Immediate past governor of Rivers State, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, is seen as the most popular politician in Nigeria at the moment, and this may have come out of misfortunes that turned right. Others say he is unwittingly made by enemies.
Nature may have been the first attacker to dare the child, Chibuike. Most persons from his generation lay claim to golden spoons in the mouth right from birth, but he usually says he has even no wooden spoon in the mouth. He loves to retell how he had no hope of making it to college let alone university. His Diobu background seemed stuffed with sleeping with seven others in his dad’s chemist shop to wandering in the nearby government reserved areas (GRA) where he was chased by barking dogs away from juicy mangoes.
Nature and circumstances still waylaid him at the University of Port Harcourt where he read Linguistics. He has always drawn tears from his listeners when he would ask if anybody recalled one young man that was known with ‘one shirt and one trouser’, which he said he washed and dried under the fan every night. He fought all of these battles and escaped with victory to become a graduate.
In the university, he said he saw injustice everywhere he turned. He began fighting here and there until he became known for ‘aluta continua’, always in struggles. He became a students’ union leader under the vibrant NANS (National Association of Nigerian Students). He still tells tales of how they mobilised from Port Harcourt to Lagos and Abuja against the military or against every single perceived act of oppression. That is why even some of his close associates say he is more of an activist than politician. Even as governor, Amaechi was always criticising “The Government”, wondering why people were not carrying placards against ‘Government’ decisions. He always ‘yabbed’ anyone especially journalists who praised him where he felt he did not achieve something, such as in areas water, sanitation, etc.
After graduation, it is not clear if he was the one that went to politics or it was politics that went to him. What some Ikwerre elders managed to reveal is that an elder took him to a politically exposed medical doctor, Peter Odil, the then chief medical director of PAMO Clinic, on Aba Road in Port Harcourt. The Ikwerre elder was said to have asked the medical doctor to “look after this boy for us”. Odili was said to have looked the young man over and later engaged him as a public relations officer (PRO), perhaps, the first and last person to hold such position in a clinic anywhere in this part of the world.
This is how Amaechi cut his proverbial political teeth. His test was to dethrone the man popularly called the Bulldozer of Ikwerre and Rivers politics, Sergeant Awuse, who decided the fate of any Ikwerre person. Amaechi was to snatch the Ikwerre into the then unfolding Odili political camp that took the oil state by storm, the fragments of which still rule Rivers State. Amaechi with his fearlessness accepted this challenge and did it to become the biggest political force in Ikwerre and now South-South. While on this task, he made many enemies, within and without.
After serving as personal assistant to Odili and later Ada George (Odili’s boss), then brief governor of the state), Amaechi came up to test his own grounds by contesting the position of House of Assembly member in 1998. Odili won as governor but Amaechi lost the election. Sources then said he was being punished for daring Awuse in his den, he was trying to be a new cock trying to crow in the presence of older cocks. He also lost all the way through the election tribunal till the Court of Appeal where he eventually won and was sworn in.
His prize was the crown of speaker, not just ordinary House member. This re-enforced his position in the Odili political ensemble as the undisputable prince of the empire and heir-apparent to the governorship throne. The obviousness of his being the next governor brought tons of enemies who shot all bullets at him. This led to his candidature being withdrawn due to ceaseless petitions to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the same way it is today.
This crisis brought seemed to draw out Amaechi’s real character as a stubborn activist who could reject orders from a mentor or godfather. While therefore, others were winning and governing, he went on self-exile and in courts till five months into his ‘usurped’ tenure when the Supreme Court ordered him to take over. Thus Amaechi became (probably) the first man in a democracy to win an election he did not contest.
His second tenure was easy to win but difficult to complete as most of those who helped him into office took turns to attempt to dethrone him. He had to run through the court rungs till the Supreme Court saved his tenure in 2014 over a case that sought to prove that he had no right to go for a second term based on the circumstances of his first tenure. For this reason, Amaechi survived by the whiskers; on monthly basis, from the cases in court and from other obstacles allegedly thrown at him from Aso Rock and other rocks.
Amaechi finds it hard to win but seems to win big when it comes. As House member, he eventually did two terms; as Speaker, he did two terms and was crowned as Speaker of Speakers. As governor, he did two terms and became governor of governors (chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) and perhaps the most influential governor.
To do second term, heavens threatened to fall. Aso Rock was said to have said over their dead body and allegedly issued a contract to stop him. Amaechi won, to the embarrassment of many important Villas. His thus became the most controversial NGF tenure, even if it was full of victories for the states until the cloudy rancour over 16 and 19, which was greater.
Now that it is time to be made minister, a post he was handing out like snacks to others, it has become the fiercest battle after that of the Presidency. His screening at the Senate has become the most controversial and most talked-about political issue in the country, if not on the continent. The cabinet would be underlined by what Amaechi did or failed to do; and in fact, the cabinet could be about Amaechi and the rest ministers. The controversy could turn him to a ‘super-minister’ in the coming years, just as he was a super House member, super speaker, super NFG chairman, super opposition governor, super DG, etc.
Amaechi too seems to aid the growth of thorns on his path. Many of his former allies who jumped ship said in politics, compromise was important; hierarchy of loyalty line must be respected. He was fiercely blamed for rejecting his master’s appeal to stand down in the court cases against Celestine Omehia (his kinsman who took the mantle when it fell off). Others also say Amaechi refused to unite the Odili political family after his victory at the apex court. He was accused of seeing everyone who remained in the Odili camp as enemy and devoted his eight years only to those who left his mentor’s camp. They say he missed a fantastic opportunity to heal the wounds in the family and unite the camp, a platform that would have come handy now. They say it is the division he created in the Odili camp that is hurting him now.
Amaechi is also blamed for leading the revolt and dethronement of the first Niger Delta son to be president. Besides, Rivers is an in-law state (home to the former president’s wife), and so, many believed that that no matter what, Amaechi would have deferred to Jonathan or should have heeded the counsel of the fictitious ‘Unoka’ that one should not use his hand to kill a child who calls him father.
Amaechi however, has many strong reasons for defying his former camp and for resisting Jonathan, and he has severally put across these reasons, but whether the explanations were accepted or not have been proved in the screening wars.
Box this
-Fought against deprivation to get educated up to university level
-Suffered defeat in the House of Assembly election in 1998, also suffered defeat at the tribunal but eventually scaled through at the appeal court
-Had K-Leg at his governorship struggle in 2007 but won victory at the Supreme Court
-Faced hard battles at the NGF but defeated the presidential force at last
-Faced Aso Rock tanks to end his tenure as governor
-Faced persecution for two years from the South-South/East to dethrone his kinsman as president
-Now faces political armoured tanks on his way to ministerial stool
-What next could be in the offing?
Ignatius Chukwu
