Open Letter to Governor Amaechi

By Odimegwu Onwumere

Your Excellency, the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is going through one thing to another in a single series of stages. One such thing is the crop-up of the faction of the PDP in our Rivers State you are the Executive Governor. I was quizzical! Who is having or involving this unimaginative ideas or plans that are usually not practicable where you double also as the leader of the Rivers State Chapter of the PDP?


Sir, I was meant to understand that this usually not practicable plan or idea was the brainchild of Dr. Abiye Sekibo who once preferred Abuja to our State and ignored even the invitation of the revered Justice Kayode Eso-led Reconciliation panel. I was flummoxed. Sekibo and his cohorts pointed at our state with the left hand from Abuja, which is usually the act of an unwise child. However, one doesn't say all that he saw while washing an old woman's linen because a lot of things are seen. So, I keep the character Sekibo and his cohorts played during the Eso panel as a story for another day.


The essentiality of this letter to you is on the arrest of the members of Sekibo's faction of the PDP in our state who were labelled "thugs" by the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Mr. Magnus Abe. The issue of "thugs" compelled me to marry my Dictionary to explore the meaning of the word once more. And according to the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, the 6th edition, the word "thug" was defined as "a violent person, especially a criminal."


But who are these "thugs", if not some men who served with you under the ex-Governor Peter Odili's administration? Albeit, that someone was or is famous, can't rule out in totality the tendencies of criminality in the person. Again, if I may ask, were there ammunitions recovered from them by the security agents who effected their arrest? Were they violent to the security agents? What is the name of their "thuggish" gang? Is it the "Sekibo New Rivers PDP"? I was thinking that the dreaded Osama Bin laden had been caught in Rivers State till I read newspapers. I think, there is an astounding 10% something to believe in the "thug" libel, except proved otherwise.


Your Excellency, the records are there as an adherent of your government that I get sick with people telling lies against you, and as well, hate telling people how sick I become when peace refuses to be stable in our state or when any person or group is brewing nuisance to score cheap publicity. I get sick because I know that there is no other person that our people look up to for a stable peace in our state than you. So, you should not flunk in achieving this peace no matter whoever or a group that may want to throw our state into uproar again. But I will advise that you continue to eschew the axiom: Arbitrary power corrupts arbitrarily.


Sir, the process of the Abuja-based Sekibo coming to sell pieces of garbage shares in the Rivers PDP in order to achieve "their" political will come 2011, and the arrest, might move the PDP in our state steadily and continuously in one conspicuous direction called moribund. Politics is by number. Remember that it was the lack of internal democracy in the PDP in 2006/2007 under ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo that your mandate was perverted, if not for the competence of the court of law. And the same wrangling is rolling out macabre drums for the political macabre dancers to start dancing again.


Your Excellency, while I believe so much in your power that you can and will handle the plans of the Rivers PDP dissidents in accordance to the Law of the Land, I will urge you to sieve any advise by the people around you in this matter before usage, as yesmen who are ready to do anything to protect their job may be around you. Remember that it was Sir Odili that the majority of our people were following and praising when he was governor (just as you are now) before the condition was not permanent for him and his diehard followers in our state again. You should as well have it at the back of your mind that truly, no condition is permanent.


But whoever that is propagating to give laxative to our state again to empty its bowel to be shamed, let the plan of such person not work. The mentality of "born to rule" should belong to history in not only our state but in Nigeria at large, because something new must always be invented. Oblivious of what people attain from rancour, sir, I think you have always avoided vendetta for the spirit of sportsmanship since October 25, 2007 that you reclaimed your mandate. Extremely unpleasant as the PDP in our state has become, I suggest you should not lose your respect and honour because of any faction in the Rivers PDP, likewise, no yesman around you should obliterate the Sekibo's New PDP because you are on the saddle. Let the Constitution governing your party play. I am saying this because some people may be thinking that a celebrated celebrity today was once not in obscurity.


Your Excellency, avoid to play the aggressive male behaviour that emphasizes the importance of being strong rather than being intelligent and sensitive no matter any hi-tech opposition groups that may be ganging up against your government. Don't mind people who may be pushing you to do one thing or another to the arrested members of the Sekibo New PDP, because I have come to realize that there are advise and opinions that are stupid and could be dangerous. I have also come to realize that there may be a link between madness and creativity. So, it is left for the creative to understand that all the world people can't be crazy at the same time. I think it is better that the sane allows the insane to dance public for people to laugh at or cover their faces in shame. Take Care.


Yours Faithfully,
Odimegwu Onwumere,
Oyigbo, Rivers State.
Email: [email protected]
Mobile: 08032552855