August 8, 2013
Rivers’ crisis: Matters arising (1)
Amaechi
First, the 35 state governors meeting
under the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, an association of friends set up by
governors to protect members from powerful political powers, threw the
nation into a frenzy after they couldn’t decide on whether 16 was more
than 19! And now, for close to three weeks, the offices of the Governor
and the Presidency have been reduced to a laughingstock by power drunk
hooligans in politician-skin occupying exalted public offices.
Nigerians
are reduced to mere bystanders and passengers in the melee that paints a
vivid picture of the decadence into which politics and governance have
since fallen in Nigeria.
Frankly and with due respect, I have
never been an admirer of President Goodluck Jonathan; neither that of
Governor Chibuike Amaechi.
About two years ago, I posted on my Facebook
that the election of Jonathan sentenced Nigeria to hibernation! I was
convinced, based on the poor performance of Jonathan as a former
governor of Bayelsa State and his poor handling of national matters as
Acting President, that he wasn’t the best person for the top job at a
time when Nigeria faced threats of instability fuelled by decades of
mismanagement, corruption and impunity.
Subsequent unpresidential
gaffes, too numerous to mention, since 2011, have confirmed my fears.
Rather than stagnate, development has been ambushed since 2011 by the
rapid deterioration of life and security, the disgraceful descent of
“yesterday’s men”, parading as today’s men, into political gangsterism, a
dearth of leadership in high places, the spate of insecurity and
senseless bloodshed that have become a daily occurrence.
The President
could do more to provide leadership to address pressing national issues
such as oil theft and corruption which have apparently worsened under
his watch.
The opposition will not forget quickly
the scale of intolerance and aggression deployed by Amaechi to crush
them in the run-up to the 2011 elections in Rivers State.
The action of
the governor was anything but honourable. Amaechi was happy to use state
powers, with the backing of federal might to strangle the opposition;
shutting down the office of the state Action Congress of Nigeria,
shutting the media against opposition and hounding every perceived and
real voice of opposition out of the state.
But today, the tides have changed.
Amaechi is on the wrong end of a disgraceful power play that has become
common with the Nigerian politics.
He is today bearing the heartache
from the fits of drunkenness into which his former paymasters and
accomplices had fallen.
I sympathise with him and it is gratifying to
see that his new friends and sympathisers are from the “enemy camp”; the
same opposition he hounded and crushed with state power in his own
moment of power drunkenness.
It is true after all what they say; in
politics, there is no permanent enemy or friend, just permanent
interests! Amaechi must be humbled, by now, by his current travails. His
co-travellers in the current dog-eat-dog politics in the country must
thread with caution always mindful that power is transient after all.
Any abuse of state powers decimates the
rule of law and chisels public confidence and respect for authority and
state institutions.
In Nigeria, the cumulative disregard for the rule of
law and citizens’ welfare, the last 13 years, by politicians and their
associates, is mostly responsible for the disappearing public support
for government at all levels.
It is responsible for the proliferating
anti-state, militant groups up in arms against government across the
different divides.
The 21st century has no place and space for such and I
join my voice with others to condemn the crisis in Rivers State and
call for an immediate resolution.
The crisis bids nobody any good. It
has stalled Amaechi’s good works for the state and the poor people of
Rivers State. It has also stalled several important developmental
projects and is threatening to roll back the tenuous peace in the state.
The facts in the debacle in Rivers State
are emerging. However, some matters arising deserve our attention; the
role of the police, the Rivers State executive and the Presidency and
the conduct of the state House of Assembly.
The role of the police in the drama in
Rivers State is an expression of the danger centralised policing poses
to democracy and justice in Nigeria. Centralised policing is a common
practice in most developing economies.
A major concern has been the ease
with which central governments instrumentalise police for political and
personal reasons.
The case is not different in Nigeria where the
absolute powers of Mr. President over the office of the
Inspector-General of Police and supervisory agencies, such as the
Ministry of Internal Affairs, Police Council, Police Service Commission
and others, have incapacitated the police and ripped them of
independence and integrity the past five decades.
The current structure
puts the police technically in the pocket of Mr. President who holds the
hire and fire power over their leadership!
In 2004, a sitting governor was abducted
under the watch of the police. For the period of his abduction, Dr.
Chris Ngige, now a serving Senator, spoke from his hole where his
abductors held him captive.
Ten years after, his alleged kidnappers and
the decadent police co-plotters under whose nose the governor was
captured continue to walk around as free men.
If a private citizen could
abduct a sitting governor of a state, what else couldn’t happen in
Nigeria?
Now, can Nigeria overcome the
independence and integrity deficit that the Police appear structurally
condemned into? The current practice for appointing police chiefs is in
tandem with international best practices.
Across developed economies,
Presidents, Prime Ministers appoint police chiefs. The difference
however is that the appointing authorities, unlike Nigeria, appear to
have, over the years, evolved the capacity and oversight infrastructure
necessary to protect the police from political interference from the
appointing authority and other state institutions. The police chief does
not see his appointment by the president/prime minister as the reason
to pander to his/her whims and caprices.
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