How Wike, Amaechi Turned Rivers Bloody
- Inside Details Of Messy Killings •How Wike Floored Amaechi In Fierce
Battle For Supremacy •Atiku, Govs., Others Woo Wike For Mega Party
| Though the recent audio recording uploaded and published by an online news outfit allegedly showed Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers as admitting to giving money to some electoral officials and threatening to kill them if they did not act to his instructions, it has not in any way distinguished between the “saint” and the “devil”. |
In the audio, a supposed electoral officer is heard telling Wike that officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, were being intimidated from doing the governor’s bidding. “Intimidation by who now,” Wike was heard asking.
Though no revelation has come to the public domain on how the current Minister of Transport, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, prosecuted the war to deliver the state for the ruling party, the All Progressives party, APC, the recent revelation of Wike’s alleged audio conversation gave a clue to how the ‘Roforofo’ battle was won.
Discussions at different fora by the political elites and observers have centred on how Wike managed to defeat Rotimi Amaechi of APC despite the federal might.
While some claim that APC’s permutation failed in some wards, some argue that intimidation by both parties discouraged many voters from coming out to exercise their franchise.
Those abreast of the traditional rivalry between the Amaechi and Wike, know that the bloody Saturday, December 10 national and state legislature rerun elections won by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Rivers State could not have been otherwise. The competition between the two actors has always been determined by factors such as who boasts and accuses the other better; who threatens more and who possesses a better election rigging machinery.
For the duo of Amaechi and Wike, victory is not actually determined by the number of votes secured but by who is in charge of the instruments of violence. Thus it seems to matter little how much innocent blood was shed or how many property were razed.
This perhaps is also why even though PDP won two out of the three senatorial seats and five out of the seven House of Representatives seats, Wike continues to accuse Amaechi and security agents of rigging and perpetrating violence while the latter is calling on the electoral body to cancel the election for the same reasons.
So, how did Wike outwit Amaechi? In their usual habit and antics, the two actors, backed by their political parties, had engaged each other in pre-election accusations and counter-accusations on who was preparing to rig the rerun election and perpetrate violence. Amaechi was quoted, on arriving at the Port Harcourt airport, as accusing Wike of sponsoring those who carried arms to kill people in the 2015 elections and that he was likely to repeat same in the rerun.
In his reaction, Wike was reported to have accused Amaechi of being a reckless and corrupt leader as governor in the state, alleging that although the federal government may have granted Amaechi amnesty, the people of Rivers State have not forgotten how he allegedly plundered the resources of the state to sponsor his party APC, adding that the Minister of Transport is not popular to win election in the state. While the accusations and counter-accusations raged between the duo, both of whom hail from the same Ikwerre Local Government Area of the state, the gullible Rivers electorate remained divided between the duo on who is more vocal in their personal attacks on each other. Perhaps, that largely determined the outcome of the election.
Independent investigations point to the fact that the December 10 rerun election was nothing but a charade and a disgrace to democracy as it was marred with bare-faced malpractice on both sides. Gov. Fayose of Ekiti State in his submission on the conduct of that election said: “Free, fair and credible election is dead in the country and whatever victory that is recorded by any political party in the Rivers State election will be nothing but victory at gunpoint.”
Fayose’s submission may have summarised the factors that actually determined the winner and the loser of the rerun election. Many observers believe that the election was far from free and fair.
Neither the winner nor the loser is innocent. However, it has gone into the history book of the nation’s politics that the purported words traded by these two elephants triggered a whole lot of political violence and electoral anomalies in the state. The re-run election was characterised by violence, ballot box snatching and other electoral malpractices in many of the voting centres. A deputy superintendent of police was among the five victims that died in the violence. In a related development, Wike’s “victory” has boosted his political stature. He is now being wooed by leaders of the proposed mega party spearheaded by persons like the former vice president, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. This move, the new diplomat gathered, is to secure victory for the yet-to-be-formed party in Rivers State come 2019.
