AN OPEN LETTER TO GOVERNOR CHIBUIKE ROTIMI AMAECHI. Friday, 16 August 2013 00:00 By Femi Otubanjo Opinion - Columnists YOUR Excellency, greetings and top of the day to you. I would have loved to talk to you in private but I know that I don’t have a chance of ever getting that privilege. The time it would take to go through the protocol of getting an appointment with you would probably have made my effort belated. I could, of course, have taken my chance and found a way of bagging into you at one of the social and political functions, which you attend, but I won’t have dared. I am not a suicidal person and I know that breaking the human security fence around governors is a mightier task than scaling the concrete American barb-wired fence of the average governor’s residence. Even in the sacred environment of a church, it takes the most tenacious classmate, associate or friend to greet a governor. I imagine that if President Goodluck Jonathan had not made it a habit of holding on firmly to his dear mother at church services and state occasions, his security agents would have found a way of blocking her away from him. It would appear that one of the fundamentals of security training is the deadening of the sense of recognition and discernment. I, actually, once had a chance of speaking one-on-one with you. I sat at an arms-length from you at breakfast at the Federal Palace Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos. I had gone there that morning, courtesy of my friend, Prof. Godwin Sogolo, who was a guest at the hotel. I was excited when you came in and sat at the next table to ours; you were so casual and so much at ease, that no one could have suspected that you were the governor of a state, but that was well before the furore over the Nigeria Governor’s Forum chairmanship election and the political turmoil in your state. I was in a vantage position to harm you, if I was so-minded; so also were several other people in that breakfast room, but, mercifully, the balance of probability was on your side. Those who are likely to harm a state governor are unlikely to be those who go to the Federal Palace Hotel for breakfast! When you were then swept off your feet and driven away from the hotel in what looked like an armored SUV, surrounded by exuberant guards and a noisy motorcade, I couldn’t but reflect on the futility of the “iron curtains” which are drawn around our leaders, in the name of security. Pardon me for allowing my frustration about some of the absurdities of leadership in Nigeria to prolong your anxiety about the message I wish to convey to you in this letter. It is, simply, to ask you to make peace with the President/Presidency; starting the process by resigning from the position of Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum. I am suggesting this line of action, not because I consider you the guilty party in the squabble with the Presidency and the political turmoil in your state. On the contrary, I share the popular perception of you as the victim of a power play. I am sure that you know that most Nigerians were on your side and were disgusted at the crudity of those who had sought to teach you a lesson by misusing the institutions of state and assaulting our common sense, with the absurd attempt by five legislators to impeach a Speaker, supported by 25 other members of the House. I also wish to believe that you know that most Nigerians applauded your victory in the NGF chairmanship election over a candidate supported by the almighty machinery of the Presidency and the PDP. You have shown yourself to be a valiant fighter and a deft politician. This is, of course, consistent with the doggedness and perseverance, which characterized your legal battle for the governorship of Rivers State, in the face of mighty odds. Obviously, you have the capacity to fight for any cause you believe in. However, the issues in your fight with the Presidency are still not too obvious. Can it be said that you are fighting to assert the autonomy of the NGF from the Presidency or you are just using the NGF as a façade for a fight whose origins and purpose may not have been fully disclosed? If your fight with the Presidency is about the right of the NGF to decide its leadership, you obviously, won that battle, but, unfortunately, you have lost the war. The NGF has been crippled ever since; one faction has become the very thing you seem to be fighting against, a lackey of the Presidency while your own faction has become ostracised and voiceless. In either case, the NGF has lost its ability to be an effective pressure group. One faction is taking its orders from the Presidency, while yours can no longer intercede with the Presidency on matters of interest to the states. Your chairmanship has become an albatross to the NGF and I am sure it has never been your wish for things to turn out this way. As long as you remain a factional chairman of the NGF, the situation would be like that of a chicken perched on a cloth-line, with neither having any comfort nor peace (ara o’rokun ara o r’adie). Let me assure you that I believe in the rightness of your cause, but I find it difficult to applaud your method. You should not have persisted in your fight for the chairmanship of the NGF when you could not persuade majority of your fellow PDP governors to support it. It doesn’t sound right that your NGF victory was achieved, largely, with the support of governors from opposition parties. You are a PDP governor and you ought to have given consideration to the interest of your party. In most democracies, the party whip remains an important tool for ensuring cohesion, discipline and effective party governance. It is uncommon for a major functionary of a party, a governor of a state for that matter, to openly defy the party. If the fight is substantially due to a clash of ambitions, I wish to say, with all sense of seriousness, that political prudence dictates that you should have cleared your aspiration with President Jonathan before pursuing it to the point of being discovered, essentially, because you are from the same party and geo-political zone. Honestly, your ambition should have been predicated on that of President Goodluck Jonathan. If he is not running in 2015, then there would have been nothing untoward in your Vice-Presidential ambition, but if he is, your own ambition cannot make sense. Do you seriously think that the interest of the Niger-Delta would be better served by your Vice-Presidency than Jonathan’s second term as President? It would have made more sense if you were to be aspiring to be the President. You would still, of course, have incurred the wrath of President Jonathan and his close associates, but they would not have had the moral ground to cast you as a traitor to the cause and interest of the people of your zone. Now that you have seen samples of the manifestation of that wrath, it should be obvious to you that you might be fighting a war that you not only cannot possibly win, but may consume you. The voices of reason and democracy may be on your side, but they will not be able to protect or save you from the combined forces of powerful enemies within your state and without. And you, of course, know that you have powerful enemies from within your state who you kept at bay, in your first six years as governor, with the enormous resources at your disposal and excellent developmental strides. You have now lost that advantage. You have allowed your enemies to key into the infinite might and resources of the Presidency. Unless you make peace with the Presidency, they will continue to get stronger and they will continue to assail you. Unfortunately, while your traducers can come at you in several ways and can do so without, even, stepping on the soil of your state, you can only fight back with your own blood and sweat. The way things are, you are like a motorcycle rider crashing into a heavy-duty lorry, with all its steel and armoured plating. The roar and sympathy of on-lookers, however many, will avail you nothing. Make peace now with your enemies; without fail, with the Presidency, to unloosen the powerful coalition that has crystallized against you. You have done a great job in your state in the last six years and you have established a national reputation as a resolute, intelligent and principled politician. Don’t allow others to determine the agenda of the remaining two years of your tenure. If you continue to fight, you will be distracted, your people and the governance of your state will suffer while you, yourself, will be in perpetual danger. You must review your mission today and change your tactics. Will continuing the fight against the Presidency advance your mission? I think not. But if you are tempted to think it would, I wish to plead with you to take to heart the wise words of that legendary second world-war American tank general, George Paton: “Don’t fight any battle if you are not going to gain anything by winning”. • Otubanjo is a Professor of Political Science. ngrguardiannews/columnist/130045-otubanjo-an-open-letter-to-governor-amaechi#.Ug4mmcVeQfY.facebook
Posted on: Fri, 16 Aug 2013 13:31:47 +0000
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