AKANIMO SAMPSON in this piece, examines the politics that led to the withdrawal of Dr. Abiye Sekibo’s petition against the election of Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi.
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What informed the withdrawal the petition written by Dr. Abiye Sekibo, the governorship candidate of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) against the victory of Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi in the 2011 polls?
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This is the question making the round in some section of the state as robust opposition politics appears to be dying in Rivers. Citizens at palm wine bars and ‘kai kai’ joints are blaming the dying opposition politics in the state to poverty among the opposition politicians.
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Port Harcourt based lawyer and social critic, Mr. Chuks Uguru, seems to agree. He said it is largely due to economic reasons. Apart from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the other political parties in the state are virtually on holidays due to lack of cash to do their thing. National Chairman of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), Chief Victor Umeh, may have explained the situation when he pointed out in Abuja, that the N20 million subvention they get from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is inadequate to sustain them.
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But, in Rivers, it was expected that with the likes of the former Transport Minister, Sekibo in the opposition, the state was in for an engaging opposition politics. That was not to be. What prompted the governorship candidate of the ACN to withdraw his petition against the purported electoral Amaechi his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in April 26, gubernatorial poll, is still a mystery.
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Sekibo claimed that it was due to ‘’frustration’’. For those who tend to understand the political language of the state better, the ex-minister appears to be economical with the truth. It is being said in some informal political circles in the state that the withdrawal politics was weightier than expressed.
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It also appears the politics of Rivers since 1999 has the trappings of what happened during the early years of the Roman Catholic Church history. Subjugation of the masses was a major concern of the early history of the Church of Rome, just as repression of political opposition in Nigeria, remains the grand norm of the ruling circles. A very effective way of doing this was making everything ‘’wrong’’ and deserving of severe judgment.
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One of their quickest ways of subjugating the masses was declaring sex- except for procreation, and only during certain times and without pleasure as sinful, just as organised mass action is often viewed as a treasonable offence in Nigeria.
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Between the 1200s and the 1700s, sexual activity was most likely one of the few things that the common people could enjoy without guilt. The Bull of Pope Innocent viii, of December, 1484, which named two German monks- Heinrich Kramar and Jakob Sprenger- both professors of Theology, as inquisitors of the heretical, declared that all obstacles to performing their duties be dismantled, just as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was once used as the political attack dog of the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidency, to whip some erring governors and party leaders into line.
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Like the EFCC then, these two Catholic monks were given absolute authority over the ferreting out, and judgment of perceived satanic enemies of the church, mostly witches.
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Inquisitors were allowed to go to any length to obtain a confession of guilt. Torture was a common tool used to make the guilty confess and repent their evil ways. It took very little to be labelled a witch, like disagreeing with the church on any belief among others.
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The witch craze however, started to subside when very prominent people began to be charged with witchcraft. Consequently, Governor Phipps, in May, 1693 ordered the release from jail of all those awaiting trial for witchcraft. But across Nigeria, 12 years after the abortion of military dictatorship, perceived political foes are still being persecuted. The Nigerian people, the political sovereigns, are still being increasingly tortured. Millions of our country’s youths are being tortured; they wallow in unemployment.
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Suspected criminals undergo all forms of torture in the security chambers like in the days of the inquisition. And unlike the Europe and America of the witch craze years, our country lacks political leaders, jurists, and women leaders like Governor Phipps, Justice Samuel Sewell, who stood up in the Old South church in 1698, and acknowledged the shame and repentance for jailing citizens unjustly.
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In 1707, Ann Putnam, confessed her guilt and remorse over sending people to their deaths because of her actions.
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The situation appears to be worse in Rivers. State executive committee members of the PDP are hardly on their seats at the party secretariat to help explain issues that gave rise to governmental actions.
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The PDP Chairman, Chief G. U. Ake, hardly picks his calls for comments. Yet, ACN claims that the PDP lobbied them to burst their petition against Amaechi. The opposition party, did not however, explain what they meant by ‘’lobbied’’. A party lobbied could not have claimed to be ‘’frustrated’’.
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What ACN perhaps, meant was that the opposition is still being subjugated in Amaechi’s Rivers. Since the Governor Peter Odili era (1999-2007), it has been a tradition of sorts, for the opposition parties to fizzle out after elections. The state chairman of the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO), Mr. Steve Obodoekwe, said the reason was that ‘’opposition political leaders did not want to be strangulated economically’’. This may explain why the opposition has always sought accommodation in government till the next round of elections.
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It is therefore, very surprising to many watchers of Rivers politics, why the ACN is still exploding, and rattling the system months after the April general elections. Uguru says what the ACN is doing is very unusual in the state.
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He may be right. For instance, during the first Rivers State House of Assembly under the leadership of Amaechi, as Speaker, Senator Magnus Abe, who then won election into the House on the platform of then All Peoples Party (APP) now All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), became a frontline minority leader. But he defected from the party that made him, to the PDP. Those who knew what transpired behind-the-scenes claimed that the Odili administration was intolerant of a robust opposition politics.
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Having played ball, Abe was in 2003, compensated with the post of Information Commissioner, a position he held till Odili handed over power in May, 2007.
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Astute political mobiliser, Dr. Marshal Harry, who defected from the PDP to the ANPP, with a view to wresting power from his former party, was assassinated in his Abuja residence before the 2003 elections under questionable circumstances.
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Controversial Professor of Virology, Tam David-West, nearly paid the supreme price in Port Harcourt, the state capital, before the same 2003 polls, for allegedly parting ways with the status quo in the state.
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Sekibo, who was one of the prominent figures in the Odili government must have resorted to history as a hindsight, in beating a retreat from what was expected to be a mother of all political legal battles in the state.
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He, however, explained away the matter thus: ‘’We did go for election, the governorship election in this state. That election was conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, headed by Prof. Attahiru Jega.
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‘’Before the elections, we went round this state. We went to every local government area in this state. We took the programme of the Action Congress of Nigeria to the people of Rivers State and explained to them how we will as a party give the people of Rivers State governance that is much better than the Peoples Democratic Party has offered them in the last four years. The people of this state embraced our vision and our agenda and came out en-masse to vote for the Action Congress of Nigeria.??
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‘’I have every cause to believe that that election was resoundingly won by the ACN. Unfortunately, most unfortunately for democracy, at about 8am the following day, there was a release from the Rivers State Government House announcing the result of that election and sent to almost all the media houses in this country, at a time when INEC itself has not announced the result. And it was clear to us that the electoral process has been compromised. We headed for the tribunal. Since we filed our case in the tribunal, the Rivers State Government and the PDP in collusion with the INEC had frustrated every single step we had taken to gather the necessary evidence that we had, to prove that what INEC announced was not what the Rivers people decided. We had been in that battle since these elections were said to have been concluded and we have not made any headway.
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‘’During the elections, Prof. Attahiru Jega gave all Nigerians the permission to film, to photograph and record the electoral process. The Action Congress of Nigeria deployed over 5,000 Cameras to almost every polling unit in Rivers State. Those of our members who have these cameras, some of them were beaten, manhandled, the cameras they were holding destroyed, all in an effort to prevent us from gathering the necessary information that will help us prove to the electoral tribunal that what INEC announced was not the true outcome of the result of that election.
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‘’In the circumstance, when we realized that whatever we did to get the necessary information to file and support our case before the tribunal was not going to be allowed both by the government and by the electoral? body which was supposed to be neutral, we were faced with no other choice than to withdraw from the tribunal because it was clear to us that we should not be deceiving the Rivers people. If the electoral law had given clear deadlines when certain things were to be met and we have done everything possible. At one stage we had over ten photocopiers in the INEC Headquarters in Port Harcourt here, trying to photocopy documents. Both the INEC officials and the then Chief of Staff to the governor of Rivers State, came into the INEC office and prevented us from having to photo copy documents that were necessary for the case in the tribunal.
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‘’I pledged to the Rivers people when I was campaigning that at all times, I will tell them the truth and nothing but the truth. When I was faced with the challenge of not having things we needed to present to the tribunal which INEC had and the time allowed by law was going to elapse, I had to take the very painful decision of withdrawing this matter from the tribunal with the belief, as the lawyers truly advised, that rather than allow our case in the tribunal to be used as a process of confirming illegality, it was better for us to stay out from the tribunal and continue to tell the world and the public that the process allowed by law had been thwarted deliberately by the Rivers State government, the PDP and the INEC in Rivers State. We have no choice but to take our matter to the court of public opinion when it became clear that the electoral tribunal was not the place where the Rivers people could get justice. In taking that decision, I want to make it clear that as the candidate of the party who ran that election, I took everything into consideration and found that I must not mislead or deceive the members of my party or the people of Rivers State. Remaining in the tribunal at the time, will only be giving the impression that we are pursuing a case which in reality we are not allowed to pursue, and it was necessary for the Rivers people to know this.?
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‘’A number of people had said no matter what it takes, allow it to remain in the tribunal and let it be that it was not you that decided to withdraw, let them dismiss the case. That would be presenting falsehood to the people of Rivers State . That wouldn’t have been the true picture of what was happening on ground. I take full responsibilities in that decision that was taken. Before I took that decision, I did consult with my state party chairman and a few other elders of the party…’’
While there was no word from the PDP chairman in the state on Sekibo’s claims, INEC said the ACN governorship candidate may have been economical with the truth. Resident Electoral Commissioner in the state, Mr. Aniedi Ikoiwak, said the electoral body acted in accordance with the directives from their headquarters in Abuja, on all electoral petition cases. ‘’INEC Chairman directed that we should avail all parties materials they requested to prosecute their cases. That was exactly what we did to parties that came to us in Rivers’’, he said.
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Even the ACN Spokesman, Jerry Needam, is keeping sealed lips on what exactly transpired that compelled the withdrawal. Whatever the reason (s) may be the consensus is that Sekibo’s retreat has weakened the opposition. Since he that runs away lives to fight another day, will he throw his hat into the ring another day?
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