President Muhammadu Buhari, the propeller of the rejection of tenure elongation for members of the national working committee of All Progressive Congress (APC) , and the initiator of that rejection, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, must know that what is going on in Akwa Ibom State as “elective congress” during the supposed wards and Local Government congresses was nothing but a lie of democracy and the utter abuse of democratic processes of an election, especially where guidelines for such elections is a public document – they headed the way of illegality and unconstitutionality.
No matter what the hindrances are to the popular participation of qualified citizens of a country in exercising their franchise (their right to choose in an electoral process) and upholding the dignity of the universal adult suffrage (a fundamental right of choice), what should be, is the removal of these hindrances to allow for due process and the deepening of democracy; not an artful dodging of a clearly burdensome responsibility of political leadership – where there is a will, there is a way.
It is therefore very cheap when leaders show incapacity to deepen our democracy but attempt to hinder the only one Nigerian who has suffered political hatred serially, even when no one has contributed, measuring up to him in any way, in the advancement of democracy in Nigeria, the man Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He set the tenor for where the APC is today and President Buhari respects his political views and reach. This must not be toyed with by any section of the party.
If leaders of a people think an election would be violent, they should not frame up ways out of violence by abusing democracy but ensure that everything is done to evolve and develop democratic tenets of and by their political followership – our leaders have been derelict of this responsibility. Which political party has held a seminar for the members at the ward and local government levels to advocate peace and mitigate violence? None! Our leaders are only interested in their next political office and how to get there.
It is good to showcase the records of non violence for all to see and to insist that there was a peaceful conduct of the APC congresses in Akwa Ibom State, nevertheless, I think Mr President, who is the APC party leader, and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who is President Buhari’s national leader in the party, should ask Ita Enang, the Presidential aide on National Assembly Matters, Nsima Ekere, the Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission, Umana Okon Umana, the Managing Director of the Oil and Gas Free Zone Authority, Ben Ukpong of the National Population Commission and other appointees of this administration, all of who are members of the party over whom he has appointive powers, how they helped the conducts of the elective congresses in Akwa Ibom State.
I would also demand that the APC Electoral Panel, a panel I suppose are made up of decent democrats, opens up on the manner of the congress they “conducted” or supervised in Akwa Ibom State – something is definitely wrong in this country. Until Nigerians understand how democracy is the will of the majority, and not the will of a few political office holders, Nigeria will remain the property of a few leaders who can buy and supply deadly weapons to our youths.
Only political office holders and those they recruit can facilitate gunrunning in this country – no any other set of Nigerians can. This is why none of our lawmakers care how they have grossly abused Section 16 Subsection 2 (c) of our constitution. Even President Buhari is either oblivious or looking the other way to avoid stopping this abuse of our constitution. I weep for this country.
I solemnly declare, with all I hold dear , that what was done in Akwa Ibom State during the wards and local government congresses of the APC was the replacing of ward and local government executives of the party who have left the party and those who are late. The Electoral Panel of the APC to Akwa Ibom State did nothing to uphold the party guidelines for the congress they were engaged to successfully vacate, nor did they conduct any elective congress anywhere in Akwa Ibom State.
The electoral panel members were the guests of some members of the Akwa Ibom State Caucus of the APC, to whom they listened, and permitted that the list of party executives elected into office in 2014 be updated by substituting the names of members on the list who have left the party and those who are late, by replacing them with existing members.
In Nsit Atai Local Government Area where I participated fully in the processes, no part of the guidelines released for the elective Congresses across the country was facilitated nor adhered to in any way as demanded by the leadership of the party. The replacement of unavailable members was what was done at the “ward congress” tagged “harmonization” in Nsit Atai Local Government Area, where 80% of the incumbent officers have been “returned” to office unopposed, without having resigned from their posts, nor did they apply for, nor got waivers from the National Working Committee as demanded by President Buhari, and according to law. How can we advance our democracy like this?
This is the reality of the situation in Akwa Ibom State, and I feel persuaded that this is what is likely going on in other States in South South Nigeria. I was aroused to this realization when I read that the Chairman of the Delta State Electoral Panel of the APC Sani Dododo was removed from his responsibility for broadcasting his return from the local government congress of the party without the consent of his committee members. What particularly jolted me was his replacement by Emmanuel Chindah. Sani Dododo is a northerner, and I suppose, a replacement for him should also come from the north, bearing John Oyegun’s admission that the “convention committee” of the party was drawn from and made up of varied and varying interests in the party.
My question therefore is on how the interest of Sani Dododo’s representation as a member of the “convention committee” been justiably replaced by the interest that Emmanuel Chindah’ represents in the same committee? It can only be that Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi is seriously interfering with the processes of the APC congresses across the Niger Delta. The Transportation Minister and self acclaimed “Lion of the Niger Delta” has a right to feel aggrieved with an electoral process, but he has no right to attempt twisting the arms of the process to achieve his desire.
He is so demonic in his passion to always have his way politically. Emmanuel Chindah served Chibuike Amaechi as Commissioner, when the later was governor of Rivers State for 8 years. He is one of the faithful stewards of Amaechi who stayed back with him after Nyesom Wine’s revolt, resisting Wike’s baits. For Chibuike Amaechi, after losing the endorsement of the Delta State Chairman of the APC to Adams Oshiomole in the decision of the South South Caucus of the APC to endorse the later, it must be made known how Minister Amaechi has not lost his dream of standing in the way of Adams Oshiomole emerging as national chairman of the APC and so of the interest of President Buhari on the matter.
President Buhari surprises me. The other time, when Atiku Abubakar exited the APC, the Minister of Women Affairs literally supported Atiku Abubakar against Mr President and she has since been excused to continue as Minister. The same way has Chibuike Amaechi recently shown obtuse opposition to Mr President’s choice of Adams Oshiomole as the succeeding Chairman of the APC. It must be made known that Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi is the mastermind of the lobby to sustain John Oyegun’s interest in continuing as Chairman of the APC after 30 June 2018. It is in furtherance of this idea that Rotimi Amaechi has shown very kin interest in the elective congresses in South South Nigeria.
My mission is to paint the picture of the political demon Chibuike Amaechi is to the Buhari’s administration. I hold Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi responsible for the founding of the “cabal” we know of in the presidency – he bought off the allegiance of Mr President’s relatives and hangers on. He was a very huge factor to the delay in President Buhari releasing of the list of nominated members of the federal executive council until after he was 6 months in office, especially having caught political office aspirants unawares with his limiting of his cabinet to 36 members at ministerial level.
There was a very big reason why Rotimi Amaechi invested himself and resources of Rivers State to take the office of Director General of the “Buhari/Osinbajo Presidential Campaign Organization” in 2015. As DG of BOPCO in 2015, Chibuike Amaechi was the bride and cynosure of the eyes of very political office holder in the South East and South South region. He became to the South East and South what Buhari is to the north and what Tinubu is to the South West, by self imposition, self arrogation and his attempts to speak for the 2 regions with one mouth.
Rotimi Amaechi is the arrowhead of the “group” sustaining the possibility of returning Oyegun to the office of the national chairman in these 2 regions and to scuttle Mr President’s reelection bid for Bukola Saraki’s emergence as APC Presidential flag bearer. Agreed it was Bola Tinubu’s idea that President Buhari should set up a reconciliation committee for the APC, and the rejection of tenure elongation for APC NWC members was.also his idea. But the idea of tenure elongation was the creation of Amaechi and his gang of opportunist.
The unholy romance that took existed between John Oyegun, Rotimi Amaechi, Aminu Tambuwal, Rabiu Kwankwaso and.others during the national convention to select Presiden Buhs ahe APC and aldeficitsmpromises brought us our present hardship, from the rejection of Tinubu as Vice President to the present rejection of Oshiomole as succeeding APC national chairman. They are the barons of money influence of politics and the paying for politicking.
Chibuike Amaechi was forced out of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) characteristically, and it was with this characterization that he was admitted into the APC without a first hand purge of his characteristic passion for always wanting his own ways. This is a spiritual disease. I see him as the “Jonah” that must be thrown off President Buhari ship of state to help our voyage as a nation. Rotimi Amaechi is a bad spot in President Buhari’s administration. Emmanuel Chindah must not be allowed to Chair Delta State APC Electoral Panel.
If Sani Dododo must go, let another from his geopolitical zone be drafted to replace him, not an Amaechi’s boy. Let Emmamuel Chindah return to Rivers State and help to stop the bloodshed and political rascality going on there. It is unfortunate for him that innocent lives must be wasted and properties destroyed each time he is in any political contest. Why should President Buhari allow this heinous responsibility by Minister Amaechi to fester?
Mr President has done well without the South South States, he did not need them to win his presidency. Mr Preisdent has done well without Rivers State, he did not need Rivers State to win his presidency. Why must Amaechi insist on winning where he has clearly shown incapacity to win? Political victory through a democratic process does not and should not readily amount to a political war. This is where Rotimi Amaechi has remained politically unlearned and childish in the face of bloodshed and wanton destruction of properties. This is backwards and downwards politics: it takes all stakes nowhere. Good politicians do not fight, they lobby well.
He started his offensives after failing to hijack the machineries of the APC at the convention to choose a Presidential flag bearer but lobbied hard to emerge President Buhari’s campaigns director general – that is where he is presently targeting with his present Buhari Campaigns Organization (BCO). He finally got his way when he paved the way for Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara to emerged President of Senate and Speaker of House respectively. Someone engineered President Buhari’s lack of interest in who heads an important arm of government. That was the way Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi “cut Tinubu to size” and posted a “sentry” in the presidency to watch President Buhari’s every move.
He is a Nigerian politician who still sees our amiable Vice President Osinbajo as a “mere commissioner” because he has never been one, neither has Bukola Saraki who made the phrase and term prominent been one too – so they scorn the office of commissioner. It is time for President Muhammadu Buhari to ask Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi to go: he should be relieved of his ministerial appointment. Let him go and resist Adams Oshimole’s emergence as national chairman of the APC from Obima his hometown because Wike will not give him residence in Port Harcourt city. Why should Amaechi confront his President and the leader of his party? Why should he?
It is not surprising how he hijacked all the ministerial appointments that came from the Buhari administration to the south south. I challenge every Nigerian who has the time to investigate my accusation of Chibuike Amaechi as serving the interest of the PDP in the APC to so do please. Let us take Akwa Ibom State for instance: we have prominent indigenes who funded the “legacy parties” that birthed the APC, people like the distinguished Senator John James Akpan Udoedehe who took care of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) as his baby, the elder statesmen, Atuekong Don Etiebet and Chief Sam Ewang, who funded the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) and a few others who stuck with the ACN, ANPP and other parties in the state, who clearly could have been considered for political office in this dispensation, but what do we have?
We have Nsima Ekere, Ita Enang, Umana Umana, Udoma Udo Udoma, staunch members and promoters of the Godswill Akpabio’s PDP administration, who left the PDP from political frustrations to frustrate the rightful beneficiaries of the labour of our heroes past, making them vain through the machinations and interference of Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi.
What the Akwa Ibom State APC Caucus have consented to, which is in clear violation of the guidelines of the APC congress and the conditions of acceptance of this democratic aberration can only result for the stakeholders treading careful with the den of our lion, lest they lose favour. Instead of arresting the passion of Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, and making it dead on arrival, his resurrection of the Buhari Campaign Organization has again thrown him up as relevant in the present political scheming. Amaechi is not working for President Muhammadu Buhari, but for himself.
If Rotimi Amaechi is against Adams Oshiomole’s emergence as national Chairman of the APC, then he is clearly against President Buhari seamless ride back into the Aso Rock Villa, and it will be to the peril of Mr President’s ambition if he continues to allow Rotimi Amaechi to ride roughshod with anything that is electoral and in favour of popular democratic participation.
He remains the only governor who invaded his House of Assembly and physically trashed members of his legislature, making some of them to seek medical treatment overseas. This is the kind of “lion” President Buhari has allowed to infest and unleashed on Rivers people to waste the political fortunes of the people and that of the Niger Delta region.
And on behalf of the current political scam going in Uyo, with Nsima Ekere making available his hotel to host the Electoral Panel members, and dishing monies to the “harmonization” committees handling the political deficits and loss of Mr President in the wards and local government areas across Akwa Ibom State, I see and hereby announce Amaechi’s Man Friday in Nsima Ekere, dismissing Mr.President’s rerun bid in the state.
Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi cannot equate himself with Bola Ahmed Tinubu in any way and by any means. Tinubu still has the highest stakes in the politics of Lagos State 11 years after vacating the office of Governor but Rotimi Amaechi was boothed out of office by his Chief of Staff. Bola is not Amaechi’s mate.
Who was Rotimi Amaechi and where was he when Tinubu nominated Iyorchia Ayu as Senate President in 1991? Who and where was he when Tinubu formed the National Coalition for Democracy (NADECO). Who and where was Amaechi when Tinubu set up Radio Kudirat to spread the awareness of the political madness during the Abacha era? Who and where was Amaechi when the Asiwaju sustained the political opposition in Nigeria during the “do or die” regime of Olusegun Obasanjo? Who and where was he when Buhari rejected the first advance of the Asiwaju in 2010? Why does he think he can reap where he did not sow.
Adams Oshiomole must make sure that the first thing he does when he assumes office as national chairman of the APC is to show how a “rat” sees himself as a “lion”. And my last word for Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi is taken from scripture – “let him that girds on his armor boast not than he that puts his off”. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi should learn about Asiwaju Bola Tinubu from Olusegun Aremu Obasanjo. He will not lie to him. The Asiwaju is a resulted politician who has returned from political battles severally, let’s see how Amaechi thrives without Buhari’s support. Opportunists will remain opportunists. Opportunism is a political deficit for any politician and I pray Rotimi Amaechi is teachable.
Ini Akpan Morgan is an architect, writer, and social media consultant. He writes from Uyo, Akwa Ibom State via “time.subsidaries@gmail.com”
