidence to suggest a closing of ranks between the president and the chairman of the NGF. When the president seemed to have got out of the woods of the Sovereign Wealth Fund brouhaha, the chief servant of Niger State or more frankly the governor Muazu Babangida Aliyu, chairman of the Northern Governors Forum declared the bodys determination to present a northern presidential aspirant in the PDP who will beat Jonathan at the presidential primary. It was not clear if the Chief Servant was being motivated by personal ambition, northern conspiracy or the atmosphere of rebellion being fostered in the NGF . . A few months later rumors had broken out about a planned Sule Lamido – Rotimi Amaechi ticket to unseat Jonathan – Sambo in 2015. It must be put on record that Amaechi vehemently denied this and really, the idea that he was being endorsed by former President Obasanjo who had labeled his gubernatorial candidacy as K Legged was then a hard sell. Animosity continued mounting. A boundary dispute between the sister states of Rivers and Bayelsa suddenly got out of hand when allegedly, money accruing from the oil wells in the disputed region (Soku); money which had been held in a special account, pending the determination of processes to identify the rightful owner of the disputed lands and wells, about 300 billion naira was allegedly passed on to Bayelsa State due to the presidential influence of her favorite son. The presidents irritation with the governor over this allegation of undue influence, corruption and nepotism became quite evident in the press statements of his aide Reuben Abati urging the good people of Rivers and Bayelsa states to refuse to be dragged into the politics of conflict being orchestrated by individuals pursuing a hidden agenda. THE REBEL AND THE PRESIDENT Bamanga Tukur remains a man of considerable political experience having run the Nigerian Ports Authority, been a governor of the old Gongola State which spanned Adamawa and Taraba states and even been a presidential aspirant in the National Republican Convention. Famous and regarded as a patriarchal figure by many including Chief Raymond Dokpesi the owner of AIT, it was taken for granted that he would bring political sagacity to the national chairmanship of the Peoples Democratic Party to steady the boat which had been rocking alarmingly, tossed north and south on the stormy sea of Nigerias post 2011 election season. Despite the vigorous opposition of two governors from the North-East, Bamanga Tukurs zone; despite his loss to a younger Musa Babayo at an extra-constitutional regional convention, Tukur still sailed through like a patriarch should to the chairmanship of the PDP at Wadata Plaza. His admirers and friends rejoiced. After so many years of political silence during which he had moonlighted in many other positions including chairmanship of the so-called African Business Round Table, Bamanga Tukur had staged a successful come-back to the fore of Nigerian politics as chairman of the greatest party in Africa. He could not have done it without the spirited support of the president. Goodluck Jonathan had invested some of his presidential reputation in that ballot. In a political lifestyle hinged on the survival of the fittest, the sharks would have smelt Jonathans blood if Tukur had lost. It is still not clear if Bamanga Tukur realized at the time that benefiting so greatly from presidential support would give rise to other implications. He had become a chief ally of the most challenged and most scrutinized president in Nigerian history. Such a realization should have necessitated great discretion and caution. It would seem that the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the leader of the Peoples Democratic Party was not consulted before the party chairman Bamanga Tukur deployed his incendiary plan to sack the executive council of the Adamawa State PDP. A rebellion would break out in the PDP National Working Committee soon. After an NWC meeting which Tukur did not attend, the deputy national chairman of the party Dr. Sam Sam Jaja made an announcement countering Chairman Tukurs dissolution of the Adamawa exco. National deputy chairmen are not known to be very active in the party except during the tenure of Olabode George. It was indeed striking to see the national deputy chairman Sam Sam Jaja take the center stage to reverse his bosss ruling even with his boss in office. Party scribe Olagunsoye Oyinlola stood with him. It would soon be clear that Sam Sam Jaja was executing the script of the man to whom he owed more loyalty than he owed his party chairman. Party officers divide their loyalty between the political godfather in their state and the party boss at Wadata Plaza. In Sam-Sam Jajas case, the loyalty owed the governor of his state who sponsored him to the deputy national chairmanship, the loyalty owed the chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi far outweighed anything he could concede to Bamanga Tukur. Apart from the matter of solidarity with Governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa, Amaechi and his rebel PDP governors realised that if Bamangar Tukur was allowed to sack the Adamawa PDP Exco, he would soon be doing same in other states where the governors disagreed with him. Sacking state excos which were invariably loyal to their governors and installing those loyal to the party chairman effectively took away control of the state party from the governor. It was not a coincidence that some governors under the aegis of the Nigerian Governors Forum started demanding the removal of Tukur. This of course sounded ominously like an attempt to over-awe or even humiliate the commander-in-chief. Increasingly governors led by Rotimi Amaechi had begun issuing ultimatum to the president but about seventeen governors spoken for by Akwa Ibom State governor Godswill Akpabio refused to go along with that rebellious line of arm-twisting the president to precipitate Tukurs downfall. There was the sense that the president could not afford to lose the chairman he supported with less than two years to the 2014 PDP presidential primaries. The fall of Bamanga Tukur could build a massive groundswell for the presidents opponents in the PDP. On the other hand, Bamanga Tukur needed to focus on not becoming a burden to the president who had invested a lot of presidential leverage to make him party chairman.. As chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum, Amaechis battles with President Jonathan gave him a rebel status which made him a big hit with the opposition, within and without the PDP. He would become the most talked about Nigerian governor from 2012 - 2013. His battles against President Jonathan had raised the kind of dust that no Northern governor with a presidential aspiration could match. Amaechi had metamorphosed into the most potent obstacle to Jonathans second term ambition in the Niger Delta; carrying the fight against Jonathan sometimes almost single-handedly and absorbing the blows of an infuriated presidency. For sometime people had been wondering how Amaechi would wiggle out of the dangerous tango he had got into with the president ? How would Amaechi get a second term as chairman of the NGF, when his tenure expired in a few imminent weeks ? These bets were suddenly overtaken by more worrisome developments from the High Court where Amaechis estranged former chief of staff and current minister for education Nyesom Wike along with a former council chairman Felix Obuah scored an ugly upset against Amaechis political base by obtaining an unbelievable court judgment sacking the Rivers PDP Executive Council under the second term chairmanship of Chief G.U Ake - which was loyal to Amaechi - and replacing it with one led by Felix Obuah. How would Amaechi retake control of the Rivers PDP Secretariat ? A few weeks earlier, it seemed that the fate of the PDP was in his hands but the legal coup arranged by his former chief of staff Nyesom Wike had turned him into the out going chaiman of the NGF who had lost control of his state chapter of his party; a state ruling party leader who could no longer muster the influence to call a party meeting because he had lost the instrument for party control. With this coup Nyesom Wike had succeeded in entrenching himself as the presidents strong man in Rivers and suddenly enjoyed the support of most of the influential Rivers politicians who had parted ways with Amaechi since 2007 when he broke away from his former boss Odili. Indeed soon enough, Dr. Peter Odili would appear at the head of a pro-Wike Rivers PDP delegation on a visit to Aso Villa. There were those who had found in the situation between the president and Amaechi, the opportunity to settle scores. Wikes revenge mission against Amaechi had become the presidential spear head. As the president was a rather taciturn fellow, it was difficult to discern his plans and really, the President of Nigeria did not have to respond to the rabble. The ACN and later APC governors who had encouraged the schism were simply furthering their own interest. The presidents men who took on the Rivers governor were defending their boss and feathering their nests. The Rivers House of Assembly, the majority of them led by Otelemaba Amachree realized on what side their bread was buttered; the Rivers national assembly caucus including well known gubernatorial hopefuls were hoping for the survival of the system in which their political hopes were invested, though it had been alleged that some had been sending words to the avenging minister. Nor could one blame the new court installed party executives, the ObioAkpo caretaker council and all the foot soldiers on both sides of the battle. They all knew where their bread was buttered. It was all about hope, money and the hope for it. A lot of people hoped that Amaechi would summon the humility to go visit Jonathan or that Jonathan would be wise enough to reach out to Amaechi. The entire conflict had been advanced by illegality on both sides. The only good that may have perhaps come out of it was that Nigerians had added N – Registration to their vocabulary after the revelations and allegations surrounding the vindictive grounding of Gov. Amaechis Bombadier Jet by federal aviation authorities. The re-election victory of Gov Amaechi as the chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum was a political loss and humiliation for Jonathan, a clear upset. Despite having his Bombadier grounded and control of the Rivers State PDP prised out of his grip by a strange court judgement, Amaechi chartered another jet, flew into Abuja, summoned his governor colleagues for the awaited election. It should have been a foregone conclusion that Amaechis chairmanship was over, if Jonathan was on top of his game. It was reasonable to assume that it was impossible to beat a Nigerian President in Abuja. When pro-Jonathan governors Shema and Yuguda had withdrawn from running for the chairmanship, and Governor Jang had become the consensus candidate, a wrong decision had been made and this was soon confirmed when he was walloped by Amaechi 19-16. Amaechi had again proved that he was a rugged fighter and skilled survivor, a rebel of substance even handing the president a conciliatory paragraph at the end of his victory speech. The victory was such an upset that the allegation of rigging thrown into the ring by Gov. Akpabio after the results were announced appeared like an after thought, desperate and lacking in evidence. Governor Akpabio claimed that the ballot papers were not numbered and that Amaechi had not stepped down from the chairmanship before the election. Why then did Akpabio and other governors on his side go ahead to vote instead of protesting against these irregularities. The deadlock resulting from the refusal of Akpabio as the chairman of the PDP Governor’s Forum to recognise Amaechi’s victory would serve the presidents men well in sundering the association. They had recognised Jang and not Amaechi as the winner while the rebel Northern PDP Governors and the governors from the opposition parties apart from Governors Peter Obi and Olusegun Mimiko recognised Amaechi as the re-elected chairman of the NGF . This factionalization would ensure that the NGF could never again have the credibility to do damage to the president; there is no doubt however that Amaechis electoral coup revealed the presidents soft underbelly. His greatest electoral head ache was not the new party APC into which all the opposition parties had merged but the gang of rebel PDP governors led by Amaechi. They seemed to hold the balance of power. Amaechis victory would embolden Jonathans opponents. The president was no longer perceived to be unbeatable. His kinsman Governor Amaechi and his alliance of five Northern governors working in tandem with the opposition had proved so. A similar combination had also defied the PDP leadership and made a speaker out of Aminu Waziri Tambuwal in 2011. Stopping Jonathan from a second term was no longer unrealistic. Before its factionalization, the NGF became a destabilizing influence on the PDP. It became a platform for opposition governors to take a shot at the president instead of doing so from their constitutionally recognized seats. Though this was never the intention of the chairman, there is no use denying that his principled but provocative approach to presidential issues had been exploited by opposition governors to continually hammer a struggling ethnic minority president and inevitably Amaechi became the brand name for the struggle to oust Jonathan in 2015 instead of the strong ally of the president which he had been. When his political survival became endangered by presidential henchmen, the opposition governors became his fortress. No Nigerian president should accept the drubbing which Amaechi had handed Jonathan. Amaechis NGF electoral coup had not only startled the president, it had startled all the PDP power brokers benefitting from the Jonathan presidency including Amaechi’s fellow governors. Amaechi was really only a few steps away from precipitating the unravelling of the administration and by extension the PDP and very much to the glee of the opposition. It might not have been what he wanted but it was the collateral damage that would have resulted. The suspension order which he was then handed by the party was in a way a panic measure or part of the PDP contingency to contain the man who would metamorphose into the greatest threat in 2013 to the Jonathan presidencys second term ambition. So much would happen: Governor Amaechi would be blocked by presidential details from executing a protocol defying handshake with the president while the president was seated in the middle of a state dinner with two other presidents. Then a few days later the governor got a hug from the president while his PDP adversaries led by Nyesom Wike were ignored. Before Amaechis stalwarts could consolidate on this development, the Rivers PDP faction made up of all the party heavyweights opposed to Governor Amaechi were received by President Jonathan at Aso Villa. Nobody could have foreseen that a short while later Evans Bipi, a relatively unknown member of the Rivers House of Assembly would literally launch a half-assed attack at the Rivers House of Assembly to oust the Speaker Otelemaba Amachree. The coup attempt was contemptible, doomed to failure from the start, comical, defined by hooliganism and certainly landed a few legislators in the hospital with bashed skulls and smashed faces. The failed Bipi coup was hot news and at least provided two adversaries; house leader Chidi Lloyd and Bipi ally Michael Chinda with hospital bed serenity and meditation hours. Video recordings of the show of shame went viral. The President and his wife were on a trip to China at the time but Evans Bipi would soon have the social media agog with the madam-made-me-do-it quote credited to him with regard to his support for the Wike Intifada, A few months earlier, Mrs Jonathan had been the guest of honor at Bipis wedding. Evans Bipi was a former aide to Mrs Jonathan and obviously still retained a substantial influence with the presidents wife. Evans Bipis failed impeachment plot removed every doubt about a possible plot to impeach Governor Amaechi. Amaechi had proved a smart but bull-headed fighter. He had thrown all his punches within the law. This much could not be said of the president who had to scramble up some moves no matter how clumsy to make up for lost ground. It did not at all help that his push back against his adversary, the NGF chairman had been hijacked in Rivers State by the gubernatorial ambition of Amaechis former chief of staff and minister of state for Education Ezebunwo Nyesom Wike. The Rivers Police Commissioner Joseph Mbu would soon emerge as Wike’s chief enforcer in the mission to scupper Amaechi’s governorship. No state police commissioner has shown more defiance of the chief security officer of a state. It became normal for him to ignore the governors instructions and even lampoon the governor in the media. That he was allowed to do so for about a year, marked the depth of impunity to which Jonathan’s hench-men led by Nyesom Wike dragged down Rivers State in their determination to undo Rotimi Amaechi. Stay tuned for the concluding part of Amaechis War.
Posted on: Tue, 01 Apr 2014 05:43:33 +0000
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