Until April this year, there was nothing so special about Obio/Akpor council, the local government that is at the heart of the political crisis rocking Rivers State, except that it is one of the richest councils in the country, and was once headed by the minister of state for Education Nyesom Wike, who has been accused of spearheading the opposition against Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi.
The council, which accommodates some of the multinational oil companies operating in the state, is also home to the two campuses of the University of Port Harcourt (UNIPORT), and one of the most expensive areas in Port Harcourt. Though situated in the outskirts of the city, the heavy presence of students has forced landlords in the area to hike rents for the limited accommodations spaces, a development that has impacted on the cost of goods and services.
Before the state House of Assembly resolved to suspend the chairman, Timothy Nsirim, in April, a decision loyalists of Wike blamed on Amaechi, the council was peaceful despite the activities of youths seeking marching ground from land developers, and the extortion of motorists by thugs parading themselves as council and state officials, especially within the Rumuokoro Roundabout.
When the House sacked the council boss, a close ally of Wike, observers allege that Amaechi was making a very strong point politically, considering the huge role Wike played in the emergence of the new chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Felix Obuah, whose appeal against the emergence of the former chairman Godspower Ake in the estimation of Amaechi and loyalists was supposed to rot away wherever it was.
Wike, who Amaechi had dispatched to Abuja for national duties, a move the minister claimed was done in bad faith in a recent interview, where he alleged that he was booby trapped by the Governor and was supposed to fail in his screening at the Senate—suddenly teamed up with other politicians who felt used and dumped by the Governor, and worked out a formula to make Obuah’s petition to convince an Abuja High court.
The suspension of Nsirim, and his replacement with Chikordi Dike, a known loyalist of Amaechi, according to observers was a move by Amaechi to check the influence of Wike in the entire Obio/Akpor where the minister is highly influential. It was also a move to curtail the influence of Nsirim, who among other achievements has constructed one of the most modern shopping complexes in the state. Since he emerged as acting chairman, Dike has hurriedly allocated the shops in the complex, a development backed by some politicians, who argue that having constructed the complex, Nsirim should have long allocated them.
Within the same Obio/Akpor, Amaechi got a replacement for Wike as Chief of Staff in the person of Tony Okocha, who was the minister’s number one political enemy in his days as council boss, and as Chief of Staff.
Amaechi says Wike, as “too small and insignificant to discuss” and that he nominated some of his kinsmen, including Wike and the former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Chief Austin Okpara, into political positions.
He accused them of betraying him during a church service to mark the 60th birthday of the former President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Chief O.C.J. Okocha, at the Emmanuel Anglican Church in Port Harcourt.
He said, “This will be the first time I will be talking about my former Chief of Staff in public. My former Chief of Staff is too small for me to talk about. I don’t want to discuss him and I have never done that before. Today will be my first and last day.
“There are men with character and there are men without character. I don’t believe that money can solve all problems and I don’t worship money. My greatest fear is that where am I going after here on earth? Let me also tell you that I have been betrayed several times in politics and majority of those who betrayed me are from my Ikwerre ethnic group.
“Before I became a Speaker, can we look back at Ikwerre history? We were crying; we wanted governor, we wanted this and that and the last ministerial appointment was Chief Emmanuel Aguma, a long time ago, and that was the last Ikwerre ministerial appointment.”
“Again, you can ask Mr. President, I submitted his name (Nyesom Wike) as minister. Where is he now? I, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, submitted his name as minister to President Jonathan. But where is he now? You must have character, you must be known for something,”
Reacting to Amaechi’s comments, the minister had said in an interview: “He went to the Church where Okocha (former President of the Nigerian Bar Association) was marking his 60th birthday. That was where the governor got angry and started saying we betrayed him. You have read the book of Odili “My story,” Why is everybody betraying Amaechi? I betrayed him. Austin Opara betrayed him.
“Today he is seeing me as a betrayer. For those who read English language, betrayer will mean, by my own understanding, we had an agreement to do something and you sold out. I ask myself, what agreement did we enter into either written or oral that I never fulfilled my own part or sold out for him to say I have betrayed him? I can tell you that the day I was coming to Abuja, I nearly lost my life along Uromi Road. I was in a bus when armed robbers blocked the road.
“I can tell you that most of the people close to Amaechi today were those who ran away from us. It is not something you go and ask a prophet or a native doctor or a soothsayer that who, at that time, was in charge of making sure Amaechi regains his mandate? Our tenure as local government chairmen had not expired when Celetine Omehia (Amaechi’s predecessor) dissolved the councils because we were seen as Amaechi’s men. There was nothing that was not done to make me withdraw my support for Amaechi. I had everything with me to terminate Amaechi’s ambition.”
A few days ago a Port Harcourt High court stopped the Rivers State Commission of Inquiry set up to look into the recent fracas that rocked the State House of Assembly from sitting, the Judge Iyayi Lamikara also granted an order restraining Amaechi from receiving or implementing any report from the Commission of Inquiry.The state government has rejected the judgment, vowing to appeal it.
Some well-meaning politicians and elders in the state know that for the crisis rocking the state to be resolved, there is need to first revisit the Obior/Akpor crisis, which nobody expected to create the kind of political tension it has landed the state.
