Mike Wabali
If you pay attention to certain narratives, the 2019 gubernatorial election in Rivers State is between the incumbent governor Nyesom Wike of the Peoples Democratic Party and Tonye Cole of the All Progressive Congress.
As unfortunate as the narratives may look, these are the chains that the supporters of both aspirants would like to shackles the necks of resident electorates with. Even the media has been forced to make the election about both men but there is more.
The 2019 election will not only retire some people politically; it will equally make many others mad. But of the truth is that the state will not be liberated from the clutches of those who have managed or mismanaged it for two decades. Yet, it will take a masochist and someone starved of oxygen not to see where the state is headed to.
It will be akin to doing violence on common sense if we ride high on sentiments without looking critically at both men from their antecedents and since they have put themselves up for public scrutiny, let me x-ray them.
Starting with Wike who is riding solely on the back of his achievements in the last three and a half years to seek re-election into Brick House. Wike faces a strong opposition to his re-election bid, a situation that has forced him to lose sleep.
The governor has laid bare his hands, his mindset, leadership style and attitude towards governance. Unlike many of his co-contestant, Wike is not coming to promise us anything else that we have not heard or seen in the past 3 years that he has steered the affairs of our state. It is our turn to score him good or bad and either promote or demote him.
If one would be sincere with oneself, the 3 and a half years that Wike has governed Rivers State, the state has seen little progress in the area of human capital development. Some of the educational programs initiated in the state where stopped by his administration without any alternative.
In short, according to data released by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, Rivers State ranks highest in the country in the unemployment index 2017. But at the same time, the state made more money through an aggressive approach by the Rivers State Internally Generated Revenues Service, RIRS and was recognized to have had more investment inflow, ranking more than Nigeria’s commercial hub, Lagos.
While campaigning in 2015, Wike did not tell the electorates what he will do for the state. Rather, he busied himself pointing out the ills of the former governor and current minister of transportation Rotimi Amaechi, who then, had defected to the All Progressive Congress. I believe he will be able to reel out his scorecard this time around and state what he has achieved.
What Wike has exposed – indeed demonstrated – is his lack of ability to harness the vast man-power domiciled in the state to create an enabling environment for entrepreneurs and other small-scale businesses to thrive and for lives and property to be secured. His policies in the agricultural sector and youths empowerment remain largely unknown.
Louts have been unleashed on the state who go about harassing business owners and commercial vehicle operators, extorting money from them without remitting same to government coffers. Port Harcourt seem disorganized. Business owners in the state say that they are susceptible to over 50 different taxes yearly, a trend that is hurting their businesses. These agents are so powerful that even the police seem to be scared of them.
Or do I talk about RIWAMA under the all-powerful chairman of the PDP which has become a drain pipe on the coffers of the government, where a staggering N500 million is spent monthly to ensure that the state, especially the state capital remains unkempt? Governor Wike’s lack of political will to relieve Obuah of his chokehold on RIWAMA also speaks volume.
In the area of security, the state’s security problems seem to be deteriorating. A day hardly passes without news filtering in the air of killings in several parts of the state. Before, different communities had vigilante groups which protected them against these ugly trends.
While the governor is not solely to be blamed as regards the deteriorating security situation in the state, his decision to disband different community vigilante groups without putting measures in place to urgently stem the rising crime rate has opened him up for criticism.
At present, the police seem overwhelmed with the level of carnage going on the state. In Emohua – Ibaa, Elibrada, Okpoworo, cult-related killings are a daily occurrence. In Ikwerre LGA, kidnapping is the order of the day along Omerelu-Owerri road while killings have resumed at Aluu. In Eleme, especially Ebubu, people sleep with their eyes open. Not even Diobu in Port Harcourt LGA is safe as rival cult groups massacre each other on weekly basis.
What is left at this moment is for the military to roll out tanks and protect residents in the state from the state. But governor Wike has said that he has a silver bullet to the issues of insecurity. He recently launched the Neighbourhood Watch and Safety Agency.
While it is a welcome development, the All Progressive Congress in the state has come out to say that the governor wants to equip a private army, calling the agency a political militia that is solely for election rigging purposes.
The handling of the pensioners’ and flood disaster issues, especially in the Orashi region that forced them to carry out a series of protests further dented the image of the governor.
Yet, Wike will not be written out. He enjoys a reasonable level of goodwill in the state due to the numerous roads, educational, health and other related projects embarked and completed by his administration.
Wike’s main challenger for now is a billionaire businessman turned politician, Tonye Cole. Cole comes in as a freshman in the game and not as a member of a group of elites that have held the state down politically for two decades.
As a businessman, Cole comes with his wealth of experiences in the business world, having been in business for over 20 years. But with Cole, there is also a problem. He is being propped up by the immediate past governor of the state and current minister of transportation, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi.
Mr Amaechi is desperately placing himself as the newest political godfather, having failed to install his protégé and current Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, Dakuku Adol Peterside in 2015.
Amaechi’s quest to become the Rivers State version of Jagaban has come at a very heavy cost. His party, the APC, has been in court more than it has contested elections in the state since the May 11 interlocutory order of the Rivers State High Court which stopped the party from conducting congresses.
The case has since gone up to the Supreme Court where the Apex Court ruled in favour of the High Court, adding that the party cannot benefit from its own disobedience. The National Chairman of the party, Adams Oshiomole has also come out to state that the party will abide by the Apex Court’s decision and ordered fresh congresses in the state.
However, the nation’s electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, published the name of Tonye Cole despite the court’s judgement saying that it has not been served the Apex Court’s ruling.
The minister’s decision to impose Cole over other candidates like the Senator representing Rivers South-East in the National Assembly, Magnus Abe and billionaire businessman and heir, Dumo Lulu-Briggs has created a crack in the party and has left them disorganized ahead of the 2019 election.
The candidacy of Cole is still hanging in the balance. Events might derail his quest but the relationship between Cole and the minister have also elicited some major concerns. It is said that the minister sold the assets of the state running into millions of dollars to Tonye Cole, an accusation the minister and Cole have not denied.
But of special interest is Amaechi’s use of undemocratic processes to install a candidate in a democratic setting. By not allowing fairness in the party’s congresses and primaries, the minister is making it clear that he will likely call the shots if and when Tonye Cole emerges governor.
The minister has argued that the state needs a technocrat to rescue her from years of rot but has been supporting the re-election of President Muhammadu Buhari who is not a technocrat and has left the economy in tatters with millions of jobs lost since coming into power in 2015
