Amaechi’s reckless and irresponsible power-grab diatribe, by Femi Odere

“No matter how long a log stays in the water, it doesn’t become a crocodile”—-a Bambara proverb from Mali. 

The above epigraph speaks to what can at best be described as questionable the leadership credentials of Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, despite his many years at the apex of the political leadership of the Nigerian nation as a governor and federal Minister.

Without a doubt, Mr. Amaechi now qualifies to be among the relatively young generation of the country’s leadership league that began in this political dispensation in 1999 till date.

For starters, Mr. Amaechi was the Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly for eight years (1999-2007).

Despite the monkey wrench thrown at his primary electoral victory by former President Olusegun Obasanjo that truncated his participation in the consequent governorship election of his state, his primary electoral ticket having been gifted his cousin, Sir Celestine Omeiha by the same Obasanjo, Mr. Amaechi fought to the Supreme Court from where his palm kernel was cracked for him, thus making him the executive governor of Rivers State for two terms of eight years. The man from the Ikwere extraction even became Primus Interpere among his colleagues as they made him the Chairman of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) during his tenure.

Mr. Amaechi’s political career didn’t end with his attainment of the highest political office in Rivers State as a governor despite his lackluster, uninspiring, and unedifying leadership in the Oil State. His governorship outing was yet to completely end when he readied himself for a bigger role at the federal level where he would paint his own image on the nation’s central political canvas.

First, he was made the Director General of the then Presidential candidate Mohammadu Buhari of the APC. Second, he became the Minister of Transportation of the lethargic and uninspiring gaunt General from Daura in his unsung eight years in the saddle.

Mr. Amaechi may be currently temporarily retired from partisan politics but he’s hardly tired, having lost out in the 2022 APC presidential primary contest in which now President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was the victor.

Mr. Amaechi’s greatest problem—-like many of his compatriots who found themselves in the different layers of the power corridor and stayed there for very long—-is his illusion of possessing the right and inspiring leadership qualities through his longevity in the corridors of power.

Judging from his deeds and utterances, it can be safely concluded that Mr. Amaechi lacks the presence of mind to know what leadership truly entails. It can even be a delusion of some sort that he may already put himself in the league of leaders like Harold Dappa-Biriye or Melford Okilo.

Aside from his exaggerated sense of self-importance, Mr. Amaechi believes, and erroneously too, that he’s imbued with the leadership qualities that a nation like Nigeria needs to in order to attain its developmental objectives either because of what he did in the past or said (both past and present) as exemplified by his jaded, inchoate, unexampled and uninspiring accomplishments either as a state governor or a federal Minister or his interrogation of issues of national importance.

Mr. Amaechi is fast becoming a veteran not only in subterfuge but also glibness in the way he cavalierly, and in a simpletonian manner, drops words with appalling gullibility unexpected of someone of his status and political pedigree.

For instance, as a governor during an interview, Mr. Amaechi said he hated money when he was asked about his net worth. One may never know why he came up with such a senseless answer. Perhaps he wanted to be seen as frugal or to ingratiate himself, although mischievously, with the gullible hoi polloi in the polity.

The other time was when, in an attempt to prove to the electorate that he was ready to lead the nation in the runup to the 2022 presidential primary Mr. Amaechi jogged around the Port Harcourt stadium also in an apparent but misguided mockery of Tinubu’s alleged frailty who was his co-aspirant for the APC ticket. But Tinubu responded with an answer that could be described as an “upper-cut” that the job description of a president doesn’t include engaging in intermittent boxing matches or the lifting of cement blocks or something along that line.

At a recent conference tagged “Nigeria’s Democracy: Pathway to Good Governance and Political Integrity,” Mr. Amaechi took his glibness and juvenile interrogation of issues of national importance—-which are beginning to be his trademark—-to ludicrously dizzying heights when it was his turn to express his views on the topic.

Hear him, “None of you here seated can defend the votes. If you have complained… Nigerians have been clapping for you. The only way Ibrahim Shekarau became governor was because people lined up.”

“It happened in Ghana before the election of the last president. Two days, a lot of us were called to intervene. But why did they do that? The people were ready to die. You are talking and abusing everybody. Nobody has power and will give it to you, not even me. If you want a pastor as president, go and get one.”

“The politician is there in Nigeria to steal, maim, and kill to remain in power. If you think Tinubu will give it to you, you are wasting your time.”

While it should be noted that Mr. Amaechi and most of his co-travelers at the event do not have the right frame of mind or leadership credentials to strengthen anything, let alone democracy, having demonstrated unmitigated failure in their previous positions, there’s no contention that he made an incendiary statement that should necessarily attract his interrogation by the country’s security establishments.

The statement, talk not of its incoherence, speaks to the pedestrian mindset and juvenile disposition of the former governor and former minister.

He had hardly made any statement that could be interpreted as trying to find a lasting solution to the myriad of the country’s problems or enobling or commensurate to his previous political antecedents since his loss to President Tinubu in 2022.

Perhaps more importantly, Mr. Amaechi, as his previous glib talks already suggested, lacks the presence of mind to recognize the fact that he has inadvertently indicted himself when he said at the event that “the politician is there in Nigeria to steal, maim, and kill to remain in power.” As a veteran politician who has straddled different levers of power, deductive reasoning can be made from the statement that there was a higher probability that Mr. Amaechi may have stolen, maimed, and even killed to have attained his leadership positions. A self-indictment cannot get any dire than that.

Mr. Amaechi’s thoughtless jab in which he said if anyone thinks that Tinubu will willingly relinquish power, that person might as well be described as “Waiting for Godot” flies in the face of an electoral contest in which Tinubu scored the highest votes and met other constitutional electoral requirements that today made him the president that he now wants Nigerians to upturn and die for. Nothing gets any more reckless and irresponsible than that.

While no one expects Mr. Amaechi to be among the last rump of the “Mohicans” to give the deserved credit to President Tinubu and accept the fact that the president won fair and square, he should desist from painting the president’s usual refrain that “power is not served a-la-carte” in a negative light. The president’s common refrain cannot, and should not be equated with goading and encouraging extrajudicial means to acquire power. President Bola Tinubu, since becoming a politician, has always deployed legal and constitutional means to redress any infringement on his rights or leadership (and oftentimes won), even when others used outright political brigandage and patently unconstitutional means to ride roughshod on those rights. He has never asked the Nigerian people to rise and die if need be because of his quest for power.

Mr. Amaechi’s recent criminal statement, which he had made similar statements in the past, attests to his inconsequential national electoral value, not to talk of his vain and empty leadership qualities; hence, his suggested resort to acquiring power through violent and unconstitutional means should be roundly condemned.

Methinks it’s high time Mr. Amaechi and other politicians of his ilk who equate their longevity in the corridors of power without the corresponding leadership skills should be permanently retired from politics to allow those who are imbued with the requisite leadership credentials to mount the stage. Representative democracy is a game of numbers. If Mr. Amaechi truly believes he has what it takes to lead the country—-which is now glaringly in doubt—-he should be articulating thought-provoking views and ideas and not expounding some asinine and provocative statements that truly border on idiocy.

-Odere is a Public Affairs Analyst based in Abuja