After all the braggadocio, bombast, lies, rumours, brickbats
and sheer propaganda, the day of reckoning has come! Indeed, who will win the
Rivers governorship election on Saturday, April 11? The question is imperative,
more so, that both the PDP and the APC in the state are bragging about their
popularity among the electorates. In plain terms, who between Dr. Dakuku
Peterside and Chief Nyesom Wike will win the gubernatorial contest? This question would probably not have arisen
if the earth-shaking reality of the presidential election that returned retired
General Mohammadu Buhari as the president-elect on Tuesday, March 31, by the
Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof. Attahiru
Jega, had not materialized.
And remember, too, that while the PDP coasted home with
1,467,075 votes for President Goodluck Jonathan the APC could barely manage to
rake in 69,238 votes for the president-elect, retired General Mohammadu Buhari.
However, the APC is disputing this figures, though, and it is understood that
the three APC senatorial candidates and 13 House of Representatives candidates
have compiled materials and documents to head to the electoral tribunal citing
monumental irregularities essential typified by what Governor Chbuike Rotimi
Amaechi describes as the non-availability of result sheets which the APC claims
were deliberately given to the PDP by devious INEC officials. This allegation
will, of course, have to be proven in the court of competent jurisdiction
beyond any morsel of reasonable doubt.
So, in essence, who are these two gentlemen politicians?
Chief Nyesom Wike, a lawyer and the immediate past Minister of State for
Education is the governorship candidate of the PDP. He was a former chief of staff, government
house, to Governor Amaechi from 2007 to 2011. Wike, a two term chairman of
Obio/Akpor Local Government Area and national chairman of All Local Government
Organisation of Nigeria, ALGON, was the director-general of Governor Amaechi's
second term campaign in 2011. Wike, a graduate of law from the Rivers State
University of Science and Technology also has a first degree in political
science from the University of Port Harcourt.
Peterside, a member of the House of Representatives,
representing Andoni/Opobo/Nkoro federal constituency was a former commissioner
of works in Governor Amaechi's first term form 2007 to 2011. He was earlier
appointed as special assistant on youth affairs in former Governor Peter
Odili's first term from 1999 to 2003 and elevated to the position of senior
special assistant on works from 2003 to 2007 He was also the Chairman of
Opobo/Nkoro Local Government Area in December 2002. A position he held for six
months. He holds a PhD in organization behaviour earned from the University of
Port Harcourt. Dakuku in his youthful days was also the national president of
the National Union of Rivers State Students, in 1992.
While Dakuku preaches the need to perpetuate a culture of
continuity in the mold of Governor Amaechi's administration that has excelled
in the provision of health, education, agriculture, a network of road
infrastructure and essentially credited with the enthronement of a culture of
peace in the state that has revived the fading tempo of commercial activity in
the Garden City, Wike advocates for a drastic departure from the legacies of
the Amaechi's era. Wike is an unrepentant apostle of aligning Rivers State with
the centre, obviously to cushion up with the presidency so as to tap in
conveniently unto the immeasurable largesse from the federal government.
Wike's 23-page manifesto is titled: “New Vision, New
Thinking, and Better Opportunities”. The NEW in his blueprint could also be
gleaned from the first letters of his name: (N)yesom (E)zebunwon) (W)ike. The
priorities of Wike's manifesto are classified as follows: open, accountable and
inclusive government; security of lives and property; administration of justice;
education; healthcare delivery; agricultural development; roads, drainage and
transport infrastructure and housing development.
Others are the provision of water; energy security; jobs,
wealth creation and economic development; youth development; sports, recreation
and tourism; environmental protection; urban and rural development and social
welfare services.
Dakuku's 130 page manifesto christened: “our roadmap to
prosperity- an economic development agenda for Rivers State” is segmented into
four major sections: Security, law and order, public sector reform; physical
and institutional infrastructural development as well as social and human
capital development. Dakuku stated in his roadmap to prosperity that the
“overall economic prosperity of Rivers State will be anchored on wealth
creation, employment generation and internal security”. He also explained that
he will source for funds from Internally Generated Revenue, IGR; Public Private
Participation, PPP; statutory monthly allocation from the federal government as
well grants and aids from multilateral donor agencies, otherwise known as
IDA's.
Clearly, Dakuku's” roadmap to prosperity” is a compendium of
sort that torches virtually all areas of human endeavour that it evokes an
impression that the manifesto may have taken over a year or thereabout to put
it together. In fact, it was the claim
to the copy right of his blueprint that set him and Wike against each other,
publicly, for the first time. Dakuku had complained that Wike cloned his
blueprint to which members of Wike' blueprint committee reacted angrily asking
Dakuku to retract his statement. Dakuku had told journalists that he was
waiting for the legal counsel of his lawyers to take necessary action against
Wike. On the other hand, Wike's group also threatened to take a court action
against Dakuku if no retraction was made. Up to now, neither Dakuku nor Wike
has gone to court to seek redress on the grounds of plagiarism.
Both candidates have been having a vicarious confrontation
in the media over the spate of politically motivated violence in the state. On
two occasions, Dakuku was not allowed to campaign in Okrika, the hometown of
the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan. On Saturday, January 24, the podium and
sound system set for Dakuku's campaign at Okrika was ripped apart by dynamite.
On Thursday, February 14, Dakuku's campaign rally was again attacked by
hoodlums shooting sporadically to scare away his supporters and members of the
APC after about three dynamite explosions were heard earlier in the day close
to the Okrika National School Field, the venue of the botched rally. Before
then, the APC secretariat at Okrika was also attacked with dynamite.
Perhaps, the most topical issue that has dogged their
campaign is the disturbing wave of politically motivated killings, maiming and
violence. According to Dakuku, over 35 members of the APC had been killed by
political thugs. And Wike has also insisted that over 45 members of the PDP
have also been killed by hoodlums. A few days ago, the APC secretariat, in Port
Harcourt, claimed that about 56 members of the APC have been killed in
questionable circumstances.
Before the defeat of President Goodluck Jonathan at the
presidential polls on Saturday, March 24, the APC has consistently alleged that
the police under the control of the federal government have been working for
the PDP against the APC. The APC has maintained that in all the violence that
has been perpetrated against its members, the police have not arrested one
person.
Surprisingly, the police released most APC leaders that were
arrested about two weeks before the presidential election after General Buhari
emerged as the president-elect on Tuesday, March 31. Most of the policemen
attached to PDP chieftains in the state, according to the APC have now been
withdrawn. Clearly, the emergence of
Buhari as president-elect has bolstered the confidence of the APC, which has
continued to insist that it has a far better candidate in Dakuku than Wike.
While there is palpable confidence in the APC camp that
Dakuku will defeat Wike in a free and fair electoral contest, the PDP which
before now had allegedly had the passive support of the police which gave ample
coverage to all its rallies, is now raising salient allegations against the
APC, following the turn of events at the centre. Wike is now alleging that the
APC is spurring for the Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, in the state,
Mrs. Gesila Khan, to be redeployed because it wants to influence the deployment
of a commissioner with which it can collude to rig the elections.
Wike is also now alleging that the APC wants to get the
gubernatorial election postponed so that it will be conducted after General
Buhari would have been sworn in so that the APC, then in control of the Army,
Navy, Police and the DSS, can deploy them in favour of the APC. Quite a change
of fortune, indeed! Before now, no one would have imagined that Wike would make
any complains to that effect because he had the full support of the president
and his wife.
Now, that both candidates, Wike and Dakuku, will be heading
for the gubernatorial election on Saturday, April 11, on a level playing field,
who among the two, is more popular in the heart and mind of the
electorate? Barring any electoral
manipulation, ballot stuffing and ballot snatching, falsification of election
results, obtaining of election result sheets by some other outlandish means,
without the connivance and complicity of INEC officials, without putting undue
pressure on agents and local government Electoral Officers, who are very
crucial in compiling the results, who, indeed, between Dakuku and Wike, will
get the popular votes of the people of Rivers State, on Saturday, April 11?
On record, Rivers State has never been in opposition until
Governor Amaechi defected to the opposition APC in 2013. So, much of Wike's
campaign has dwelt on the need to take Rivers State back to the centre.
Ironically, Governor Amaechi who took River State to the opposition has also
taken it back to the centre. However, there remains a snag, though! And the
huddle is the April 11, gubernatorial election. Even before the presidential
election, some voters who were glaringly pro-Jonathan said they will vote for
Dakuku. And which is a plus for the APC. And having produced the next president,
will the APC in Rivers State be able to win the state so as to align it
properly with the centre so that the copious benefits from the centre which
Wike and the PDP insist were lost due to Governor Amaechi's defection will now
be attained in double measure in the fullness of time?
However, Wike, who is an ardent apostle of aligning with the
centre is insisting that he will win the governorship election for the PDP,
even if it means going back to the opposition flank and, therefore, take the
PDP back to the opposition against the APC at the centre for which he has
severely criticized Governor Amaechi from 2013 up to now. Clearly, as students
of politics would often say, politics is, indeed, a game of interest and this
aphorism is not lost to Chief Wike, an astute grassroots mobiliser and
courageous fighter of no mean fit who is vaunting that he will win the
gubernatorial election, and after then, meet the APC at the electoral tribunal,
even though, the APC would then, of course, be in control of the federal government. Politics is indeed, a very strange phenomenon
with an inscrutable heritage!
0 comments