The tragic drama that took place in Delta State last Wednesday captured the brutality of politics, particularly when interests are at play.
The most painful of the episodes was the one that involved Ifeanyi Okowa, former governor of the state.
That particular day, Okowa dealt the unkindest cut on the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). It was least expected. But those who are familiar with the story of Julius Caesar and the treachery of Brutus, his closest friend, would understand that Okowa only played to type.
Shakespeare’s play, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar depicts Caesar’s last words as ‘Et tu, Brute?” which translates to “You too, Brutus?”
On the day that Caesar was brutally murdered by those he considered his kitchen cabinet, there was one man he never believed in his wildest imagination that could raise a finger against him. That man was Brutus. He, it was that dealt the finishing thrust in Caesar.
While the other buccaneer friends so-called, were thrusting their swords in any part of Caesar’s body that caught their fancy, the dying Caesar spotted Brutus, who by this time was not facing Caesar but backing him with his cruel sword ready to do the unthinkable. Caesar reached out to him, and held him, looking for a shield and protection, but Brutus turned to him, and in a fiendish look that terrorized Caesar, thrusted the dangerous weapon into Caesar. Before he breathed his last, Caesar gushed out some disappointing words…Et tu, Brutus? (You too, Brutus?).
The history of the current crisis threatening the life of the PDP cannot be written without Okowa’s name featuring prominently. The then governor of Delta State was among the Southern governors that insisted that power must return to south in 2023 after the eight years of Muhammadu Buhari.
The then governors had held a number of meetings in Asaba and Lagos on that very issue. But Okowa was to break the rank when he accepted to be the running mate to Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president from Adamawa State.
Many said it was a hypocritical move and he was accused of treachery. At that time also, some members of the party had favoured the then governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike as Atiku’s running mate, but that could not fly. That disagreement festered, leading to the barefaced rebellion by Wike against the party.
Although he did not and has not left the party, Wike has successfully ensured that the PDP has not made any progress. He is believed to have planted moles all over the place in the party, and is allegedly providing the ruling party the fuel for the ceaseless conflagration in PDP.
Since after the election, Okowa has been very quiet. He has not been vibrant, and nothing much has been heard of him until late last year when the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) arrested him over alleged diversion of N1.3trillion.
Sources said that although the former governor had insisted he was not afraid of being investigated, he began to seek a soft landing, which culminated in the defection; perhaps, having been assured that “insurance covers him” in the broom organisation.
His ditching the PDP and joining the APC to meet Wike and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, against whom he teamed up with his presidential candidate to stop in 2023, can only speak to the nature of politicians as having short memories.
Dumping the PDP that is still writhing in pain of the wrong decision (in his favour) in 2023 is an unkindest cut like that of Brutus!
Governor Alia, observers are watching!
Governor Hyacinth Alia of Benue State has been putting the wrong foot forward in the matter of continued massacres in his state.
A Reverend Father of the Catholic Church hue appeared to read politics in everything and makes statements that tend to portray him as being economical with the truth.
Recently, the governor drew the ire of many right-thinking members of society when he barred Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 general election, from entering Benue to commiserate with brothers and sisters who were grieving over the massacre of their loved ones.
There is no Nigerian who is not saddened by what is going on in Benue. Many people thought that the killings would abate with an All Progressives Congress (APC) governor in the saddle. But it seems the situation has worsened.
A cleric-governor was expected to show more tolerance than career politicians, but that is not the case with Alia. Was he thinking about the election already? Was he afraid that a visit by a politician from another political platform could pose a threat by just coming to his state?
Alia, a Catholic priest before mounting the saddle as governor of Benue, is celebrating that he blocked his brother in the same faith from visiting the traumatised.
Peter Obi had just visited Plateau State, where he was received by Governor Caleb Mutfwang, a non-cleric, but he ran into a roadblock when he dared to visit his own brother-in-the-Lord.
While not speaking for Obi, it is important to point out that the former Anambra State governor remains one single individual that has shown manifest commitment to the work done by the Catholic movement in Nigeria.
The Benue State governor said that Obi did not inform him that he was coming. But the Labour Party leader had explained that he tried unsuccessfully to reach the governor directly but decided to go through his ADC.
“I tried repeatedly to contact the Benue State Governor directly without success. I then successfully contacted his ADC who told me that the governor was in a very important meeting and would call me before midnight on the same day.
“Unfortunately, I didn’t get that call until Sunday evening when he sent me a message stating he had not been able to reach his principal since the day I called. I was disturbed by how an ADC would not have been able to reach his principal for 3 days,” Obi said.
But while speaking on a television channel, Alia accused the Labour Party leader of violating standard protocols by failing to inform him ahead of his visit as courtesy demands.
“A very respected Peter Obi was a governor. If you are coming into someone’s state, there are protocols. Very high personality; you are coming into someone’s state, and your party does not even know you are coming.
“I, the sitting governor, did not know you were coming. Then you are going into where I’m protecting even the most, the IDP camp. It’s my duty to protect them. They’ve been displaced. I need to protect them even some more. I don’t know the intent you have,” Alia explained.
He added, “Is it not courteous enough for me to know as a sitting governor and even to provide more security to you and prepare the minds of the IDPs that a guest is coming to visit them?”
He also denied that he was unreachable when the former Anambra called to inform him of his visit.
“No, that’s not the right narrative. I can never politicise that. I’m the one bearing the brunt, pain and sorrows of the IDPs in my state. No. That’s not the true story. If he (Mr. Obi) couldn’t reach me, I have a chief of staff, I have an SSG, and I have a PPS. That’s not true,” Alia said.
So, is Alia trying to say that Peter Obi, a former governor, did not know the protocol of reaching a governor, or what?
Well, whatever may be his reason for instructing the former governor not to venture into Benue State, it is in bad taste, particularly when the state is bleeding, needing all the assistance it could get.
Governor Alia also made a serious verbal error when he said that the terrorists attacking Benue did not resemble Nigerians, claiming that they come from Mali, and are usually armed with AK-47 rifles.
The governor, who surprised many Nigerians by coming up with his verdict, said: “Let’s have the narrative very correct. We know Nigerians — by our ethnicities, we can identify a Fulani man, a Yoruba man, a Hausa man — we know them. Even the regular traditional herders, we know them. They work with cows, herding with sticks.
“But these folks (the attackers) are coming in fully armed with AK-47s and 49s. They do not bear the Nigerian look. They don’t speak like we do. Even the Hausa they speak is one sort of Hausa.”
According to him, “It’s not the normal Hausa we Nigerians speak. So, it is with the Fulani they speak. There is a trend in the language they speak, and some of our people who understand what they speak give it names. They say they are Malians and different from our people. But they are not Nigerians — believe it.
“This is the second phase we are seeing. The initial ones were with the traditional herders. The traditional herders — we had fewer troubles with them. What we are experiencing has a new, different, strange face, and it’s now alarming,” the governor said.
Well, whether the invaders are Nigerians or foreigners, it is a failure on the part of government not to protect the citizens. There is no justification for the carnage being recorded in Benue.
Was Alia trying to please anybody? Was he speaking tongue-in-cheek? Why was he shying away from calling a spade by its proper name? Now that the governor has found out that the killers are aliens; the question is, what next?
For Nigerian politicians… no emotions!
Politics is purely business. Those who play it throw away conscience. It is a business where everything is fair and good. If opponents are trampled under feet and they lose their breath in the process, it is regarded as a game.
The Nigerian brand of politicians easily forgets friendship cultured and nurtured for many years whenever the heat is on them to jump ship. They trumpet about service for the greater good of the people, whereas in their innermost being, self-interest is the overriding drive.
Ambrose Bierce, American writer, described politics as “a strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles; the conduct of public affairs for private advantage.”
That is why when they come to the people during electioneering campaign, they consciously spew out lies, knowing that whatever they promise would end on the soap box and have no long lifespan after election.
When they come with branded products, such as rice, onions, tomatoes, garlic and beans, even loaves of bread, they know they are making an investment that yields handsome returns.
John Webster, English dramatist, said: “A politician imitates the devil, as the devil imitates a cannon; wheresoever he comes to do mischief, he comes with his backside towards you.”
The rate of defections by politicians is motivated by self-protection. Politicians have no parties so to speak, what they have are platforms that get them what they want at any material time.
After the 2023 general election, politicians elected on the platform of Labour Party (LP) were being looked upon as puritans who would bring sanity and do all within their powers to purify a system that everybody believes needs sanitization. Sadly, they were the first set of people that began to ditch their party when they began to receive special messages in their “email boxes.”
Before Nigerians knew what was happening, these LP senators and House of Representatives members went quiet. They neither raise any issue nor contend against issues that are anti-people. They have since adopted a survivalist strategy of “see nothing, say nothing.
Today, those politicians who won the 2023 general election on the platform of the LP, People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Young Progressives Party (YPP), New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), Social Democratic Party (SDP) are running to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) because of self-preservation.
None of those from the so-called opposition is sustaining whatever ideology they claimed to stand on during the electioneering campaign. In fact, critics allege that they are the loudest “ayes” voices whenever Godswill Akpabio and Tajudeen Abass, Senate President and Speaker, House of Representatives, respectively want to have their way in the chambers.
The Delta coup
What took place in Delta last Wednesday should be taken for what it is- pure political survival! Governor Sheriff Oborevwori had ceaselessly denied he was nursing an ambition to empty himself into the APC.
He had also in the process accused the press of bad report in that regard. That is their stock-in-trade. Any time the media open to the public what seems a secret, political actors would label such reports as false and go ahead to claim the reporters were either paid to malign them or are working for the opposition.
Today, the world can see who was telling the truth. Such denials are swelling in some other states. A sitting governor of an opposition party the other day approved the re-election of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu two years ahead of the election. Such a governor is as good as a spy in the PDP family as long as he remains there, bodily!
Now, on the tsunami in Delta, the question that has been ringing in many people’s ears since Wednesday, has been, what motivated the exodus in a state that had been a PDP fortress?
Many people have also attempted answers, saying it could be that a bet had been dangled before the governor that he could not resist. Part of that bet could be an assurance for an easy ride to re-election, given the manner of elections in the country nowadays.
Some others pointed at a possibility of coercion using the unguarded moments of the governor. Perhaps, he may have been found to have some bleating goats at his backyard and the powers that be in Abuja are torch-lighting the dark spot. Could it be that the only option to extricate himself is to join them so that his sins could be forgiven? Too many permutations and hallucinations!
Again, when the news broke that all the machinery of the PDP has moved to the APC, many Nigerians began to drink Panadol for the imagery headache of the leadership of the APC in Delta, particularly the likes of Ovie Omo Agege, who had been building the once-unknown party in the state.
With the way parties are run in Nigeria, where a sitting governor in the state is the leader of that party, it has become clear that Governor Oborevwori has automatically assumed the leadership of the APC in Delta pushing down those who had laboured to make it attractive. Talk of the treatment of the biblical Prodigal Son vis-a-vis his (loyal) elder brother!
But one thing about these defections and the barber’s chair style of politics in Nigeria is that it is ephemeral, like everything else on the planet earth.
Before the 2015 general election, Chibuike Amaechi led about four other PDP governors and some members of the new PDP (nPDP) to join the APC. They fought against the umbrella party and ensured that it lost the election. Today, some of them have either fallen out from the broom party or are “party-less” as in the case of Amaechi.
Before the 2023 election, Nyesom Wike led four other governors, under G-5 to work against the party, while staying inside the party. The continued crisis rocking the party is their making. Today, they are like caterpillars living on a tree and destroying the tree. Observers say that tomorrow is pregnant!
