Amaechi: Someone should stop Jonathan!

By Timawus Mathias

If my editor were to agree with me, this column would be blank, and carry just my name. It would not be from the lack of what to write, but rather from the abundance and the frustrating futility of opinionating on our domestic issues.

By the end of the week the aberration in Rivers State would have turned full cycle, and the governor, Rotimi Amaechi impeached to satisfy political hounds that have scratched his skin and are trailing the scent of his blood.

What did Governor Rotimi Amaechi do? Shockingly nine of ten people I randomly asked at a motor park in Gombe told me that his wrong was to quarell with the president of our dear country Nigeria.

President Goodluck Jonathan wants to continue to rule Nigeria in 2015 and somebody originated a rumour long ago that Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State and Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State were being paired up as the flag-bearers of the Peoples Democratic Party come 2015. Of course spin doctors and political prostitutes moved in to make quick money - gulf excavators in width and depth, and bridge-builders in height and multiple lanes balooned the prospect way beyond proportion. Obviously there is panic in Aso Rock, for what else can cause the ongoing onslaught on once close associate Rotimi Amaechi?
You do not use that type of political sledgehammer to kill a fly, however irritating.

First was the attempt to remove Governor Amaechi as Chairman of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum, an association of Governors which enables them to wield a formidable and overwhelming political authority. That failing, the Presidency expectedly took a divide and rule approach by floating a PDP Governor’s forum under the chairmanship of Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State, who immediately got into the business of hacking at the Nigerian Governors’ Forum. Governor Rotimi shifted gears and visited Governor Kwankwaso in Kano and that handshake across the Nigeria looked too good even for enemies of the ruling PDP. It confused pundits the more because the earlier speculations had linked Amaechi with Lamido.

Baring fangs eventually, airport authorities denied clearance for Amaechi’s aircraft leaving him stranded in Akure. Regrettably, Amaechi was in company of the Speaker of the House of Representatives Aminu Tambuwal. The news this event generated threw an unflattering light on the Presidency, but the deed had been done. Nigeria stood embarrassed on the world stage - clearly, the country was making a failure of the practice of democracy. A new state executive of the PDP has been put together by Abuja, with a clear mandate to whip Amaechi into line. It has sacked the entire legislature whose hands appear to be forced to impeach Governor Amaechi.

The burning issue is 2015 and Power. Over power, even sibblings can become lethal enemies. Our situation in Nigeria is unique in the sense that though we practice a democracy, there is really one political party, and opposition groupings, unless the APC “consortium” comes into fruition.

In the PDP, conservative vested interests have found unity around Political Power, which in turn guarrantees Economic Power. The binding ideology is Sharing - everyone getting a little something. As long as the vested interests share the power comfortably, then it can be assumed every interest can stick a hand in the pie, and in the Nigerian situation, even a morsel can translate to trillions of currency in any denomination. Oil subsidy (mis) payments, oil block allocations and revocations, contracts for INEC, security, education, communication, finance, et al, are all morsels.

The biggest asset is the Office of President, presently occupied by Goodluck Jonathan.

A recap into how this president won his own first term needs to be clarified. He could not have made it on his own. The South gave him support masterminded by Amaechi and his colleagues. In the North, governors who did so sold their birthrights riding the crest of their nobility and faith to deliver in honour of Party Trust. A nouveau Northern economic class defeated the Northern “oligarchy” from the bid to produce a concensus candidate to the PDP presidential primaries to endorse a Goodluck Ebele Jonathan candidature, and indeed champion this to whatever type of victory won in the 2011 General Elections.

Today, 2015 though so far away, is really close by, and the PDP looks forward to 2015 not quite sure that it has a winning candidate in the President given his dismal performance and how after President Obasanjo  and even Umaru Musa Yar’adua, Goodluck simply diminished the office of President, immeasurably lowering our ranking in global affairs.

Then there is the looming likelihood of a successful merger  opposition units into a formidable APC, as we see the federating parties successfully going through the due process. We therefore have not just a rumbling tummy in the PDP, but truly a trembling heart.

It is against this background that you will situate the travails of Governor Rotimi Amaechi and to every  extent  the state of anomie in the land. Insecurity in the North has festered for the same reason, and because the causers of the problem are untouchable, seen as people who can guarantee even that 25%!  The Rivers State experience represents the Presidency’s onslaught against governors and the ploy is if Goodluck Jonathan can fry his own (Amaechi) why wont the likes of Lamido and Aliyu fret, kow-tow in trembling? Any surprise that Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi, where Bamanga was floored in the bid for National Chair is today Bamanga’s” messenger” to his colleagues? But it should not be so. Someone must tell the president, it is wrong to stifle competition.

Sadly, Nigeria kills democracy through this home-grown contraption. We need true democracy, a clean franchise that enables good people to win, not because they are favoured by a Lord of the Manor, not because they are anybody’s son. We should not practice a democracy that enables an individual to mastermind the selection of the Leader in abuse of clearly laid down processes and tenets. It is the only reason our nation is threatened with disintegration as people kill and maim for their selfish interests, and for which they loot and steal from the public purse blindly. Receivers of handouts of largesse today will be the stone-throwing accusers of tomorrow. Teach a man to fish, and he will no longer be hungered. Feed him fish, you will have to keep on keeping on, and every “exalted” individual’s time, ENDS! Even another four years.