Rivers State in the Niger Delta, hitherto the hotbed of militancy, is now gaining notoriety for violence and thuggery. Our Southsouth Bureau Chief, Bisi Olaniyi, writes that all stakeholders must unite, cooperate and re-strategise to ensure peaceful general elections next year
THE general elections between 1999 and 2003 were not so bloody in the three core states of the Niger Delta, namely: Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta, since Nigerians were just recovering from military rule, tyranny and dictatorship, with many politicians not sure that the transition to civilian rule would work, thereby making many competent and qualified persons to stay away from politics.
The polls in 2003 were quite different, as the well-educated and decent persons, who earlier stayed away from politics, decided to throw their hats in the ring, with the then incumbent elective office holders, especially the governors, desperate to be re-elected, thereby allegedly purchasing arms and ammunition for mostly educated, but jobless youths, to work for them as thugs with the singular bid of rigging elections.
With the pay reportedly irresistible, the “boys” took up arms against political opponents of their masters and their supporters, thereby “winning” the elections at all costs, but with some of the thugs also losing their lives in the process.
Insiders confided that with the elections won and lost, the politicians who emerged “victorious” through thuggery did not bother about retrieving the guns. This, The Nation gathered, was the genesis of militancy in the Niger Delta, although disguised as a movement for the emancipation of the crude oil and gas-rich region.
The supremacy war among the militants heightened in 2005, leading to the emergence of many “Generals.” While Chief Government Ekpemupolo, aka Tompolo, was in charge in Delta State, Ebikabowei Victor Ben, aka General Boyloaf, was controlling the “boys” in the creeks of Bayelsa State. Rivers State had a former President of Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, the leader of Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF) and Ateke Tom, who led Niger Delta Vigilance Movement, among others as leaders of the militant groups.
Dokubo-Asari, an indigene of Buguma, the headquarters of Asari-Toru Local Government Area of Rivers State, was almost in charge of the major militant camps in Rivers, but top Rivers State Government officials sponsored Ateke against him, for support during the 2007 elections.
The former IYC President (Dokubo-Asari) was later arrested by operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS), moved to Abuja and was put in an underground cell for many months before he was eventually released, in view of agitations and protests by prominent Niger Deltans and friends of the region.
Dokubo-Asari also refused to accept the 2009 amnesty offer to repentant Niger Delta militants by the administration of the then President Umaru Yar’Adua, insisting that he and his teeming freedom fighters were not criminals. Shortly after his release from detention, the former President of IYC relocated to Benin Republic, where he established a university.
Ateke’s base in Okrika was later destroyed by the military, when Rotimi Amaechi, now Transportation Minister, was governor of Rivers State, because the Ubima, Ikwerre LGA-born politicians declared that he would not have anything to do with criminals and militants, thereby chasing them out of town, with the leader of Niger Delta Vigilance Movement (Ateke) relocating to Lekki, Lagos.
Ateke and his numerous militants eventually embraced the Federal Government’s amnesty offer and they surrendered their arms and ammunition at a colourful ceremony in Port-Harcourt.
In 2014, Amaechi joined other progressive Nigerians to form the All Progressives Congress (APC), but his former Chief of Staff, Government House, Port-Harcourt (2007-2011), Nyesom Wike, who was the Director-General of Amaechi Governorship Re-election Campaign Organisation in 2011, and recommended by Amaechi after the 2011 polls to the then President Goodluck Jonathan, to be made the Minister of State for Education, showed interest in succeeding his boss (Amaechi).
With federal might, sudden return of the chased-away militants, thuggery, violence, beheading and killing of no fewer than one thousand members of the APC, Wike, the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was declared winner of the election, reportedly rigged massively but the governorship candidate of the APC, Dr. Dakuku Peterside, now the Director-General of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), approached the tribunal to contest the result. Wike eventually got victory at the Supreme Court on technical grounds.
The apex court admitted that 2015 governorship election in Rivers State witnessed unprecedented violence and massive rigging, but posited that APC and Peterside could not call a witness from each of the polling units across the state, where the rigging took place, which was a Herculean task.
Quite unforgettable during the governorship campaigns in early 2015 was the attack by fully-armed militants and thugs in Okrika, the headquarters of Okrika LGA of Rivers State, the hometown of the then First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, and Ateke, both of PDP, with Peterside and other APC leaders escaping death by a whisker, as the campaign was about to kick off, but the “boys” took over, shooting sporadically, while a policeman was killed in the process, with many journalists and others injured and their personal cars, other vehicles and other valuable property were either vandalised or burnt.
The then Chairman of APC in Rivers State, Chief Davies Ikanya, stated that the Supreme Court had set a precedent with its judgment on the 2015 governorship election in Rivers State, with most politicians to prefer to win through massive rigging and violence, while the opponents could go to the tribunal or court, where it would be extremely difficult to get justice.
After the 2015 elections, the Rivers of blood continued during the legislative reruns, with many innocent persons killed/beheaded, maimed or injured, while the electorate became scared of getting close to their polling units to exercise their franchise.
Shortly after settling down as Rivers State Governor and as a way of expressing gratitude for the support during the campaigns and elections, Wike approved the appointment of Ateke as the King of Okochiri-Okrika.
Some of the ex-militant “Generals” are currently members of the Rivers State House of Assembly (names withheld), while many of them are top officials of the Rivers State Government.
In spite of having ex-militants in Rivers State Government, APC leaders vowed to unseat Wike in 2019, while the Rivers State Governor is to either seek reelection or become a running mate to one of the presidential candidates of PDP from the North, especially Aminu Tambuwal, since he reportedly sponsored the election of Prince Uche Secondus, an indigene of Andoni LGA of Rivers State, as the National Chairman of the main opposition party.
The by-election controversy
To confirm that the political rivalry may not stop in the near future is the intrigues that have trailed by-election for Port-Harcourt Constituency 3 in the Rivers House of Assembly. It would be recalled that recently, the representative of Port-Harcourt Constituency 3 in the Rivers House of Assembly, Victor Ihunwo, of the PDP, resigned in June this year to contest as Chairman of Port-Harcourt City Local Government Council, which he won.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Rivers State, Mr. Obo Effanga, an indigene Cross River State, therefore announced that the vacant
Port-Harcourt Constituency 3 seat would be filled on August 18, through a by-election.
But as leaders and members of APC were preparing for the by-election, the lawmaker representing Rivers Southeast Senatorial District, Senator Magnus Abe, a governorship aspirant on APC’s platform, decided on August 17 to inaugurate a parallel secretariat of the party at Waterlines Bus Stop on Aba Road, Port-Harcourt, which was earlier vandalised by hoodlums.
The duly-elected Chairman of APC in Rivers State, Ojukaye Flag-Amachree, however, insisted that there was no faction in the state’s chapter of the party.
Flag-Amachree stated that the activities of Abe were nothing to worry about, while admonishing loyal and committed members of APC to remain focused, while ignoring the distractions.
The Director-General of the Free Rivers Development Initiative, Sampson Ngerebara, an engineer, who is a chieftain of APC and an ally of Amaechi, also disclosed that the only senator of the PDP in Rivers State, Osinakachukwu Ideozu, who was “elected” for the first time in 2015, is set to defect to the APC.
Ngerebara, while speaking on a local radio station in Port-Harcourt, disclosed that in the next few days, Ideozu, the representative of Rivers West Senatorial District, would be joining in the APC, Senators Andrew Uchendu (Rivers East) and Abe, with Wike no longer having any senator, while more lawmakers and many top officials of Rivers State Government are also concluding arrangements to move to the APC.
Rivers APC chairman said: “All through last week, there were heightened enquiries from the media, concerning the inauguration of what the journalists referred to as ‘parallel office’ of the APC in Rivers State. I want to use this opportunity to discountenance that suspicion and to clearly state that it is far from the truth.
“Let me state for the umpteenth time that APC in Rivers State is not in factions and there is no basis to even conjecture that we will ever get to that situation. There were no parallel congresses of the APC in Rivers State, from the 319 wards, 23 Local Government Area congresses to the state congress.
“Indeed, we believe that with party primaries drawing near, many aspirants to various offices under our party are already erecting campaign offices, in pursuance of their aspirations and no one can possibly fault that.
“However, it must be stated that, given the possibility that some human beings may sometimes decide to act in unconscionable manner, should any attempt be made by anyone or group of persons to cause mischief, by deliberately naming campaign office as Rivers State APC secretariat, the leadership of the party will take deliberate steps, within the ambit of the law, to ensure that such malfeasance does not succeed.”
Flag-Amachree also assured members of the public that Rivers APC is one, under the able leadership of the Minister for Transportation and himself, as the authentic state chairman.
The face-off between Amaechi and Abe, an ex-Secretary to the Rivers State Government (SSG) in Amaechi’s administration, took a dangerous dimension on August 11, as yet-to-be-identified hoodlums, suspected to be political thugs, vandalised the senator’s parallel state secretariat.
The parallel APC’s secretariat of Abe’s faction has a former Deputy Chairman of the party, Prince Peter Odike, as the Acting Chairman, while the duly-elected Rivers Chairman of APC (Flag-Amachree), is loyal to Amaechi, the leader of the party in the state and the Southsouth zone.
Amaechi, the Director-General of Buhari/Osinbajo Re-election Campaign Organisation, recently declared that the governorship candidate of APC in the state for the 2019 election must come from the riverine part of the multi-ethnic state, to ensure even development, equity, justice and fairness, since Rivers governors since 1999 had been from the upland part of the state.
Abe, an indigene of Bera-Ogoni in the upland part of the state, claimed that Rivers APC’s governorship ticket was zoned in 2015 to his senatorial district and yet to be changed, but it was immediately dismissed as a lie, by the party’s Deputy National Secretary, Chief Victor Giadom, from the same Bera-Ogoni as Abe.
Besides Abe, who was a governorship aspirant of APC in 2015, there are other governorship aspirants in Rivers chapter of the party, namely: Dr. Dakuku Peterside, the party’s governorship candidate in 2015, Tonye Cole, the Chief Executive of Sahara Energy, Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs, an oil magnate, and AkpoBari Celestine, a renowned human and environmental rights activist.
Wike’s allegations
On August 17, Rivers governor, in a statewide broadcast, called on all eligible voters in the affected communities to come out en-masse, not only to vote for the party and candidate of their choice, but also to defend their votes and ensure their votes count.
Wike said: “We have it on good authority that some failed politicians are planning to use cultists and political thugs to intimidate voters and attempt to disrupt the voting process.
“I wish to reiterate that the Rivers State Government will not close its eyes to such thoughtless acts by any person or group of persons to deny our people their God-given right to freely and fairly elect their leaders. We shall not hesitate to apply the full weight and force of government and the law on any delinquent.
“This election, important as it is, must not be taken as a do-or-die affair. I urge leaders of political parties and their candidates to advise their supporters to peacefully conduct themselves during and after the by-election.”
Rivers governor also admonished all the persons who had no business with the election process to, in their own interest; keep their distance from the constituency during the duration of the by-election.
Heavy gunshots, thuggery, violence and snatching of electoral materials, however, marred the by-election, with soldiers, policemen and other security personnel forcing residents to raise their hands on the streets of Port-Harcourt, the state capital, where the election took place.
In spite of Rivers Commissioner of Police, Zaki Ahmed’s announcement on August 17, during a news conference in Port-Harcourt that 1,500 policemen would be deployed for the poll, with the Nigerian Army, Department of State Services (DSS) and Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCSC) also providing more personnel, the thugs were undeterred, as they unleashed mayhem, with many innocent persons critically injured.
Candidates of four political parties took part in the by-election, but the real contest was between PDP’s Chiemeka Merukini and APC’s Mr. Dickens Worlu.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Rivers State, Mr. Obo Effanga, an indigene Cross River State, who earlier assured that the election would be free, fair and credible, stated in the morning of August 18 that the electoral materials were sent to all the polling units on time, stressing that he had assurances from the heads of security agencies in Rivers State that the poll would be peaceful.
2019: Will ‘Rivers of blood’ know peace?
