Issues
Election Violence: The Warning Nigeria Must Heed, Now!
As Nigerians continue to live with the bitter pill of an incompetent but deeply partisan electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC, it has become necessary again to predict the colour of the 2019 elections and the dangers that litter the landscape. Violence is central and so much of it is being cooked to be unleashed in Rivers State. Many Nigerians are satisfied with branding Rivers State a turbulent election area but only a few are asking the pertinent questions to understand the causes and the assailants.
A by-election was conducted in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, on August 18, 2018 for a seat in the State House of Assembly with just 8 wards and 142 polling units. But this was disrupted due to heavy violence leading to suspension or cancellation by the (INEC). The disturbing observation seems to be that most persons revelled in the fact of violence, especially those who started it or felt the violence favoured them. They prided themselves as testing the microphone of violence. The violence resulted in disenfranchisement of voters and bad taste to voting. Worse, there seems to be much joy now in denying people their much-given rights to freely choose who should govern them. Unfortunately, there is no other place this is more celebrated than Rivers State, as it were.
This threatening scenario is being dismissed by people who simply say it has been like that since 1999. The danger that it poses today and what the APC is telling us today by justifying today’s violence is that they have the apparatus of violence and that they are going to maximise it against their opponents, against the PDP, during the forthcoming elections.
The meaning of that is that everybody will have to be a victim of attack unless you allowed them to win. Also, the level that the APC is taking election violence in Rivers State has reached a very disturbing crescendo. It does not matter who is the perpetrator. No normal person can fail to see it so; that wrong remains wrong. Every well-meaning person should seek an end to what is not right and rebuild our society for the better.
It does not matter to me that something was wrong yesterday. If somebody was a victim yesterday, so, everybody must perish today, just for you to win an election? So, because things have changed, the victims of yesterday must visit wrong on the people? If that is allowed to stay, then we mean evil should have no end?
The police are constitutionally empowered to bear arms but it is not to maul over the populace. Violence, apart from discouraging people from voting, puts voters and electoral officers in danger. Imagine members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) being harmed. Nigerians must wake up to that reality. The same evil that is being perpetrated in Rivers State is now being exported to other states like in Ekiti when the police was used to intimidate a sitting governor. At the end of the day, you wrestle him down and arm-twist him until he is unable to defend himself properly, taking advantage of the coercive power of the state.
So, it looks easy to interpret that all you need to do to win election now is to spend all the money on the security, raise thugs, and the police will give the thugs covering power, cart away sensitive materials, snatch ballot boxes, and take away card reader machines. With that, you have paralysed the voting process and you now come out with a result you have pre-written. Printing of INEC results is no longer a big deal. We saw it in Port Harcourt here and we shouted and arrests were made, but no person was punished. It is such impunity. The alert was not proved to be a lie, either. Instead, the case was transferred to police Zone 6, and the young man who was caught with the printed materials at 12, Isiokpo Street, D-Line, Port Harcourt, Mr Atonye Peterside and his accomplices, are walking the streets freely. They were all APC members.
When the re-run election involving Rivers East was held, the court relied on the result given to them by the police and rejected the one from INEC. So, where did the police get their own result? These came from the alternative results the APC printed. Nobody has been punished to this day. We are showing this example to Nigerians and that is why I am saying, there is a limit to how you can wrestle a man and bring him down in his house. A day comes when he can tell you, you cannot do that. Nigerians must look at this matter seriously.
To me, instead of wasting your resources to think you must win everywhere to retain your seat, you can still win without winning everywhere. A senator must not win everywhere to be senator. What is happening in Rivers State is the desire and wish of one man that wants to be seen as a pampered child; that wants to say he contributed so much to making somebody what he is today and must be so regarded and rewarded with a state. That is why they deploy SARS to obstruct elections in Rivers State and make it impossible for free and fair election to hold so they can declare for APC and claim that they won.
The Special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS) and its State commander are the major problems in election rigging and violence in Rivers State. The Acting President (when the president was away) had said that SARS was going to be restructured. While we were still talking about that, the same SARS has come to demonstrate again that it truly is a satanic organisation by disrupting by-elections in Rivers State. So, where do we go from there? What it means is that anywhere you discover that elections are not going in their favour, SARS will surface with thugs, giving thugs cover to go and disrupt it, leaving even unarmed security men at the polling units running for safety.
Many people feel that if this is how it will go, why are they going to be bothered breaking their neck when the centre will not allow the elections to hold and when all you will do is to risk the lives of those who came to do elections. The people of Rivers State should be allowed to vote people of their choice and not be intimidated with the police just to do the bidding of the APC because the FG has control of the security agencies, and is in control of officers who have the power to bear arms. This will not solve Nigeria’s problem. This short cut to victory is slowly spreading to other parts of Nigeria because it met success in Rivers State. Despite that, the Rivers State Governor has continued to complain that the SARS we have in Rivers State and their Commander have remained in the state to do the things the Commander wants to do and the way he wants to do them as instructed, all to the detriment of the PDP.
Election violence does not just happen. The major cause is simple. Once you have this mindset and you set the stage where you will not allow people to vote freely to exercise their rights, people will resist you and there will be crisis. If they don’t, then thank your stars, but in 99.9% of the cases, the people will resist you. What will make a man do this is because he is not going to win election under fair conditions. If you knew you were going to win, why would you disrupt elections? It is like trying to enter into a house through the window when the door is open. It is very important to bring these things to the attention of Nigerians before it is too late. Nigerians need to know that we are heading towards the path of perdition.
Many people have asked what should be done about this. It is the centre that has to act because Nigeria is represented by the FG. The National Assembly must do something about it and find a mechanism that can stop this. They must come up with a mechanism that would make this kind of action unattractive. Laws are made to address the problems of man. The statutes must make it impossible for anybody to tow this line of ignominy and stand laughing. That is why the present amendment to the Electoral Act is overdue.
The way elections are conducted in Rivers State portends danger to our people. Deriving joy from election violence is going to bring bitterness in this country especially Rivers State because the consequences will surely be huge, for everybody. Violence can only beget more violence.
Okah is the Rivers State Commissioner for Information and Communications.
Emma Okah
This is an open letter to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Chief Nyesom Wike.
Your Excellency,
Sir, ordinarily, I would not be writing an open letter to you, but like a wise man once said, “Silence would be Treason.” So I prefer to stay alive than face the consequences of silence in the face of crime. With each passing day, and as the socio-political tides continue to turn, it has become more pertinent that more people speak up in a concerted MANNER to prevent the death of our party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), as we appear to be, in the words of W. B. Yeats, “turning and turning in the widening gyre” heading for an end where the falcon will no longer hear the falconer
It is unfortunate that since losing control of the Federal Government, with the loss of President Goodluck Jonathan at the poll in 2015, our party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has continued on a downward spiral. It is much more painful, that where it is expected that leaders within the party should rise to the challenge and put an end to this decline of our great party, some have instead taken up roles as its undertaker.
It will be hypocritical to claim aloofness to what I believe is your grouse with the PDP and I am not a hypocrite. It will be uncharitable on my part to discountenance the role you have played in strengthening the PDP from 2015 up until the last Presidential primaries of the party. It is my belief that your grouse against certain members of the party who you perceived worked against the party and abandoned it in 2015 and then came around much later to take control of the party, is justified. Also know that your decision to remain in the Party and stifle its progress on the other hand, as a sort of payback, stands condemned. For a man of your pedigree and stature, it is a dishonorable act, highly dishonorable and stands as testimony against all you claim to stand for.
At least, it can be argued that those who you hold this grudge against, abandoned the party completely and did not sit back while actively working to destroy it from within. But what then can be the argument on your own part, seeing that those you are currently working with against your party are the same people who set in motion, and executed surgically, the plans that not only ended our Party’s leadership at the centre, but ended up dislodging the first Niger Deltan to occupy Aso Rock as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. Is this not akin to “cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face?” That will be worse than folly. Let us not throw away the baby with the bath water because we do not like the soap used in bathing the baby. It will be a grave mistake.
Honourable Minister, sir, it is rather unfortunate that of all people, you have also decided to play the role of an undertaker not only for our party, but for our dear Rivers State.
I will like to take you down memory lane a little. Let me remind you of your emergence as Guber candidate of the PDP in Rivers State, against all fairness and justice in 2014. You will remember that despite the reality being that you as an Ikwerre man was poised to replace a fellow Ikwerre man in Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi in our multiethnic state, Rivers people overwhelmingly stood by you and pushed for your emergence as Executive Governor of Rivers State in 2015. I dare say that your popularity in the entire Niger Delta region was at an all-time high at this point.
I want you to understand why you were loved across board leading to your eventual emergence as Governor of Rivers State in 2015; it was because when it looked like all were against the second term ambitions of the first Niger Delta man to emerge as President of Nigeria, you became not just a pillar but a beacon of resistance by standing for Goodluck Jonathan. Rivers people, as grateful and rewarding as they can be, paid you back by ensuring your electoral victory against the incumbent All Progressives Congress (APC) led by your predecessor. On your emergence, where there were second term Governors in the region, you, a first term Governor, was seen by the people as not just the leader of the PDP, but the leader of the entire Niger Delta region. You earned it, and no one could dispute it.
In 2019, when your re-election bid was being challenged ferociously, Rivers people once again stood solidly behind you. Many were killed in the process of defending your votes. Do you remember Dr. Ferry Gberegbe that was shot and killed while trying to protect your votes in Khana Local Government Area? There are many more unnamed and unrecognised sons and daughters of Rivers State who sacrificed their lives so that you could emerge as a second term Governor of Rivers State.
In 2022/23, Honourable Minister, you oversaw a party primary across board that saw some candidates imprisoned and internal party democracy jettisoned for your wishes, leading to the emergence of flag bearers of our party all singlehandedly picked by you. You have on more than one occasion publicly stated that you paid for all their forms. Even those shortchanged in this process licked their wounds and continued to play their roles as party members to ensure the success of the party at all levels. In what will go down as one of the most keenly contested elections in recent Rivers history, with formidable candidates like Senator Magnus Abe of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Mr Tonye Cole of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and the vibrant youth driven Labour Party (LP), PDP emerged victorious across board except for Phalga Constituency 1 that was lost to the Labour Party. (Not that you did not loose in some other LGA’s but let’s stick to the official figures declared by INEC).
It begs the question, why then do you want to burn down Rivers State, when everyone who now holds political office emerged through a process designed and endorsed by you? Is it that you do not care about Rivers people and you are all about yourself? If so, I am forced to believe that those around you are not telling you the truth. The truth being that in a state where your words were law; where houses and businesses could be demolished or closed down without any recourse to legalities, where Executive Orders could be deployed to stifle the opposition, that your popularity is now at an all-time low. Probably because they are afraid of you, or of losing the benefits they gain from you, they fail to tell you that what you might perceive as a battle against your successor, has slowly but gradually degenerating into a battle against Rivers State and Rivers people. You know, there is a popular saying that, a man can cook for the community and the community will finish the food, but when a community decides to cook for one man, the reverse is the case.
LEAVE FUBARA ALONE
You have gone on and on about being betrayed by Governor Siminalayi Fubara. You point fingers forgetting that some of those same fingers quick to spot betrayals point straight back at you. It is not Governor Fubara that has betrayed the PDP by working against it in the just concluded General Election, and working with the opposition at the State and Federal level to destabilise the party. It is you, Honourable Minister. It is not Governor Fubara that betrayed Rivers people by instigating a political crisis with propensity to escalate ethnic tensions in Rivers State. It is you Honourable Minister. It is not Governor Fubara that has declared himself God over all in Rivers State and has no qualms with burning the state to the ground to prove a point. It is you Honourable Minister. It is you Honourable Minister who told the world that the APC was a cancer and you can never support a cancerous party. It is you Honourable Minister who ended up facilitating the emergence of the same “cancerous” APC that has accelerated the economic decline of this country and further impoverished our people with no remorse. All so you can be a Minister of the Federal Capital Territory? The lack of self awareness is gobsmacking.
Some days back I came across a video where you talked about death and how you do not cry when you hear about the death of some people because you have no idea what might have caused it considering many a politician swear “over dead bodies” and still go back on their words. Those words made me think, and I could see the reason behind them. You see, in chosing to be God in the affairs of Rivers people, you have closed your eyes and ears to reason; you see nothing and hear nothing that can cause you to rethink on the path you have chosen. In your quest to “show Fubara” you have unwittingly united a vast majority of Rivers people behind him, so much that even those who despised him because of you, now like or love him, because of you too. In your scheming, I will advise you not to forget that “the voice of the people is the voice of God”.
Note that the war which you have or are waging against Governor Fubara, has gone beyond being merely political as you might see in your minds eye. It is now one that, fortunately for some and unfortunately for others, has evolved into a war against Rivers people. It is good to point out that no one has taken a stand against Rivers people and won. No one has gone against God and won. In your defiant characteristic manner, it will be unfortunate if you believe your own hubris and that of those around you on the possibility of you being the first to successfully go against Rivers people. It will be a needless gamble; one where if you win you create more enemies for yourself than you can withstand on your political journey, and if you lose, your legacy becomes an inglorious and irredeemable one in Rivers State, the Niger Delta, and Nigeria at large. For your sake as regards posterity, it is my greatest wish that you have a moment of sobriety and a deep reflection and introspection on this path you have chosen.
Honourable Minister, sir, what is left of your legacy is on the brink of being completely desecrated and relegated to the dustbin of our political history, and it will be a sad end to what I will say has been a wonderful political career that many can only dream of. The ball is in your court, and may God Almighty have mercy on us all and forgive us for our shortcomings.
Gabriel Baritulem Pidomson
Dr Pidomson is former Chief of Staff, Government House, Port Harcourt and former member, Rivers State House of Assembly.
In 2015, I made a conscious decision to invest my financial resources, my time, and energy into supporting Nyesom Wike’s gubernatorial campaign. I poured my heart and soul into ensuring Nyesom Wike emerged victorious even at the risk of my personal safety.
Again in 2019, I doubled down on my commitment. I invested a significant amount of money to procure campaign outfits for all twenty-three Local Governments Areas of Rivers State. I spared no expense in supplementing Wike’s election efforts in my own local government, and once again putting myself at great risk to safeguard the fairness and transparency of the electoral process.
However, despite my unwavering loyalty and sacrifices, I found myself abandoned and forgotten by Wike. Throughout his eight-year tenure, he failed to acknowledge my contributions or fulfill his promises and agreements. Even as a former Deputy Governor, Wike denied me my severance benefit.
My investment in Wike’s governorship was not just financial – it was a commitment of passion, dedication, and belief in a better future for Rivers State. Yet, his leadership style of dishonesty, greed, drunkenness and rash abuse of senior citizens brought me nothing but disappointment, misery and losses.
By the grace of God, today I speak not as a victim, but as a hero. I have accepted my losses, and I have moved on. And as I reflect on my experience, I cannot help but urge Wike to do the same and allow peace and development to reign in Rivers State.
Nyesom Wike, when you speak of investing in Governor Sim Fubara’s election, remember those like me who also invested in you. Remember the sacrifices I made, the risks I took, and the promises and agreements you left unfulfilled.
It is time for you, Wike, to let go of the past and allow Governor Sim Fubara the breathing space he needs to lead Rivers State forward. Allow him to focus on the challenges of good governance and the aspirations of the people. Spare him these unwarranted and ill-conceived political manoeuvrings founded on personal agenda and not for general good of Rivers State and her people.
I may have lost my investment on Wike, but I have not lost hope in the future of Rivers State. And together, we will continue to strive for a brighter tomorrow.
Long Live the Governor to Rivers State, Sir Siminialayi Fubara!
Long Live the Good People of Rivers State!!
Long Live the Federal Republic of Nigeria!!!
Engr Ikuru is former Deputy Governor of Rivers State.
Tele Ikuru
