Even while they are beneficiaries of a system which insists on thriving on the consensus approach, an approach which the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, is known for, four governor’s of Nigeria’s South South Zone are today querying the manner in which a replacement for sworn-in to take over the office of the National Vice Chairman, for the zone. Although the leadership of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has its own way(s) of doing things, the question being asked by observers today, is whether it is the best? This question attained a more pungent dimension this week with Governors Victor Attah of Akwa Ibom, Dipreye Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa, James Ibori of Delta and Lucky Igbinedion of Edo States, challenging the sudden swearing-in of Godspower Ake as replacement for the slain Aminasoari Kala Dikibo, as National Vice Chairman, South South. And in all of these, however, the bone of contention and why some governors in the zone are kicking is because of positioning for the number two slot, the office of the Vice President, come 2007.
As at the time of going to press, the matter was yet to be resolved but this report would show why whichever way it is resolved, there would be a collateral damage.
In a polity where interests oscillate between the lust for power, greed for money and a penchant for leading followers by the nose, it is becoming more interesting that some governors in the ruling Peoples democratic Party, PDP, can eyeball the national leadership of their party.
And for those who think the race for 2007 would be a cut-and-stitch affair, the present face-off between four governors of the South South geo-political zone and the national leadership of the ruling Peoples democratic Party, PDP, is a definite sign that rather than the consensus approach almost always adopted by the PDP leadership to have its way, the name of the game would be one of mitigated compromises, giving and taking. In fact, seated in the company of Alamieyeseigha, Ibori and Igbinedion, Attah was in his elements when he declared that the battle against the national leadership on the matter of Dikibo’s replacement was one being fought on principle and not on mere sentiment.
Hear Attah:
“Even if, and I repeat, even if it was true that the National Vice Chairman was to come from Rivers State, it is the zone that was supposed to produce such a candidate. I want you to get that principle very, very clear. We are not here appointing a minister to serve the National Working Committee or any such thing. When the president needed a minister from me, he asked me to make nomination, but when the party needs a candidate from a zone, it writes to the zone to produce a candidate and I think that has been the way the whole process has been flawed.
“You cannot possibly write to one governor to send in somebody to serve a zone; it has never happened before. So, you talked about precedent, we do not know that there is any such precedent. I will like you to go and ask the National Secretariat to produce for you the letter that they wrote to the North-West zone because at the same time that we were expected to produce a replacement, North-West was expected to produce a replacement and they did and the letter was to the zone.
“The zone presented a candidate after going through a series of processes of elimination from 11 to nine to seven candidates, and eventually agreed on which one the zone wanted. But here we are, a strange situation in which a governor is being asked to nominate and that is why it is problematic. We do not think that whoever was presented therefore is a zonal candidate.”
Asked to comment on where the Cross River State governor, Mr. Donald Duke, stands in the matter, Governor Attah said: “The governor is alive and well and available to answer your question.”
Now, what actually led to the release of these hot air.
Before the Abuja swearing-in
Why the swearing-in of Godspower Ake (Governor Peter Odili’s Special Adviser) remains instructive is that just five days earlier, that is, the weekend of July 17, the governors of Nigeria’s South-South states could not agree on the choice of replacement for Dikibo.
It is no longer news that the South-South Governors’ summit in Uyo, Akwa Ibom state penultimate weekend ended in a deadlock as the governors were split into two camps on the choice of a candidate to replace the late Dikibo.
The day before the real meeting, Governor Peter Odili of Rivers State was absent and it was rumoured that he had gone for the wedding of the son of former Head of State, Ibrahim Babangida. The absence of Duke at the meeting was attributed to a case of personal disagreement with his brother governor of a sister state. Governor Donald Duke of Cross River State and Governor Victor Attah of Akwa Ibom State are said not to be the best of “brothers” on a lot of issues. First, the two states were in dispute over the ownership of Bakassi which was later conceded to Cross River State. That rankled the Akwa Ibom governor and his people. Bakassi, they thought and believed, was part and parcel of their state.
The South-South Governors’ summit began with the host Governor, Attah, reading his keynote address where he outlined the agenda of the summit. According to him, topping the agenda was the issue of a replacement for Dikibo and the position of the zone in the race for 2007. Attah listed the national issues on which the South-South must have a position as true fiscal federalism, local government creation, privatisation and other reforms, excess crude oil revenue and immunity.
On matters affecting the South-South States, the Akwa Ibom State governor lamented that the police had done a shoddy job in finding Dikibo’s killers, saying in as much as he felt hurt as he spoke of Dikibo in the past tense, the South-South PDP must find a replacement for the slain politician.
Other items listed on the governors’ agenda, according to Governor Attah, were the issue of 13% derivation and resource control, the issue of revenue allocation formula, the controversies surrounding the passage of the Electoral Act and the issue of bringing peace to the Niger Delta region.
Governor Lucky Igbinedion made a speech on behalf of the other governors, urging them to speak with one voice. Enter Tony Anenih, the party’s board of trustees chairman, while Igbinedion was speaking. After over four hours of waiting, the governors and other party big-wigs from the zone all emerged from the hall, with long faces, none willing to talk to the press as all entered their respective vehicles and zoomed off. But a source disclosed that the governors discussed only one item on the agenda: the issue of finding a replacement for the slain Dr. A.K. Dikibo.
Why Odili wants Ake
According to the source, Governor Peter Odili wanted Ake, his Special Adviser on Land and Survey to replace the slain politician. His position was supported by Chief Tony Anenih, Chairman, PDP Board of Trustees. Odili’s nomination of Ake as replacement for Dikibo did not come as a surprise to many as speculation had been rife that he would nominate the man. Odili’s position and insistence that Ake should be the replacement, according to information available to Vanguard, was based on the fact that although Harry Marshall who eventually moved to the All Nigeria Peoples Party after serving as the PDP national vice chairman, South-South, Dikibo, who was killed had actually commenced another tenure of office for the same position. In his own reckoning, therefore, it should just be natural for Rivers State to produce the replacement. He may have a point.
But even the party’s constitution does not in any way spell out how to replace a dead member. In Article 20 of the party’s constitution, Mode Of Elections Into Party Offices, it merely states how members can be elected into party offices and did not make provisions for replacement. Therefore, it was the precedent of Dikibo replacing Marshall that Governor Odili was relying on.
What Attah, Ibori, Igbinedion and Alamieyeseigha want
But the other governors were not impressed and they had good reasons not to be so. Our source disclosed that Governor Alamieyeseigha also nominated another candidate, Dr. Tarila Tebepah and was supported by Governors Victor Attah of Akwa Ibom State; Lucky Igbinedion of Edo State and James Ibori of Delta State who felt that the position should be rotational as the last two occupiers were from Rivers State.
It then became a case of the backers of Ake against the backers of Tebepah with nobody willing to yield an inch of ground. When it was found that nobody was willing to yield after over four hours of deliberation, and politicking, the governors decided that the two candidates should be made to face an election of the larger meeting of delegates from the zone. They also decided to shift the meeting to Abuja where they could meet the national leadership of the party and as well tackle other items on the agenda. The governors then moved to Abuja where the intrigues and politicking continued.
On Monday at the press conference, the four governors declared thus:
“For the avoidance of doubt, we wish to state as follows:
•That truly, the Uyo meeting could not arrive at a consensus candidate for the position of PDP National Vice Chairman, South-South.
•That as a result of this, a firm decision was taken to ‘step the mater down’ until another meeting of the stakeholders could be convened.
•That since this decision was taken, no meeting of the stakeholders or indeed of the governors, has been called to discuss this issue.
•That news of the purported swearing-in of Hon. G.U. Ake as a replacement for late Chief A.K. Dikibo came to us as a total surprise.
•That the Governor of Bayelsa State, whose nominee had enjoyed popular support, has strongly protested this patently undemocratic action.
•That we, the three governors of Akwa Ibom, Delta and Edo continue to firmly support the nomination of Dr. Tarila Tebepah as the replacement for late Chief A.K. Dikibo.”
The Abuja Strategy
But agreeing to go to Abuja may have been the greatest undoing of the other governors who did not want Odili’s candidate, Ake. For, it was in Abuja that Odili’s choice won and got sworn-in. Ake is now the national vice chairman, PDP South-South even as controversies surrounding his choice persist.
In Abuja, something novel happened on Wednesday, July 14. That was the day Ake was sworn-in. Was his swearing-in a decision taken by the owners of the PDP?
Ake may be the national vice chairman but the other governors who did not agree with Odili’s choice are already kicking and screaming blue murder. They claim that contrary to the agreement reached that a larger house would vote and decide who takes over from Dikibo, Ake was just sworn-in as replacement without due consideration of their position.
In fact, those in the know of the events leading up to the swearing in of Ake by Ogbeh revealed that the national chairman may have been “pressured into swearing-in Ake.” The exercise, we were told, was part of the trade-offs for a possible second term for the incumbent chairman of the party at its national convention slated for the last quarter of next year. If true, will that happen? Add to it the permutations for the 2007 presidency and the plots by “owners” of the party to position their surrogates and/or loyalists in strategic places so that when the issue of who picks the ticket comes up, it will just be a mere formality.
However, there are also those within the party who, information available to Weekend Vanguard suggests, are angling for other offices at the same convention and are, therefore, ready to do the bidding of President Obasanjo, whose love for Governor Odili is not hidden. It may be a mutual affair as Odili, more than any other governor in Nigeria, has demonstrated that in spite of all the faults into which President Obasanjo is insinuated, the president still remains the best option for Nigeria. In fact, at a closed door political session with some political leaders of the party, Odili had painstakingly explained to them that for all the faults “Mr President may have, he is a human being like you and I and he may make mistakes. But take a look at the broad spectrum of the polity and tell me who could have achieved close to what President Obasanjo has been able to achieve?”.
There is another plank to the disagreement: the renewed friction over the choice of Ake, we can reveal has to do with who gets the vice presidential slot come 2007. In the entire South South zone, the two most prominent and, perhaps, suitably placed politicians to claim the slot are Odili and Governor Attah of Akwa Ibom. While Odili parades his contact within the zone and the centre, Attah is attributed with his steadfastness for resource control, something which observers say has pitched him against Abuja. Although Attah’s aides insist that Attah and Abuja are doing fine, that Attah was able to raise the resource control battle to the front burner (in collaboration with other governors and politicians) remains a plus for him.
How will PDP resolve this?
For a political party with enormous resources at its disposal, there is every reason for it to cause a gravitational pull. Which is why the race for the 2007 presidential elections have begun with such pace that observers are wondering whether there would be any other election after 2007. And to divorce the 2007 battle from the present face-off is to be blind to the high-wire politics going on.
There is Ibrahim Babamasi Babangida, former military president who ruled for eight years on the sidelines: He is perceived as very ready to contest in 2007.
There is Atiku Abubakar, incumbent vice-president and a major factor in the ruling PDP.
Indeed, there is also Gen. Buba Marwa who has been sensitising the nation, and getting some endorsements. Although there are expected to be other contenders from the other political parties, the race, as of today, has been narrowed down to the trio, even if unfairly so.
But the idea of consensus in the PDP, an approach which appears to be the order of the day in the party, is supposed to stave-off wasteful spending on electoral process which is itself the real pole on which democratic norms are hoisted but has unfortunately become a casualty in PDP. At least that is what the leadership of the party says.
But that same approach may not have resolved the problem in Anambra State, where Governor Chris Ngige and his erstwhile godfather, Chief Chris Uba are still at war, the increasingly consensual approach, especially the way it is seen to its logical end, may turn out to be the shape of democracy which PDP would offer Nigeria. But the party leadership says it has no apologies to offer, pointing to the Obafemi Awolowo style of leadership were party offices are agreed upon and allocated to members using a set of rules other than voting.
No matter what, the leadership of the party seems to be so much in love with the consensus approach. An example of the consensus approach of the PDP was the swearing-in of Ake as replacement for Dikibo.
This under-hand face-off between the governors of the South South is merely reflective of the larger battles ahead when the real contest for who gets the vice presidential slot of the PDP comes in 2006/2007.
At the moment, the four governors are locked in this battle against Odili. On his own part, Donald Duke of Cross River State seems indifferent. He has not said anything in favour or against Ake. However, his refusal to turn up for the Uyo meeting is suggestive of where his interest may be. But with what happened in Abuja penultimate Wednesday as a pointer, it just demonstrates how the PDP goes about resolving its own issues.
