Amaechi is not a slave to any party – Okocha

AUGUST 17, 2013  

Tony Okocha

The Chief of Staff, Rivers State Government House, Mr. Tony Okocha, in this interview with CHUKWUDI AKASIKE, speaks on the political crisis in the state

The state lawmaker that was involved in a fracas in the House  was detained by the police. What is your reaction to this?

I had the opportunity of speaking with one of our colleagues, who accompanied him (Lloyd) to Abuja to honour the invitation by the Inspector-General of Police. The information I have is that what is a little worrisome here is that there was a case of two fighting. One would wonder why it is only the leader of the Assembly that was invited by the police and not a man who was seen telling the world how he dealt heavy blows on Chidi Lloyd and other members of the Assembly. Everybody saw this person greeting his people. But we are surprised that he walks the streets of Port Harcourt; he walks the streets of Abuja without anybody arresting him.

Who in particular are you talking about?

I am referring to Evans Bipi. He is one of the protagonists.

But Bipi has said that he is the current Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly.

I refuse to recognise him as such. He cannot build something on nothing. If he tries to do it, then it would amount to illegality. So, we don’t recognise him as such.

The crisis affecting the state has lingered for a long time. You are a stakeholder in Rivers politics. Don’t you think the crisis should have come to an end?

Largely, the matter is getting this protracted because of external interference. Even in the papers, I read where (Dr. Doyin) Okupe (Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs) was talking about how peaceful Rivers State was. Okupe said if Rivers State was not peaceful, the governor would not have summoned the courage to attend to an official assignment that had been booked for a long time in far away UK. Now, you can see clearly the hands of people, who do not belong to Rivers. The preponderance of what you see in Rivers State; the crisis in the state is based on the belief in some quarters that Rotimi Amaechi, the (Governor of Rivers State) has an ambition to run for the office of the vice-president. Even as an elementary school pupil, you know that nobody runs an election to become the vice-president. The vice-president is actually a running mate to somebody. The governor is just being persecuted for nothing because he has continued to say he has no such ambition. But it is just about persecution and some people trumping up charges here and there.

The South-South leaders recently met in Abuja and they issued what looks like a warning to Governor Amaechi to leave the Peoples Democratic Party or be forced to leave. What is your comment on this?

I think I read a piece on that and I am not surprised that the group was led by Chief Edwin Clark and Nigerians know what E.K. Clark represents. That group is not a genuine South-South group. It is a group that is led by E.K. Clark and E.K. Clark, as far as I am concerned and with all due respect, appears to be surrogating for President Goodluck Jonathan. For whatever it is worth, I keep telling people that the governor has not told me that he will support Goodluck Jonathan or he will not support him. I am also not aware that President Jonathan has indicated an interest to run for any election. It is just political jobbers here and there who want to protect their jobs that are crying more than the bereaved. The truth is that they are crying more than the bereaved.

But certainly, there is this feeling that there is pressure on the governor as a result of the lingering crisis. Do you think the governor should leave the PDP?

No! The governor is a founding member of the PDP. As far as we are concerned, you can see that governance in Rivers State has been on. The whole essence of what these people are doing is to distract him so that he is not able to deliver on his electioneering promises and provide the dividends of democracy to the people of Rivers State. But he (Amaechi) will not be distracted; he is hale and hearty. The business of administering the state and serving the people is on. Talking about living the party, the governor is not a slave to any political party just as he is nobody’s slave and he has said it times without number that he is a strong member of the PDP, who has contributed immensely to the development of the party. If you have a governor who is performing and of course as a candidate under a political party, what the person is doing more or less is showcasing the party. People are moved to join the party if a member of the party is able to deliver on the dividends of democracy to the people.

You are talking about the governor’s performance, but the situation at the Port Harcourt International Airport, where some youths protested during the visit of four northern governors to Rivers, appears not to have portrayed what you have just said.

Let me tell you what some people do not know. First and foremost, what you saw that day was a show of shame. Fortunately, I was at the airport that day much earlier even before the governor took off from Abuja. He was not in Port Harcourt; he travelled; he went on an official assignment before he heard that his colleagues (governors) were coming to visit him. So, he had to hurry down to Port Harcourt. So, I had to go to the airport to receive him and I was there much earlier. What happened was that some of the people you saw at the airport were merely procured without knowing what they came for. I got there early and I saw a lot of them carrying banners with inscriptions; ‘GDI Okrika,’ ‘GDI this, GDI that,’ and I called one of them to know what was happening and he told me that that morning they mobilised them and told them that some members of GDI were coming back from America and they wanted them to receive these GDI members.

But just five minutes before the governor’s aircraft touched the turf, I heard a terrible noise outside and I saw people carrying placards and I asked a journalist to go and check what was happening. I told myself that it could be possible that workers at the airport were protesting. But when the journalist came back, he told me that he read the inscriptions on the placards and they were anti-Amaechi. They were procured. Now, what happened was that only the few of them, who knew, prepared the placards in advance and when the governor and his guests came, they began to display the placards. To tell you how laughable it was, women who did not know why they came were even waving at the governor when they saw him because they were innocent and never knew what they came for.

But many Rivers people believed that peace was coming. Apparently, the incident that took place at the airport fuelled the crisis.

The issue is, was it responsible enough for a people to begin to rain abuses at governors who came to show solidarity with their colleague? Are they in other words saying that the governors don’t have their freedom of movement? Are they saying that the governors do not have the right to say this is the chairman of our governors’ forum and let us go and ask him what is happening in his state? Have we turned to a banana republic, where people could take the law into their hands? I am surprised that up till now, not even a soul has been invited by the police for that act.

But the PDP in the state supported the protest at the airport?

That is to show you how uninformed they are. That is to show you how indecent their minds are. That is to tell you the awareness level of the leadership of the PDP. For whatever it is worth, these are chief executives of other states. Luckily, when they came here, they did not even talk. They only met behind closed-doors and came up with a communiqué.

Do you think the crisis in the state has anything to do with the alleged withdrawal of security operatives from the Government House, which you head?

That is another dimension that ordinarily will make one to think and ask that what is actually happening. The security details were sent by the Federal Government. Of course, you know that we are not in control of the police and army. They were deployed in the state just like it is done in other states and all of a sudden, the same people you have deployed and given the assignment to protect the governor were withdrawn. What does that portend? It portends danger. There is fear of the unknown. I am the Chief of Staff of the Government House and I recall that the day the colonel came to withdraw the soldiers, the man told me that he was under a superior authority and that he had been detailed to withdraw the soldiers. The next day, they took away the Armoured Personnel Carrier that was in front of the Government House. Another one that was right inside the Government House was also taken away. Now, we are living at the mercy of God.