Lessons From Chief Moshood Abiola

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When Hon. Dakuku Peterside, Nigeria’s All Progressives’ Congress, APC candidate for Rivers state 2015 gubernatorial race filed a petition with the state election petition tribunal challenging the election of the incumbent governor, Barrister Nyesom Wike, his argument was that the election was massively rigged and that, in fact, there were no elections at-all in certain wards in the state. He prayed the tribunal to nullify Wike’s election. Mr. Wike and his legal team, on the other hand, prayed the tribunal to discountenance the petition and uphold the incumbent governor’s election.

Last week, the chairman of the Rivers state election petition tribunal, Justice Suleiman Ambrosa, nullified Governor Wike’s election and ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to conduct a fresh governorship election in the state.

A few days afterwards, Wike headed for the Supreme Court in an accelerated hearing in which his attorneys argued that shifting the grounds of the tribunal from Port Harcourt to Abuja was an error in law. The apex court upheld the decision of the tribunal because there was need to secure the lives of the tribunal chairman and his team. Port Harcourt could not be depended upon to offer that level of security that the tribunal members would need, given its charged atmosphere.

Many of us, Nigerians in Diaspora have closely monitored the very interesting proclivity of political activists in Rivers State. It was not surprising that, even in the face of massive protests from other gubernatorial aspirants, former minister of education, Nyesom Wike, emerged as the state governor after the elections. After-all, it is said that no one who has a basin of water at his disposal would want to wash his hands with sputum.

The political battle for the soul of Rivers State pitched for a long while between then governor, Rotimi Amaechi and his newly-found ultimate party, the APC on the one hand, and Wike and Patience, the wife of President Jonathan, on the other hand.

While Wike was widely touted at the time as the anointed favourite of the President’s wife, destined to take over from Amaechi as governor of the state, Amaechi who had defected to the APC was being blamed by many party faithful. Many of them in the then ruling People’s Democratic Party, PDP believed that by defecting from the PDP to the APC, Amaechi betrayed President Jonathan and the PDP. Indeed, Amaechi’s defection to the APC actually dealt a fatal blow to the PDP in the state for the simple reason that most of his followers went with him to the APC.

It must have been a herculean task for Wike to win the Rivers governorship election in 2015, considering the fact that he came from the same ethnic kinship as Amaechi. Moreover, it was not clear how the primaries which saw his emergence as the PDP governorship candidate were conducted. The exercise had only succeeded in pitching him against other aspirants who described his choice as a sham and a comic tragedy. They alleged that right from the start, the entire procedure for conducting the primaries had been skewed to favour Wike. The party members who lost out to Wike were so indignant that they threatened to work against the PDP in the 2015 gubernatorial race.

Wike belonged to a circle of very strong power brokers right in the heart of the Presidency. For that reason, he did not relent in his efforts to ensure that the state was delivered to the PDP. He was a well known and committed grassroots mobilizer who enjoyed the massive support of South-South ex-militants.

A lawyer by profession and a politician by practice Wike hails from Rumuepirikom in Obio-Akpor local government area of the state. Born on 24 August 1967, he became executive chairman of his home local government council at the age of 32, from 1999 to 2007. Between 2003 and 2006, he was the National President of All Local Governments of Nigeria, ALGON, the umbrella forum under which all the 774 local government council chairmen in Nigeria interacted on issues affecting politics and policies in Nigeria. Barrister

Wike distinguished himself as the best performing local government council chairman in Rivers state during his tenure. As council chairman, he embarked on iconic projects that re-defined council administration and set challenging examples for his colleagues. As ALGON National President, he played a pioneering role in national security and primary healthcare, leading all local councils to commit their resources to high levels of grassroots development across the country.

After his tenure as local government chairman 2007, Governor Amaechi appointed him as his Chief of Staff. He held that post until 2011 when President Goodluck Jonathan appointed him supervising minister of education on September 12, 2013 following Amaechi’s defection and a cabinet reshuffle.

As the supervising minister of education, he impacted immensely on the education sub-sector, spearheading a nationwide reform of the nation’s education system. The fundamental programmes that defined his tenure include the creation of access to quality education for 9 million Almajiri children who were loitering the streets of Northern Nigeria through the construction of dedicated schools in the affected states, construction of vocational training schools for out-of-school children in Southern Nigeria and Special Girl-Education schools for less privileged girls in 16 states of the country.

Before that appointment, in May 2013, Wike had donated his salary for six months (about £34,000) to the Tompolo Foundation, a non-profit organization. He also represented Africa as a member of the Executive Committee of the Commonwealth Local Governments Forum. Known as an outstanding administrator, lawyer, leader and politician, Barrister Nyesom Wike was born to the family of Reverend and Mrs. Nlemanya Wike. He holds degrees in Political and Administrative Studies and in Law. Wike is happily married to Justice Eberechi Wike, a high court judge in the Rivers State judiciary and they are blessed with three cute children, Jordan, Joaquin and Jasmine.

With all these going for Wike, who would have believed that the battle line had been drawn? While he was said to be basking in confidence because of the commitment of Patience Jonathan to his cause, Amaechi was perfecting his own political coup de tat.

In a determined effort to cripple Wike’s political ambition, Amaechi lured the minority ethnic groups in the state to his side by conceding the governorship ticket to Dakuku Peterside. Peterside hails from Opobo, a minority clan in the riverside area of the state and his people had been marginalized in the scheme of things in the state for a long while. Peterside became APC’s governorship candidate in Rivers State and remained a loyal and trusted ally of ex-Governor Rotimi Amaechi. A long-term close relationship exists between Amaechi and him – said to span over 20 years, long before Amaechi became governor. The choice of Peterside for the governorship candidacy of the APC appealed to many political stakeholders in the state.

Naturally, Peterside’s emergence was hailed by his minority clan which had never had the opportunity to produce a governor for the state since Nigeria attained self rule in 1960. So, at the other spectrum of the Rivers state political chessboard was Hon. Dakuku Peterside, a native of Biriye clan in the Opobo Kingdom. A member of the House of Representatives since 2011, Peterside had already earned a reputation as a charismatic, creative, hardworking and disciplined leader and legislator, broad minded and endued with strategic insight.

Before his election into the House of Representatives, he served twice as Rivers State Commissioner for Works between 2007 and 2011. He was the man who anchored Governor Rotimi Amaechi’s phenomenal transformation of roads and infrastructural landscape in Rivers state. He sat at the same time on the board of Greater Port Harcourt Development Authority (GPHCDA).

Before serving as Rivers State Commissioner for Works, he served as chairman of Opobo-Nkoro LGA between 2002 and 2003. As LGA chairman he was declared the most outstanding chairman by the Governor of Rivers State. He was Senior Special Assistant to Governor Amaechi on Works between 2003 and 2005. Before then, he had served as Special Assistant to the Rivers State Governor on Youth and Student affairs. Between 2005 and 2007, he served as Executive Director of Development and Leadership Institute (DLI) and was a member of Board of the Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilization (CBAAC), a Federal government arts and research establishment.

Peterside represented the riverside Andoni/Opobo-Nkoro area of the state and had been in the House of Representatives since 2011. As an astute legislator, he had brought integrity, toughness, dedication and intellectualism to bear in tackling tough national issues. His bridge building skills are said to be exemplary. As a regular commentator in Nigeria’s leading media, Hon Peterside is widely respected as a strong voice in the House on national issues. At home in Rivers State he is widely known as a meticulous, consistent, trustworthy, God fearing and result-oriented political leader. In the House, he served as Chairman of the Petroleum Resources (downstream) Committee which oversees the management of key drivers in the nation’s petroleum industry. He also served in such important committees as those on Anti-Corruption, National Ethics and Values; Drugs, Narcotics and Financial Crimes; Co-operation and Integration in Africa; Electoral Matters; Industry; Communications and Works. He was well known for championing reforms and for strengthening public institutions as the key to unlocking development potentials.

Apart from being an astute legislator, Peterside is a well known international resource person on oil and gas matters and a leading management scholar and speaker. He has made notable contributions in conferences around the world and is respected as an authority in corporate political strategy and business-government interaction in Nigeria.

He attended Okrika Grammar School, University of Science and Technology, Port Harcourt, University of Port Harcourt, Georgia State University, Atlanta and is an alumnus of Harvard-Kennedy School, University of Harvard. He earned degrees in Medical Laboratory Sciences (Heamatology), Business Administration (Management) and certificates in leadership and project management respectively. He has also attended several oil and gas courses globally. He is a member of Nigeria Institute of Management (NIM), a fellow of Institute of Management Consultants of Nigeria (IMCN) and a member of the Institute of Medical Laboratory Sciences of Nigeria. Peterside is a committed Christian who believes that his relationship with Jesus Christ is what gives meaning to life. He is happily married to Elima Peterside, a lawyer, and they are blessed with three adorable children, Soba, Belema and Miebi.

Hopefully, these two gentlemen will become the major contenders for the re-run governorship election in Port Harcourt which many Nigerians at home and in Diaspora are anxiously looking up to.

However, in Nigerian politics, victory at the polls is scarcely the stable victory. Almost every election loser would want to go to court, and the real winner never actually emerges until the legal huddles have been exhaustively crossed. Now, after the first legal huddle, the election petition tribunal has nullified Wike’s said victory at the polls, and ordered a fresh election within 90 days. Amaechi and Peterside know they have secured another straight victory over Wike. But who knows? Perhaps Wike could recover when no one expects it, to show Amaechi that even an applicant can, at times, outclass the boss.

Whatever it is: politicians in Rivers State must be careful. They must learn from the experience of Chief Moshood Abiola. Yes. Had Abiola not listened to the devilish promptings of those he thought were close to him, those he thought he could comfortably and confidently take advice from, he would have been alive today, enjoying his life and family and expanding his business empire. But he listened to and took their advice, not realising that in politics there are many hangers on who will continue to prop on an aspirant to a public office. They will pretend to be your best friend. But they cannot be trusted because they always have a hidden agenda. As far as you, the politician are concerned, their philosophy is straightforward, but well hidden. “If you succeed, we succeed with you. If you fail, you fail alone.”

That was what happened to Chief Abiola. He could not see those “dogged” so-called “admirers” of his fortitude – who kept plodding him on to “fight for your right” until they led him to his untimely death. Then they followed up Kudirat, the only wife of Chief Abiola who could have creditably managed his family and vast business empire in his absence and murdered her too. Family and business empire fell apart, like a pack of weak cards.

Neither Peterside nor Wike can claim that such people are not in their camps. They just need to be careful and for the sake of their young children and their lovely mums, if for nothing else, try their best to play the game by the rules. If it is the wish of the people of Rivers State that one of them shall become governor, even if the elections were re-run twenty times, the people of Rivers State will still select the man they want. Rigging the election would be a great disservice to the people of Rivers State. I can’t see an aspiring governor who is willing to disenfranchise his own people as capable of ruling the same people he hates with such passion as to steal their mandate and make nonsense of the civil rights to vote.

Let everyone concerned with this re-run gubernatorial election in Rivers State learn from Chief Abiola. He was such a wealthy, compassionate man. But where are all those his companies now? How are they faring? Rivers people need to be careful and plan their co-existence in a way that it would last the test of time and encourage peace and foreign investment.

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Articles by Emeka Asinugo