Jonathan vs. Amaechi: …And the cold war lingers

Last week, the Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, was in the news, apparently rekindling the old friction between him and former President Goodluck Jonathan.
He accused the ex-President of being responsible for the backwardness in the Niger Delta region “as he did not do anything for the region while in government.”
Though this attack on Jonathan is fresh, it has followed in set pattern since the duo began their cold war in 2013, a disaffection that had resulted sometimes in bloody clashes between forces loyal to the two politicians from the Niger-Delta.
The scenario was made worse during the 2015 general election when Amaechi teamed up with the opposition in a mega party that became known as the All Progressives Congress to oust Jonathan as President.
But Jonathan also got a reprisal through the victory of his candidate, PDP’s Nyesome Wike over that of Amaechi, Dakuku Peterside, in the rather bloody Rivers State governorship election.
Although the actual cause of their disagreement could not be ascertained, observers said it was not unconnected with power supremacy.
But while the ex-president said there was no friction between him and the minister, noting that the altercation was between his wife and Amaechi, and that the reconciliation moves he fostered were futile, Amaechi debunked the claim.
The minister, while admitting that he was at loggerheads with Patience, the former president’s wife, said Jonathan was not saying the whole truth, noting that there were also disagreements between him and the ex-president while the latter was in office.
The former Rivers State governor attributed the cause of his grudge with Jonathan to “illegal and excess deduction from the federation account” by the former president.
He said, “I could not surrender my mandate to a woman (Patience) in Abuja, even if such a person was the wife of the President…that basically was my sin with Dame Patience Jonathan. If in one year, you took about N300bn from the federation account to pay for subsidy and the next year, you are taking almost N2tn for the same thing when fundamentals had not changed, then serious questions should be asked.
“And as NGF (Nigerian Governors Forum) chairman, it was my responsibility to ask those questions and Jonathan took them personal.”
Amaechi’s rift with the former president further deepened following the feud with Patience Jonathan at Okrika, the home of the former First Lady.
Mrs. Jonathan had visited her hometown in a reception led by the ex-governor. But their disagreement came following plans by the ex-governor to demolish some buildings close to a primary school under construction, to create more space for the facility. Mrs. Jonathan, however, opposed the demolition move.
Amaechi in his words, while he was a governor, said, “The other aspect is the Okrika story when she visited. Like I said, as the governor, by protocol, I will receive the President and you know that the President is not just our President, he is the head of the nation but when the wife of the President came, I went to receive her at the airport and she slept in Port Harcourt.
“The next day, she came up with a programme that was not part of the official programme, and what was the programme? She wanted her people to receive her in Okrika. There was no plan; there was no protocol arrangement, nothing. We just had to quickly arrange protocol to take her to the place. But to do that, we wanted to also show her, as part of her own programme, not our programme, the projects we had done in
Okrika.”
He added, “So we took her to the Rufus Ada-George ring road in Okrika, which we started and completed and then somewhere, we saw a health centre and a primary school and I said stop, let me show her this health centre. We looked at the health centre, and we were satisfied.
“At the primary school, there were houses around the primary school too close for comfort, no football field, no playground, no space at all around the school and I turned to the wife of the President and said, ‘Your Excellency Ma, we have not finished with this building, we would buy the houses that are surrounding the primary school and demolish
them’.
“Once she heard the word ‘demolish’, the wife of the President flared up and took the microphone from me and started all sorts of diatribes that I won’t mention here for the respect I have for the office of the wife of the President. When she finished, I felt that it was wrong to confront the wife of the President publicly. When she finished, I withdrew and went away.
Corroborating Amaechi’s stance, the ex-First Lady, while in office said, “This matter started as far back as four years ago at Anyugubiri in Okrika when I begged him not to demolish a part of Okrika, but [that he should] dialogue first with the people.
“After that that day, he called the chairman of Okrika (local government) and sacked him for holding a reception in our honour. That boy was the first victim. He also put my people on curfew for nine months. I called him and pleaded with him but he refused. Then I began to hear all sort of propaganda in the media against me. This is not the way.
“Amaechi is my son, I cannot fight him and I cannot kill him. He shouldn’t be used by outsiders against his own blood because this seat is vanity. One day, no matter how long it takes, we will leave this seat. Power is not forever. This seat is vanity, others sat here and left, so one day I’ll also leave and we will meet at home. So why should I fight him? Let’s take it easy, face issues, leave non-existent matters, stop magnifying lies and respect our leaders and people in authority. Let’s give peace a chance.”
The altercation, which has since left Rivers State politics polarised, culminated in escalating violence, as the Amaechi faction and Jonathan camp continued to tussle for
supremacy.
Rivers State before now had been noted for relative peace. But the lingering feud between the two political bigwigs in the state has informed perpetual upheavals recorded in volatile areas across the state since the brawl began, most observers
have noted.