In recent years, each time Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi celebrates his birthday, his erstwhile political ally, Nyesom Wike, now his bitterest political opponent and hate-wisher, would come into the celebration with vitriolic arrows. The birthday would end up as Wike versus Amaechi warfare and diatribes. Many say when Wike would celebrate his, it would come and go in peace.
Amaechi’s birthday use to be signposted by the fact of being born same day with his state, Rivers, being May 27. Then, something of value added when his information commissioner, the well-known Ibim Semenitari, who also marks hers on May 27, emerged on the scene. BBoh would drown any other personality born on that day around the Niger Delta.
Each year, Amaechi would say something about his private life but Wike would jump out to denounce it, the supporters would line behind each personality.
Amaechi vs Wike
Many outside the Niger Delta may want to know the exact relationship between these two patent sworn political enemies. Amaechi is Ubima in Ikwerre LGA of Rivers State, Wike is from Rumuepirikom in Obio/Akpor LGA of same state. By this, they can be called kinsmen.
Amaechi is 60 years while Wike is 57, so one is the other’s elder brother. When Wike was Obio/Akpor LGA chairman, Amaechi was Speaker. So, many say Wike did not have serious relationship with the governor at that time, Peter Odili, who actually was Amaechi’s boss and Amaechi was regarded as member of Odili family. So, Wike relied on Amaechi to access Odili, so to say.
It was openly said that Odili never wanted Wike to make it to second term, and that it was hotly debated between political father (Odili) and son (Amaechi), but son had his way. Another narrative however, emerged when Amaechi was no longer in Wike’s good books that it was Mary Odili who Wike ran to when his name disappeared for LGA seat to get Odili to get back the name.
Read also: After Amaechi @60 events: Rivers APC faction hails Nigerians for ‘recognizing true leadership’
Amaechi eventually became governor with Wike allegedly playing a big role when he (Amaechi) was in exile. Wike eventually became Chief of Staff to Amaechi in Government House in Port Harcourt. Later, Amaechi nominated Wike for minister allegedly against President Goodluck Jonathan’s request for a female to please the wife. At last, Jonathan bowed but gave Wike position of a junior minister (of Education).
Wike was to manage his way up to become not just the main Minister at a time but the arrowhead of the Jonathan presidency. He took the advantage to be the choice of the presidency for governorship candidate in the Rivers State Government House as desired by the then first lady. That was how Amaechi who was exiting lost the chance to influence his successor and thus, lost the political control of Rivers State to this day.
With the machinery, Wike was governor for two terms and singlehandedly decided who got what to this day, until “rofo-rofo” broke out between him and the ‘son’ he installed, Sim Fubara, leading to a state of emergency. Many say Wike’s problem at the moment is ‘overwinning’. He also boasts of making Bola Ahmed Tinubu president by not only ‘bringing’ the Rivers result but the results of the other four PDP states under the G-5 that helped Tinubu to pip Abubakar Atiku to Aso Rock in 2023.
It is also believed that Wike had quietly teamed up with Tinubu soon after Amaechi left office and became Minister of Transportation under President Muhammadu Buhari to give Amaechi heat for eight years so he would not get home support. Amaechi had fled the party he inherited from Odili who inherited it from Marshall Harry, now late (and AK Dikibo and Tonye Graham-Douglas, both now late) to help Tinubu form the APC that eventually wrest power from Wike’s PDP. Wike was to ensure that Amaechi did not eat the fruit of his efforts because it is Wike that is now calling the shots in Rivers APC though still a member of the PDP.
It was believed that Wike planted men in the APC (Amaechi’s party) to keep the party busy with itself till Wike’s party won everything every four years and deprived Amaechi the strength to put up a big fight in the APC Presidential primaries in 2022. That seems to be the last straw that broke the camel’s back in their relationship and it is said to be what made Amaechi to refuse to accept nor respect the outcome of the primary. He turned his back on the Tinubu presidency and remained so to this day. Wike moved in and took that space, and became Tinubu’s right-hand man and the owner of Rivers State in the APC headquarters, though still in the PDP. For instance, he took the ministerial slot of the APC and gave his arrowhead, Tony Okocha, the slot of Rivers State Representative on the NDDC board, and has been sharing out all other slots and favours to his followers while the main APC looked like an orphan in their own party. This is where things stand with both kinsmen.
His lifestyle:
Anyone who cared to listen would hear how Amaechi grew up with seven siblings in Diobu where his father had a chemist shop while they had a living place in a nearby yard. He has not stopped telling the story of how his nights were in the shop. Diobu can be the Ajegunle of Lagos.
His young life was not shaped by Diobu alone but the fact that Diobu shared boundary with the Old GRA where the VIPs lived. He said on their way from school, they always stoned mangoes at the GRA and their big dogs would come chasing the naughty pupils. He formed the impression that big dogs protected the big while the kids protected themselves in their own areas. That lesson did not leave the young Rotimi.
More importantly, the Diobu-GRA relationship honed his perception of the relationship between the rulers that live in GRA and the ordinary people that stay in Diobu: the difference in schools, houses, water system, surroundings, etc.
Whereas other young minds craved to be one of the big later in life, his young mind rejected the segregation and craved for power to create equality. That seemed to shape his political philosophy. He thus, began early to chase power, not to amass wealth or for love of money but to bring to the ordinary people all those things the people in GRA (rich) enjoyed. This could explain what they today call Amaechi schools, Amaechi clinics, Amaechi bus-stops, Amaechi scholarship, Amaechi tablets, etc.
He knew why the poor worship the rich and sell their birthrights- hunger. This gave birth to fish farms, the N3.6bn Songhai Farm, the Etche farm, Banana Plantation in Ogoni, and other massive agric projects so food would chase the poor instead of the other way round. He saw that the rich sent their wards abroad to acquire the best education and come and lord it over the children of the poor, so he created foreign scholarship scheme that sent children of the poor abroad, too. He seemed to have a madness to create equality in all things.
To create jobs, knowing it’s the biggest craving of the poor, he boosted power supply so industries can run faster. He abrogated community disturbance on investors and building projects so development could run faster. He created the Greater Port Harcourt City Development Scheme to gulp N800bn in eight years at the rate of N100bn per year to open up the state capital. He began the ambitious N150bn Monorail project to join both cores of the old PH and new PH near the international airport where he began with a new stadium and the core of the state’s university. He created a road to link the new city to the sea at Onne Port called M10 Road to cut off East-West Road.
So, while many though he was doing mere politics of development, they did not know he was actually pursuing politics of equality.
His politics
Amaechi loved to tell the story of his days in the University of Port Harcourt. He said he had one shirt and one trouser, and soon, he was known as the boy with ‘one shirt, one trouser’. He said he would wash it at night and wear it next day, every day. But, he has a character. Where others would be intimidated by their background, he was rather rebellious against it. The background seemed to embolden him to challenge the rich. So, he was soon a character in NANS (National Association of Nigerian Students), which seemed to be the grooming ground for radical and progressive politics. He thus met the admiration of the father of radicalism including Claude Ake and Wole Soyinka. Those who know him deeply say that could be why he connected later in life with Buhari instead of Jonathan or Tinubu.
So, when he says he does not love money, he seems to attract attacks and derision. His close associates say what he means is that money is not his driving force in politics, unlike some others who he said worship money and could do anything for it. But, does he use or have money, some of us cannot say Amaechi does not have some money. A man said of Amaechi: Money serves some people, some people serve money.
Yet, Amaechi is known to have his own faults. Wike pointed at one. He told newsmen in his first 100 days in office when he enjoyed interactions with the PH press that Amaechi was eager to do everything so they will say he did all things. He said Amaechi had a weakness for power point presentation, and he would immediately add a new project. “Do some things, finish them, go and allow others to come and do theirs.”
Amaechi appears daring, and that brought him good and bad. Before he came on the political scene, the political leadership of Ikwerre and the upland areas was with Sergeant Chidi awuse from Emuohua. Amaechi worked with Odili to upstage that grip as Amaechi became speaker for eight years. Both men worked to make Odili the new political leader. Many Ikwerre people did not like it. When Wike rose, he reconnected that line of bitterness against Amaechi and seemed to sway back the Ikwerre from Amaechi.
Those close to Amaechi say he assumes a lot and over trusted. They say those he refused to tame are those now enjoying the empower he built. He is being blamed for siding Buhari against Jonathan but many refuse to hear him out: that Jonathan issued fatwa on his head; that Jonathan stopped every project coming to Rivers; ceded Rivers oil wells away; stopped Rivers security helicopters, that Jonathan wanted him out of Nigerian Governors Forum, etc. So, it was survival battle he was fighting.
One other factor many point to is the karma reigning in Rivers State. They say Odili hit at those who made him in Rivers politics and that karma promised to pay him back; they say Amaechi hit at Odili who made him because when Odili asked him to drop the case against the party, he refused and drew battleline; they say Wike is hitting at Amaechi who made him, to keep karma true. Now, they say Wike is seeing pepper from Fubara that he completely made. So, is it Amaechi at fault or karma at work?
Conclusion
One important point is debatable! Is Amaechi finished or he still has fire in him in Nigerian politics. Is he Igbo or Ikwerre? Is he south-south or south-east, in case presidency slot comes colling.
What is true is that his popularity on the streets of Port Harcourt and in most communities in the Niger Delta is soaring again. They now seem to know who truly loves Rivers State and Niger Delta more.
