From Chris Agunweze, Port Harcourt
Chief Tony Okocha is the Caretaker Committee chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State.
He is not happy on the current political crisis rocking the state.
He also justified the push for extension of tenure of the immediate past 23 local government chairmen, siting Section 135 of the Nigerian Constitution, which he said allowed sitting Nigerian president an additional six months in office should there be precarious circumstances that may make election impossible within the period of expiration of the tenure of office.
According to Okocha, that section of the Constitution was domesticated in Rivers State to push for the extension of the council chairmen’s tenure.
He, therefore, said that the Caretaker Committee chairmen created by Governor Siminalayi Fubara is an aberration, insisting that they “do not exist.” Excerpt:
Your party, the All Progressive Congress (APC) produced the president at the federal level, here in Rivers State you are playing the opposition. What are your challenges?
I will be bold enough to say it is quite challenging, but I have a principle that nothing is impossible. The truth is that we met All Progressive Congress in the state not a party, but a social club, because the trappings of a political party, qualities of a political party, the requisites of a political party, were not there. APC was like a social club where people attend burials, attend meetings, child dedications and all that, but the whole essence of a political party which is about people who have gathered together, got themselves a manifesto, sponsor people for elections and campaign for elections, win elections and form government were not there. That is why I said it was a social club and we took it up from there. The party was in tatters. The national body said that we should constitute a caretaker committee, that is seven of us. By the grace of God the party is now gaining reckoning, at least we are the voice of the voiceless in the state, very vocal one for that matter.
Let’s talk about the confusion of party identity of the Martin Amaewhule pro-Wike led members of the Rivers State House of Assembly, are they in your party APC or they are still in PDP. Right now which party are they?
I will disqualify myself from answering that question. The reason I disqualify myself is that the issue you have raised is a subject matter in court, it is before the Court of Appeal which has invited the parties taking arguments from them and reserved judgment to a later date which we are expecting any time soon.
The immediate past local government chairmen, are they APC or PDP?
It is very clear, there is never a day they claimed membership of APC, never, they have not come close to us, but we are still wooing them. We are wooing them to come and join us because they are going to be good harvest. They have seen that they have lost interest in the party and we don’t want them to float, they are materials, so we are wooing them to come and join us just the way we are wooing Wike to join APC to come and strengthen us.
But they seem to be reluctant to vacat office after their tenure have expired rather they are pushing for extension?
They are not pushing for extension, they are pushing for the law to be followed. Let me tell you, there was no plan for tenure elongation at any time at all. What the Assembly did was to fill a gap, a lacuna that may exist and besides there is a section in the Nigerian constitution, I am told Section 135, I’m not a lawyer. That section of the constitution allows the president additional six months in office should there be any circumstance such as war or any other extraneous circumstances that may make election impossible within the period of expiration of tenure. The law says that what will happen in that sense is that the National Assembly will convoke a special session and pass a resolution mandating the president to be in office for another six months. In the first instance that is the law. So, I domesticated that law to Rivers State against the backdrop of the body language of the governor. Interparty Advisory Committee (IPAC) visited the Chairman of Rivers State Election Commission (RSEC), Retired Justice Eneberi and his commission members. The Chairman of IPAC made a statement, urging the RSEC to set up the process for conducting the local government elections, the laws are clear. The law says three months to the expiration of the tenure of the incumbent chairmen, the process of local government elections should be released. The law specifically said that within the three months 21 days to the expiration proper that there must be election. We started drumming this on 19th of January that was when we visited RSEC. When we came out of the hall, reporters asked what was our mission, I told them that our mission was to tell the Commission to conduct election. One of the reporters asked me since I am clamouring for this, should there be an election today what will be the place of the APC, I told him that APC will sweep the 319 ward councilorship positions and the 23 chairmenship positions, may be that was what frightened the governor and he refused to conduct election. If he had conducted the election the amendment would not have come, maybe not immediately. Now, what the chairmen are saying is not that they did not know that their tenure has expired on the 17th of June. What they are saying is ‘you did not conduct election for flimsy reasons. That there is political tension in the state. There is political tension in the state yet it did not stop the Simplified Movement to move from one local government to other in the state.
So, you feel that the governor was playing to time, targeting when the election will favour his candidates?
No, no, no! He wanted crisis, if he did not want crisis RSEC was not appointed by Tony Okocha, it was appointed by the Rivers State government. He who pays the piper dictates the tune. They have the yam and the knife. When he has all that it should be to our disadvantage, but we are saying, do what the law says.
Now, the caretaker committee inaugurated by the governor cannot even enter their council headquarters because they have been sealed by heavily armed policemen. What do you say about this?
I don’t even want to reckon with the local government caretaker committee because it is an aberration, aberration to the constitution and the law of the state. The Rivers State House of Assembly amendment law No 4 outlaws the use of Caretaker Committee to head the local government or any other nomenclature that is undemocratic.
Which amended law?
It is in the law, it has not been challenged. A lot of your colleagues don’t do investigative journalism any more, they want to do jankara work, some of them can’t even articulate their position, but I trust you, I know you I know how investigative you are. You can go and make your investigation and you will find out that it is in the law.
You mean as far as your are concerned Governor Fubara’s CTC Chairmen do not exist?
They do not exist. Then the issue you raised that they cannot even enter the council. It means that the governor did the wrong thing. I can’t sit as a governor, take a decision and that decision will not be implemented. The governor knew that he is setting the state on crisis. The day he inaugurated them, he told them that they can operate from anywhere, is he as governor operating from anywhere? Now, there is crisis, two parties are laying claim to the council so what do you expect if the police had not intervened timely, it means there is going to be a clash.
You once called for the impeachment of the governor?
I called for his impeachment because he is visionless. I refer to him as a push and start governor. He was ill-prepared and he was not able to dish out the dividends of democracy. Can you compare him with the governor of Abia State who is also a first timer. With all the money he has even the one he said he increased the internally generated revenue, can you compare him with Abia State governor also a first timer like him without funds? Rivers State can comfortably be dashing Abia State N10 billion every month. In his own confession he said he has only been in government for four months, did he go on leave. So what happened to the other eight months. He is telling you ‘look, I am incompetent’.
Right now you are calling for state of emergency…?
(Cuts in) The state is ripe for a state of emergency. I studied under a professor, Prof Cloud Eke, may his soul rest in peace. He said that when a contradiction gets to a rupture stage, nothing else will happen other than it will explode. The contradictions in Rivers State have got to a rupture stage and the only thing that will happen is an explosion. Explosion physically, mentally and spiritually if you like. You don’t know what we are seeing. How did the Assembly Complex got burnt? On the day the House of Assembly complex was burnt, Governor Fubara mounted the rustrum at Government House and announced to the whole world that they want to impeach him, which means that it was the reason of his impeachment that he feared that was going to take place in the Assembly complex that led to the burning of the place. Now, you are the governor, the structure housing the legislative arm went into flames and you took your time, went to the place, came to Government House and politicized the whole thing and never ever set up a committee or panel to investigate the cause and then make it open to the public. Instead as if that was not damaging enough, he went to court to procure a court order permitting him to bring down the area the fire did not cover. The next morning he was there supervising the demolition of the Assembly complex. Now, he is using N19 billion of Rivers money to rebuild a structure.
I will bring you back to the issue of state of emergency. You are a democrat. State of emergency will dislocate democratic structures. Why are you insisting on it?
What is democracy, that you are talking about, is it democracy where people are maimed, is it the time we begin to see deaths on the streets of Port Harcourt and environs. Now the governor has ethnicized the state. I am sure you are already hearing that slogan: “Asawana! Asawana! Asawana!” (Ijaw ethnic war slogan) and he has so given them the liberty to brandish guns. Rivers people brandishing guns more sophisticated than the one force people carry. The boys have been let loose, they have been let loose in the slums, and in the creeks. It is like when you let the dogs loose. You have to do something to demobilize them now.
But people think that your call for state of emergency at this time is premature, that it has not come to that stage. That there was a time insecurity engulfed the state to the point that soldiers were stationed in every corner of the streets of Port Harcourt, pedestrians were compelled to raise their hands up, yet there were no calls for state of emergency. Such people think that your call for state of emergency amounts to political coup. You just want the governor to be removed?
Do you want it to degenerate to that? People are saying look at what is happening in the Southeast and what is happening in Borno State as a negative reference, but in their own case it is not a political crisis, it’s about criminality and insurgency and the military and the Federal Government are standing up to it, deploying soldiers, but this one is political and when politicians fight they fight dirty. We are saying that we have seen indices of war. Businesses can no longer thrive.
You are insisting that state of emergency is just the solution?
I will not hesitate because all other options have failed, the option to obedience of order of court has failed, the governor does not obey court orders. The governor does things the way he wants. The governor is patronizing only three members in the house of effective 30. Three members are the ones with him. One is Speaker, another is Deputy Speaker, the remaining is Majority Leader, where does it happen? Supreme Court has interpreted that what constitute a legislature is one third of the total members of the Assembly not the ones that are sitting. I hope you know that at the heat of the crisis, the office of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was inundated with calls and messages, open and secret, requesting him to attend to bring truce to Rivers State and the president listened and arranged a meeting of the stakeholders, I was in that meeting, we were over 200, the governor was there, former Governor Odili was there, former Governor Wike now minister was there, among others. The president said that he needed to talk to Rivers people as a father which he did. He took his time to counsel us from the depth of his heart. After the president’s advice, he brought eight resolutions. The first was, Assembly to drop whatever proceedings that you have initiated to impeach the governor, second, all matters in court be withdrawn. Resolution included governor, you were wrong to have presented a budget to four members, go now and withdraw the budget and represent it to full Assembly under the leadership of Martin Amaewhule, don’t interfere with their legislative business. Conduct a local government election. I don’t want to hear any other nomenclature in the local government other than democratically elected chairmen. In all of these you have heard, why did the governor refuse to re-present the budget, why did the governor refuse to do what the president and the rest of us agreed upon and conduct a local government election?