Rivers crisis beyond Jonathan’s public alarm
By Chris Eze, Port Harcourt
There is a saying that evil thrives when men of conscience keep mum in the face of injustice and tyranny.
In other words, evil would not thrive when men of conscience boldly condemn what is condemnable and dissociate themselves from the evil.
Nigeria’s former president, Dr Good luck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan clearly associated himself with the latter on Monday when he raised the alarm that the political crisis in Rivers State could snowball into a bigger regional and national upheaval with greater consequences if not timely nipped in the bud.
Jonathan spoke at Rumuolumeni in Obi/Akpor Local Government Area when he performed the flag off of the construction of the multi billion naira Trans-Kalabari road project initiated by the administration of Governor Siminalayi Fubara.
The former president who called for restraint from the two arrow heads of the Rivers crisis – FCT minister, Nyesom Wike and Rivers Governor, Sim Fubara noted that Rivers State is the heart-beat of the Niger Delta, stressing that anything that has the potential of destabilizing Rivers State would also have a cataclysmic effect on the entire Niger Delta and Nigeria in general.
Hear the former president: “”Rivers State is very critical in this country. Rivers State is the heart of the Niger Delta. If Rivers State is destabilized, the whole Niger Delta will be destabilized, and it will not end within the Niger Delta alone because I am from this part of the country, and I know how the system works. We don’t want any crisis in Rivers State.”
The former president also counseled, “Leaders must know that nobody takes 100 percent. You must learn the principle of give and take. So, our political actors must work together if you love Rivers people.
“There is this common saying that when two elephants fight, the grass suffers. Both the Governor and the Minister are young people, very young people but they are powerful, and if you continue to fight, Rivers people will suffer. We don’t want the Rivers people to suffer.
“So, we are calling on them to embrace each other. One hand does not clap. It takes two hands to clap. So, we want them to work together for the collective interest of Rivers people”
Jonathan’s position is statesmanlike and in sync with his political mantra – ‘politics without violence’. But analysts say the political crisis in Rivers State has gone beyond one standing from a distance and asking Wike and Fubara to sheath their swords and work together.
According to analysts, the feud between the FCT minister and Governor Fubara has gone beyond what the two gladiators can sit alone on a negotiating table and resolve because it is already overloaded with a potpourri of extraneous interests from both ends.
Other thinkers also reason that efforts to resolve the crisis by third parties started rather too late as ego had already crept into the feud.
Governor Fubara even alluded to this in some fora when he confessed that everything he had done to bring the Wike side to a common ground with his administration was rebuffed.
Former president Good Luck Jonathan, acclaimed UN, AU and ECOWAS envoy would have been the most suitable personality to broker peace between Wike and Fubara by inviting them over even to his Otuoke country home in Bayelsa and draw their ears to the consequences of the fire they are stoking in the Treasure Base of the nation.
This according to observers would have been a more pragmatic approach to attempting to resolve the crisis rather than the public caution or alarm the former president raised in Port Harcourt.
Interestingly, the FCT minister was once a political son of the Jonathans and it was while serving in the administration of Jonathan as Minister of State for Education that the FCT minister grew the teeth and acquired the muscle to fight Rt. Hon. Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi who was then also fighting Jonathan.
But according to a source, former president Jonathan might have known that Wike “listens only to his own self” and as such would not want to be insulted by inviting the minister for words of caution or advice, hence the public alarm he raised so that anybody the minister can listen to could draw his ears and talk to him.
Clearly, it has been seen that president Tinubu was only interested in the political aspect of the quarrel and not a lasting solution from the manner he endorsed a one sided peace pact which he made Gov. Fubara to accept.
To further demonstrate that what transpired in the peace meeting was a mere circus show, the Wike side even after the meeting continued in their utterances and actions to hack at the wall of peace until it finally collapsed. And since then not even a whimper has been heard from President Tinubu on the matter again.
Instead it was the Senate President, Chief Godswill Akpabio, the number three man in the hierarchy of power in the present dispensation who rather became Wike’s acolyte- in- chief by picking on Gov. Fubara sometimes he (Akpabio) is found standing behind the microphone. “So it could be said without a grain of doubt that the political crisis in Rivers State may be an All Progressive Congress, APC, agenda to keep the state in perpetual crisis till the next election comes”, a political scientist told our correspondent in Port Harcourt.
Without going too far, former Governor Peter Odili on whose bowels most emerging politicians in Rivers State owe their rise, would have long resolved the crisis, but the FCT minister according to one analyst is like a “rabid dog that bites even its owner without compunction”.
The analyst recalled how Nyesom Wike stood on the altar at Our Lady of Holy Rosary Catholic Church, Catholic Institute of West Africa (CIWA) in Port Harcourt eulogizing the Odilis for making him whom he is politically during the Holy Mass to celebrate the retirement of Justice Mary Odili from the Supreme Court.
At another forum, Wike still appreciating the Odilis for being instrumental to his rise to fame including his wife, openly asked God to stop his growth any day he makes the Odilis to cry.
But since the Odilis waded into the feud between Wike and Fubara and called the FCT minister to order, Wike has recanted and is now calling the Odilis names and seeing them as an albatross to his inordinate quest to pocket Rivers State by foisting Gov. Fubara as a minion and remotely be in charge.
From all indications, It does appear from the way and manner the FCT minister spoke recently at Koroma in Tai Local Government Area during the thanksgiving church service held in honour of Senator Barinada Mpigi, representing Rivers South East in the senate that nothing could sway him to soft pedal in the altercation between him and Gov. Fubara until they test their might during the 2027 general elections.
At that event, the FCT minister said, “With the forces we have, I don’t know of anybody who can challenge us. I can tell you it is like tomorrow is 2027. For me it is still very far. I can’t wait. The two leadership of the party, APC is here, PDP is here, where can you find that leadership unity? Which state? It is only in Rivers State that you can find that unity.
“And that is what many people don’t like. When they see people united and working together, they find how to make sure they are divided, but since we know, we have refused to be divided.
“This is the only state where the leading party will win for president; the opposition party will take national assembly in election that was done the same time, same minute and same hour. That is uncommon”, the FCT minister had boasted.
So who can call Wike to order so that Rivers State can move on without needless distraction to the good works already started by Governor Fubara?
Chris Eze is our correspondent in Port Harcourt , Rivers state
