Pentecostal pastors who perform miracles on television have an urgent situation to tackle. It will be most welcome, if all of them gather and pray to fast-forward time, so that 2015 can come –in 24 hours! The heat about that year is becoming unbearable. Nothing else, outside 2015, appears to matter in the country.
Some seven governors from Rivers, Jigawa, Kano, Adamawa, Kwara, Niger and Sokoto States have since signed off from their primary responsibility of administering their respective states. They are on a frenzy tour of the country, to tell so-called elder statesmen and ordinary folks that Goodluck Jonathan is not good enough to return as president in 2015. And they are dead serious.
Their strategy includes weakening the PDP platform, so that Jonathan cannot stand, firmly, on it to launch himself into 2015. They have succeeded, significantly, in that regard. Today, the PDP does not yield to a uniform description. The party has two faces: one old, the other new. The governors, with their compatriots, including, of course, the Turakin Adamawa, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, a regular in the presidential contest since 1999, represent the new face. The old face does not require introduction because it comprises whatever is left of the mainstream, and it is defined by the faces of President Goodluck, Chairman Bamanga Tukur and Chief Tony Anenih. Some people are alleging that former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Ibrahim Babangida are a dangerous mixture of the ancient and modern PDP. That is not important for now.
The serious issue is the cost of the 2015 battle. Outside the G7, other governors, who are not fighting in the frontline, as such, are also signing off on governance. In fact, some quarters are threatening to declare Emmanuel Uduaghan and Godswill Akpabio missing from Asaba and Uyo, since the outbreak of the PDP rebellion on August 26. Both men are, reportedly, working round the clock in Abuja to refurbish the old PDP and make it good to take Jonathan through to 2015. They have been enjoying sideline support from friendly states.
Meanwhile, the seven governors, who are also called rebels, are living up to their description. They are sliding, gradually, from deploying conventional approach to guerrilla tactics. And they are getting the desired attention. Rotimi Amaechi, who mans the South-south front, staged a successful attack in Port Harcourt, recently. He said the police in the state blocked the route to Government House and thereby physically prevented him from reaching his home. The planning was complete.
Next day, the impunity of the federal government regarding the happenings in Rivers State was the debate. In Lagos, the point was re-echoed by Governor Babatunde Fashola, who described the incident as the height of impunity. Everybody was saying President Jonathan has got drunk again with power and it wasn’t fashionable to say something different.
Fashola, who was born and bred in Lagos and went to University in Benin City, may not be at home with the geography of the Garden City. Amaechi was saying that the police knew he was going to Government House through that route and they blocked the road to deny him access! As a lawyer and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), for that matter, BRF could very well take his client through a cross examination before making a submission.
Two things happened: the blocking of the route and the arrival of Amaechi.
Question One: Which happened first?
Answer: The blocking of the route.
Question Two: Was there a reason for blocking the route?
Answer: Yes! The police explained that it was done to forestall breakdown of law and order, following the opening of the secretariat of the new PDP on that route, first against a subsisting court order, and then fears that members of the old PDP might mobilise and storm the secretariat in a showdown.
Question Three: Was it possible for Amaechi to reach the back gate of Government House Port Harcourt, without passing through the trouble spot?
Answer: Yes, it was possible. The governor only needed to move a little further and veer off to Olumeni Street to reconnect Forces Avenue, and then move straight to Government House without any hassles. There are, in fact, many other routes besides the troubled spot to the so-called back gate of Government House Port Harcourt. This is apart from the main entrance on Azikiwe Road.
But because there was a cheap point to score about 2015 and the undemocratic tactics of President Jonathan, Amaechi, like the eagle, and against wise counsel, chose to ride the storm to his nest. Even the President of the United States will negotiate his way to the White House, if there is any suspicion of a hitch on Pennsylvania Avenue. And that is the rule worldwide. Nobody deliberately courts trouble to underscore his or her prowess.
It is like Governor Fashola coming from Ikeja Bus Stop and not able to connect his office in Alausa through Allen Avenue, Aromire or Lateef Jakande because there was a blockade on Awolowo Road. As you can see, Fashola did not conduct diligent analysis before descending into the arena of battle to fight alongside Amaechi.
It is all because of 2015.
Having laid it bare, I should add that that what I am preaching is cold morality, which has no place in warfare. Every means is good on the battlefield. The attack was clinically delivered and the casualty, in terms of the plummeting image of the federal government, was enough to provoke in the opposition a good laugh. It adds up something to the opposition’s preparation for 2015, while it takes away from Jonathan’s. In fact, the attacks will increase with the countdown to 2015.
Another attack was planned and hatched at the National Assembly Complex in Abuja, immediately after the Port Harcourt incident. As always, the purpose was to steal limelight, while presenting Jonathan and the Presidency in bad light. The seven governors and their co-travellers went to the Assembly to proclaim the new PDP and make a point about their burgeoning strength. But the Abuja attack was not as successful because the old PDP, maybe, got an inkling of what was coming and put up a counter attack that presented the rebels as trouble makers. While they had a smooth audience with the Senate leadership, their attempt to address the House at a plenary session was rebuffed. They were told that resolution of intra-party crisis was not part of legislative duties and they should go back and make up with the old PDP.
The airwaves have been, relatively, still, as the old and new PDP continue with their nocturnal meetings to create a common ground. The endless meetings in Abuja also mean the absence of most of the PDP governors and, by extension, the suspension of governance in their states. And most likely, the ugly trend will continue until all the issues regarding 2015 have been fully determined at the centre and in the 36 states.
The rebels have, reportedly, laid many conditions for ceasefire, chief of which are: the sacking of Bamanga Tukur as national chairman of the PDP, the resolution of the Rivers State crisis and the withdrawal of President Jonathan from the 2015 presidential contest.
Jonathan has neither said yes nor no to 2015, even as the deadline set by the PDP Board of Trustees (BoT) chairman, Chief Tony Anenih for him to do so expires by month end.
This is where we are.
In the matter of the 2015 elections, the President is taking instructions more than he is giving. He has been handed a range of options and people are waiting for him to say something. Whatever he says or does not say is very critical to the calculations of both his friends and enemies. He is taking his time, but he does not have all the time to make a simple decision on whether to be or not to be in 2015. He is in a tight corner. Lambasting him on every score is rapidly growing into a national pasttime. The opposition has even dismissed his transformation as transgression against the people. And that branding appears to be sticking, as he and his team do little to straighten the impression.
Yet, 2015, which is inducing all this heat, is still some time away. Even The Boko Haram insurgency is strongly tied to 2015. The crisis in Nassarawa State also has something to do with the inability of the contending groups to invent a political formula that will make everybody happy in the years ahead.
Can we stand the heat without hurting ourselves, or sacrificing this hard-earned democracy?
This is why we need a miracle.
Abraham Ogbodo
