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South-South APC leaders of force and homeland resistance

By Leo Sobechi (Assistant Politics Editor)
18 December 2018   |   4:25 am
But for the incumbency of Governor Adams Oshiomhole in Edo State during the 2015 general election, All Progressives Congress (APC) would have returned a dismal...

[FILE PHOTO] Adams Oshiomhole, APC leader

But for the incumbency of Governor Adams Oshiomhole in Edo State during the 2015 general election, All Progressives Congress (APC) would have returned a dismal outing in the entire South-South geopolitical zone. The outcome of the 2015 poll in the zone was expected largely because the then president Goodluck Jonathan was seeking another term as President. As such, in Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta and Rivers States, it was a near clean sweep by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The situation in Rivers was not helped by the prominent role of the then outgoing governor, Rotimi Amaechi, who was playing in the raucous challenge by APC to take over the reigns of political power in the country.

As the Director General of APC Presidential Campaign Organisation, Amaechi’s influence was felt more in the area of funding than on the ballot. His nemesis and former ally, Nyesom Wike, who was on his way to becoming his successor, did much to hold the electoral ground with his Grassroots Development Initiative (GDI) movement.

Less than three months to next year’s general election, the table has turned and with the APC controlling the Presidency, President Muhammadu Buhari’s desire for another term in office is facing similar rambunctious challenge from the electorate, particularly in the South-South.

Although Amaechi remains the DG of APC Presidential campaign, the party is under enormous pressure to return more than 25 per cent of votes from the zone to shore up the president’s vote tally to a competitive level and ensure victory. The fact that all the states in the geopolitical zone but one are controlled by PDP, the ruling APC have been making frantic efforts and executing curious schemes in the bid to mine as much votes as it could from the zone.

Part of the ruling party’s strategy to get maximum votes from South-South was the induced defection of former Senate Minority Leader, Senator Godswill Akpabio from the main opposition PDP to APC. The introduction of Akpabio as one of the ruling party’s playmakers in South-South, it appears, was intended to shore up the contributions of Amaechi and Oshiomhole, the national chairman of the party.

Right from the time the APC Presidency was inaugurated, the party did not lose sight of the strategic position of Akwa Ibom in its determination to hoist its flag in the Southeastern part of South-South geopolitical zone. With Akpabio directing affairs of the party in Akwa Ibom, the political shadows of Amaechi and Oshiomhole, in Rivers and Edo completes the three dimensional approach of APC to the 2019 poll in the South-South region.

However, barely three weeks after electioneering commenced the progress of the three leaders of force have been under some stress, including domestic indifference or resistance to the APC incursion.

Rivers: Amaechi versus Wike
At the buildup to the 2015 election, Amaechi, who moved from being Speaker of Rivers State House of Assembly to becoming governor, believed that he had the means and political clout to implant his preferred candidate as successor.

Having turned his back on the PDP to become one of the movers and shakers of the inchoate APC, Amaechi waged battles not a few with the wife of then President Jonathan, and by extension, the PDP.

Emboldened by the national charge to lead the presidential electoral battle, Amaechi saw a larger than life image of himself as a giant killer and godfather rolled in one. He believed that with the North’s insistence on power returning to the zone, Jonathan was as good as gone. Then as an additional feather on his political cap, the man from Ubima selected his personable childhood friend, Dakuku Peterside, to set into his shoes as governor of oil rich Rivers.

When the results were announced, Amaechi succeeded in leading APC to a successful debut in the presidential poll, but found his mercurial former Chief of Staff, Wike, too hard a nut to crack. The inability to foist a successor at the BrickHouse, Rivers State Government House, diminished his presidential exploit in that it gave the former governor out as a king without a kingdom.

As the 2019 election beckons, and Amaechi knowing that he no longer commands the large war chest as was the case when he was governor, cleverly avoided Peterside, who is settled as the Director-General of Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) only to settle for the oil magnate, Tonye Cole. Although Cole is reputed to have means and ways, he remains a total outsider to the various political circuits in the Garden City state, particularly the Peter Odili line up.

Watchers of the highly volatile Rivers State politics believe that Amaechi’s decision to draft Cole into the governorship fray instead of siding Senator Magnus Abe was ostensibly to guarantee his sole administration type of politics, because Abe does not seem as pliable as the Transportation Minister expects.

Weeks after the APC governorship primary, the fart from Amaechi’s unilateral attempt to foist a candidate of his choice has continued to foul the political atmosphere in Rivers, APC.

Piqued by the impunity exhibited during the ward congresses and primary, Ibrahim Imah and 22 others filed a suit against APC, saying that the process did not align with the constitution of the party.

Casting away all restraint, including a court injunction, the party went ahead to conduct subsequent elections, including the nomination of candidates of the party. The hide and seek game with the court culminated in the recent Appeal Court ruling, which invalidated the nomination of Cole as the gubernatorial candidate of APC, insisting that it “is a function of illegality and unconstitutional acts.”

Justice Chinwendu Nwogu, in his ruling, had set aside the Rivers APC ward congresses of May 19, 2018, as well as the state congresses of May 21, 2018. The judge declared that “all actions taken by the party while the case was going on have been set aside, because they are illegal and unconstitutional.”

An important aspect of the ruling is that the court held that “all those who purchased nomination forms for the ward congresses were entitled to contest the election of May 19, 2018.”

Going by a popular legal cliché, since you cannot build something on nothing, all efforts by APC and Amaechi’s selected team for next year’s election have collapsed like a pack of cards.

The observation by the Judge that the “rule by might must be checked by the rule of law. We must restore the hope of the common man in the justice system,” sounds as a direct indictment of Amaechi.

But even when the party plans to test the latest ruling of the Court of Appeal, which upheld Justice Nwogu’s judgment at the apex court, it does not look like different outcome is possible.

Indications have emerged that APC plans to substitute some of its candidates in the spirit of accommodation to ensure that the party partakes in the election; there is a plan to adopt the ACCORD Party as a fall back.

But there is a snag. Dumo Lulu-Briggs, who emerged as Accord Party (AP) gubernatorial candidate of the state, walked out of APC in protest against Amaechi’s designs to sideline him in preference for Cole, after luring him to APC.

In what many now interpret as prognostic deposition, Lulu-Briggs, in his letter of exit, stated: “I am 100 per cent Rivers just as you, and so I trust that we shall keep our friendship and possibly realign if and when we feel the need. Once again, I reiterate that it is about Rivers people and my doors are open, praying that we find ourselves in ONE ACCORD.”

It is becoming increasingly possible that APC structure loyal to Amaechi would file behind Lulu-Briggs “in one Accord” to realign and continue the quest to rescue the state.

As things stand in Rivers, Amaechi’s capacity to wrestle the state from Wike seems to be shrinking by the day and it does not seem possible that having reached a point of no return in the estrangement with Senator Abe, he could navigate the party for maximum onslaught in the forthcoming election.

Akpabio

Akwa Ibom: Akpabio versus Emmanuel
For Godswill Akpabio, leading APC to a major poll victory in the state he presided over as a Goliath might end up in similar outcome as the biblical showdown between David and Goliath.

To make good his rating and promises to the APC core men, Senator Akpabio has reconnected with his old political antagonists, Senator James Akpanudoedehe and Nsima Ekere, who served as his deputy briefly in his first term as governor.

But despite the affected reconciliation, the sighs from the reminiscences of the bitter political battle he waged against Senator Akpanudoedehe in 2011 when more than 300 brand new taxicabs belonging to state were set ablaze, continues to besmear the new found electoral cooperation.

Governor Udom Gabriel Emmanuel is proving by his track record of performance, prudence and project initiatives that he would be PDP’s ‘David’ to quell APC’s ‘Goliath’.

In Akwa Ibom it is not only precedent that is working against Akpabio’s hope of converting his popular rating as governor to a traveling political godfather. The people do not seem to understand his bluster after doing two terms as governor and extra four years as Senator.

A cross section of voters in the state not only believe that Governor Emmanuel deserves another four years as every other governor, including Akpabio, before him had done, but also that the Senator’s defection to APC was propelled by the need to avoid the embarrassing distraction of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Although Akwa Ibom APC boasts of the political high and mighty in the state, unless the party deploys extraordinary measures or adventitious advantages to win the Presidency, the bandwagon effect they expect might boomerang for the party.

One other issue that could vitiate Akpabio’s efforts to galvanise political forces for electoral triumph is the fact that he is a candidate in search of another term at the Senate. Consequently, in the bid to avert a disgraceful outing and mobilise support for President Buhari, the weakness of his political premise would expose him to untoward developments.

Edo: Oshiomhole versus entrenched PDP machinery
BUT for the clash of interests between former Governor Lucky Igbinedion and late Chief Tony Anenih as to who succeeds Igbinedion as governor, Edo State would have remained in PDP, where it started that it became from the onset of the Fourth Republic.

Pained by Anenih’s insistence on fielding Osarhimen Osunbor as PDP gubernatorial candidate, the Igbinedoin camp joined forces with Oshiomhole, then of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), to call the bluff of the political godfather. Having displaced PDP in 2010, Oshiomhole adopted guile and pragmatism to sustain himself in office beyond the first term and went ahead to implant a successor with the help of federal might.

And having succeeded in displacing Chief John Odigie-Oyegun as national chairman of the party, the former labour leader has his hands full in the quest to lead APC to a national election.

With recriminations both at home and abroad, it is left to be seen how the national chairman would balance the battles against those his initiatives as party chairman have injured and PDP, especially those whose contributions to his governorship he neglected to recognize.

As complaints against the direct and indirect primary methodologies continue to rile the national leadership of APC, it is becoming obvious that the men of fire and fury the party has chosen to lead its fight for votes in South-South may not make appreciable inroads after all.

Would Godwin Nogheghase Obaseki’s incumbency redound to Oshiomhole’s and therefore APC’s advantage? To what extent were the governor’s men accommodated in the party primaries in the state? The answer to that would determine how far Oshiomhole would go to redeem his political image in the state.

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