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Election years always come with three- sided excitement. The opposition comes with that incredible optimism of the politician, and the possibility of a new government; the incumbent draws from the power and perks of office, and the willingness of supporters whose eyes are narrowed on patronage from government. The voters are excited about their preferred candidates, and the prospects of their choice candidates mounting the saddle. Such excitement drives the process. The way things stand, this election is too close to call. The two leading parties are on equal footing. But for the power of incumbency, there would have been no nut to crack in predicting an upset. I would rather await the results from the electoral body. One intriguing development for me is the Supreme Court decision that the ruling party has shut itself out of the contest in Rivers and Zamfara states. The case of Rivers strikes at the root of what I have termed ‘the power of power.’ The allure of power is like the aroma of a favourite meal, or the sound of a baby’s cry to the mother. The case in Rivers shows that power can come between friends, even between brothers, as we see in Anambra, where two brothers are contesting for the same senatorial seat. There is also the case in Oyo, where two people, born to the same man from different wives, are contesting for the same Federal Constituency seat.
Minister of Transport and immediate past governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi, is at the centre of the squabble in Rivers. He is said to be the party leader in the state, and thus wants to appropriate the right to determine who flies the flag of All Progressive Congress (APC) in the state. We shall do well to track back and recall that he was a political ally to the current governor of the state, Nyesom Wike. When Amaechi was in political wilderness in the wake former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s declaration that Amaechi’s nomination as candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) was knock-kneed, or had K-leg, in the Nigerian parlance, and the fight to regain the mandate almost led to life-threatening situations, it was Wike who stayed to fight for Amaechi while the former governor allegedly escaped to Ghana. It was this same Supreme Court that sacked Celestine Omehia, whom the powers that be put in place of Amaechi, after Wike and others fought a long-drawn battle to get back the mandate. But power put a wedge between Amaechi and Wike when the latter became a minister, on Amechi’s monination, in the cabinet of former President Goodluck Jonathan. Amaechi was at political loggerheads with Jonathan. Wike pitched tent with Jonathan and severed ties with Amaechi. Power brought them together and put them apart. Amaechi found a new ally in Senator Magnus Abe, who moved from being a commissioner in Amaechi’s cabinet to Secretary to the State Government. He moved from there to become a senator in an emergent political family seemingly founded by Amaechi, who had begun to position himself as the godfather of Rivers politics. Abe was like the unofficial governor-in-waiting, angling to move from the Red Chambers, where he had moved with Amaechi’s support, to the Government House in the state. I recall putting it to him, in an interview I had with him at the local airport in Lagos, as he waited to board a flight to Abuja, that he was waiting in the wings to take over from Amaechi. He smiled and said it was too early for such talk and, in any case, 24 hours was so long a time in politics. He was right. When the time came Amaechi’s preference had changed, but Abe, a brilliant, politically stubborn Ogoniman, had not abandoned his quest to govern the state. Amaechi, who had become a top leader in the ruling party, the Lion of Rivers politics, as they now call him, preferred Dakuku Peterside to Abe. Abe tried but lost the APC ticket to Peterside. Wike, who flew the People’s Democratic Party’s flag, won at the polls and in court. Four years down the line, Abe remained tenacious but Amaechi looked elsewhere. Abe would not bow to the dictates of the godfather. Parallel primaries became the peak of the squabble, as Abe had dug in to the point of leading a faction of the party. The party hierarchy, at the national level, tended to lean towards Amaechi, whose preferred candidate, Tonye Cole, was submitted to INEC. The courts said the party violated its own rule, which is why both factions cannot present any candidate. The party has lost out completely in Rivers.
What drives politicians to desire to transit to godfathers when they leave office? Such desires now play out in Imo, where Governor Rochas Okorocha has fought hard to be the new godfather. The state never really had one, and he wants to install himself. He is meeting a hard nut in the party leaders, who think he is overreaching himself on the matter. Same thing plays out in Ogun State. The governors support candidates different from that of their parties. These new godfathers might argue that, if former governor of Lagos, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, could hold Lagos in such a stranglehold that his wife is senator, and he decides who governs Lagos, they should be allowed to wear the same shoes. Some shoes are rather too big, especially if they are political. Amaechi can only align with one of the candidates in Rivers. The way things stand, his party has shot itself in the foot. Obstinacy of godfathers has taken a toll on the party. The irony is that the situation would repeat in other places, even in the same state. If today’s godfathers say it existed in the past, as some of them are wont to say, they should take a cue from the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who did not interfere with his party primaries even when he had the power and clout to do so. He was the chairman and later presidential candidate of Unity Part of Nigeria (UPN) of yore but he never imposed candidates. In Lagos of those days, he loved Onitiri but Alhaji Lateef Jakande won the primaries. He let it be. In Oyo, he preferred Emmanuel Alayande but Bola Ige won. In Ogun, he wanted Otegbeye but Bisi Onabanjo won. He was close to the Ibrus in old Bendel State, but Ambrose Alli emerged the candidate; in Ondo, Ajasin won.
These days, godfathers want to be bigger than the party. Rivers, Imo, Ogun and Zamfara present interesting case studies. Now they know that they cannot ride roughshod on people. The courts are there to check their excesses.
