Rotimi Amaechi: a cat with nine lives

Emeka Ibemere

Two sports interest him- boxing and swimming. Among the two, swimming interest him most, apparently because, he comes from the bank of the Rivers of the Niger-Delta.

Boxing, which is also one of his hobbies, is in him just like every other man. The two skills have been able to help him in life struggles.

 Armed with these talents, he doesn’t give a hoot of where he swims; either in a pool of political controversies, ranging from oil-well boundary disputes, or in the controversial boxing ring of governors’ forum debacle, Omehia’s Supreme Court fight, and the commissioner of police Mbu’s pugilistic match, he has swum to victories more than nine times.

In all, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, born 27 May, 1965 has been able to swim himself out of the murky waters of Nigerian politics and box himself away from the box- jigsaw- politics of Rivers State and Nigeria.

He first plunged into the murky governorship waters in Rivers State when contested and won PDP's primaries for Rivers State Gubernatorial race in 2007.

His name was substituted and he took the case to the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court. After so many months of legal battle, he became Governor on October 26, 2007 after the Supreme Court pronounced him the rightful candidate of the PDP and winner of the April 2007 Governorship election in Rivers State.

 Amaechi while at the Redeemed Christian Church of God, RCCG, in Igwuruta, Ikwerre Local Government Area of the state, revealed that he fasted for 10 months, 6 a.m. to 6p.m., to become governor of the state.

He said:

“I will evangelise. I know most people will be surprised because I am not a pastor. So, in this case, I am part of the evangelism. One of the ways I have evangelised is to repeatedly tell people my past experience of God’s intervention, when I fasted for 10 months, 6am-6pm, praying to God to come down”, he added.

“That was how I became governor. I went to court. Instead of the court to say, Amaechi go and contest election, the court said Amaechi go and be the governor of Rivers State. And because I make public my experience, a lot of people now believe that if they focus on God, God will hear their prayers. So, I am also evangelising by testifying to the public about the glory of God in my life”.

“We have employed more teachers. We are doing bio-metric registration exercise and that is why we are going to pay them next month. We shall pay them by instalments until the arrears are cleared. I will continue to serve the poor; I will not compromise on service delivery.

What I want you (Christians) to do are to pray for all of us as a state so that we can come out of the crisis plaguing the peace of the state.  Please, also pray for those who have not received Christ to repent and change from their evil ways.”

Perhaps enjoying the same closeness with God, he was re-elected for a second term of four years in April 2011. 

His second missionary journey into power hasn’t been easy. Amaechi has been doggedly being in battle with the presidency over so many issues best known to him.

Amaechi, holder of the National honour of the Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON) who professes his faith through the Catholic Church is a knight of St John’s.

He is the 15th Governor Rivers State since the creation of the oil rich state. He was re-elected for a second term on 26 April 2011. Amaechi is a member of the Peoples Democratic Party but defected to the All Progressive Congress on the 27th November, 2013.

After winning the Supreme Court case, he moved on to fight another constitutional issue that borders on the state control of the local government Areas.

In 2003, when the National Assembly moved to hijack the legislative functions of the State house of Assemblies as enshrined in the constitution, Amaechi led his colleagues to Nigeria's Supreme Court. Like previous case of election, the court gave a judgment that the control and supervision of local government is the prerogative of the State house of Assembly.   

Even as the Supreme Court of Nigeria gave their judgement in the favour of Amaechi in the election, oppositions flawed the ruling of the apex court. According to them, the judgment to nullify the election of Mr. Celestine Omehia as the governor of Rivers State in Southern Nigeria was proper but they add that to install Amaechi as the new governor of the state was miscarriage of justice. They had wanted the court to call for a re-run. Amaechi’s foes quarrelled on the legality of the Supreme Court to award somebody victory in an election without contesting any election. “The installation of Hon. Rotimi Amaechi contradicts the jurisprudence of the Rule of Law and democracy”, one writer suggested.

“If the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) erred in law by the selection of Mr. Celestine Omehia to contest for the post of governor and he actually contested, then the proper judgment would be to nullify his election and not the installation of Hon. Rotimi Amaechi who never contested the gubernatorial election”.

Last week, Amaechi continued his winning streak, when the Supreme Court finally dismissed a suit filed by Celestine Omehia, a former governor of Rivers State, challenging the election of his successor, Rotimi Amaechi.

The court quashed the decision of an appeal court which gave Mr. Omehia a temporary win that suggested he may oust Mr. Amaechi after seven years in office.

In the ruling Friday, Justice Muhammad Muntaka-Coomassie, who read the Supreme Court judgement, said the Court of Appeal in Abuja erred in law to have ruled in favour of Mr. Omehia, whom the judge said had no stake in the case he filed in court.

It would be remembered that the case is the oldest election case since 2010.

Mr. Omehia was removed from office in October 2007 after holding office for five months. The Supreme Court at the time ruled that he had usurped Mr. Amaechi’s ticket for the election, and accordingly handed Mr. Amaechi the top job.

Given past court rulings on similar cases, Mr. Amaechi would have been expected to leave office or stand for a re-election in October of 2011, the same month he took office.

But the governor appeared to have opted to run in April of that year during general elections alongside other governors.

Political analysts claimed the decision was to ensure Mr. Amaechi’s election was not held after a president, in this case, Goodluck Jonathan, would have emerged in April 2011.

With Amaechi’s strained relationship with the presidency, the analysts suggested that an October election for Mr. Amaechi would have allowed the president the leverage to influence the outcome and paid him in his own coins but that never be.

The present victory was on the heels of the 2011 election, instituted by a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Cyprian Chukwu, who asked a Federal High Court in Abuja to interpret the Supreme Court judgment on Mr. Amaechi’s tenure.

The court was to specifically decide whether Mr. Amaechi can stand election in April of 2011, or should wait to the expiration of his tenure in October.

But in his ruling, Justice Abdul Kafarati affirmed that the governorship election in Rivers State must hold during the general election of April 2011.

Mr. Omehia, not related to the case, accused the PDP man, Mr. Chukwu, of being a front for Governor Amaechi; and promptly appealed to the Court of Appeal to make him a party to the suit, to enable him appeal the judgment.

Through his lawyer, Lateef Fagbemi, Mr. Amaechi kicked against the appeal arguing that Mr. Omehia had nothing from start to do with the case.

Mr. Omehia however responded that since he was a party in the Supreme Court judgment that had given the governorship to Mr. Amaechi, he was affected by the new decision and deserved to be heard. He also told the court that as a prospective governorship candidate in future election in the state, he had a stake in the matter. The Appeal Court agreed, while Mr. Amaechi appealed to the Supreme Court.

After several months of the case, the Supreme Court upheld Mr. Amaechi’s appeal and declared that Mr. Omehia had no case on the matter. The judge that read the ruling, Mr. Muntaka-Coomassie, said Mr. Omehia should not have been joined in the suit since he was not a party to the initial suit that culminated in an appeal. Mr. Omehia’s Counsel, James Ezike, expressed his dissatisfaction with the ruling, and insisted that under Section 243 of the 1999 Constitution as amended; his client was an interested party in the suit.

Mr. Omehia, he said, was “a person, who is affected or likely to be affected by the outcome of any proceedings at the apex court’’. Reacting to the judgement, the state commissioner of information, Ibim Semenitari, said. Rivers State said it was pleased with the outcome. “As a government, we believe that the court remains the last hope that we can go to. We thank God for the Supreme Court of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” Also, the state chapter of the All Progressives Congress, APC, which Mr. Amaechi now belongs, said the ruling “should serve as a warning to all those who insist on the way of the moving train known as Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi.”

Perhaps, Semenitari was referring to the state commissioner of police, Mbu Joseph Mbu as one of those prettily sitting on the rail of the moving human train; that is Amaechi and before you could spell M-b-u, he was consumed by the train through his transfer to Abuja after months of protracted fight with the state chief security officer.

After sparing him in previous transfer exercises, the Police Service Commission finally succumbed to the opposition voices calling for the redeployment of the embattled commissioner of the police.  Mbu has been severally accused of highhandness in the state. He was transferred to the Federal Capital Territory Command within days Amaechi won his election case at the Supreme Court. He was replaced by the Commissioner in charge of the Special Fraud Unit, Johnson Ogunshakin. Thirteen senior police officers were affected by the transfer exercise.

There have been allegations against the former Rivers State police boss to be a friend of Patience Jonathan, the wife of Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan. Experts linked Mbu’s removal to the threat by opposition party All Progressives Congress (APC) to block all legislative proposals by Mr. Jonathan until the political crisis believed to be instigated in Rivers State by the President and his wife are resolved.

There are reports that Mbu was a thorn in the flesh of the governor in the state because of Amaechi’s political differences with President Jonathan.

In almost all the battles he fought so far since his political foray into the Nigeria political muddy waters, he has literarily won all of them including the Governors’ forum election. Governor Amaechi allegedly won re-election as the chairman of the Nigerian Governors' Forum defeating his opponent Governor Jonah Jang of Plateau State by 3 votes.

He was reportedly said to have won 19 votes from the 35 governors present, while Mr. Jang, a late entrant to the competition and suspected President Jonathan’s anointed candidate garnered 16 votes.  Amaechi garnered victory despite all odds that were against him following his altercation with the presidency. He was also a winner again when his suspension ban placed on him by the Rivers State Peoples Democratic Party was lifted after several weeks of anti-party accusations.

The NWC, of PDP slammed an indefinite suspension on Mr Amaechi following a petition it received from some members of the party in Rivers State. However, the suspension of Governor Amaechi from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was immediately lifted by the new PDP.

The new PDP said it lifted the suspension because the order was not ratified by the National Executive Committee (NEC) after 30 days of its announcement by the National Working Committee (NWC) of the PDP as contained in the party’s constitution.

Newly elected national youth leader of the splinter PDP, Comrade Timi Frank, in an interview with reporters in Abuja said the lifting of Amaechi’s suspension is an indication of the outlook and agenda of the new PDP led by former acting national chairman of the party, Alhaji Abubakar Kawu Baraje and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.

“Today we have a new chairman in Alhaji Baraje and national leader Alhaji Atiku Abubakar that understand the party’s constitution, this was why the suspension order on Governor Amaechi was lifted in line with the party’s constitution that any suspension must be ratified within 30 days and this was not done.

Also the era of imposition of candidates is over there will be open and transparent primaries at all levels,” Frank said.

When asked if the objective of the ‘new PDP’ was to destabilise the party before moving to the Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM), he said, “This is far from the truth, there is nothing like that, the new PDP is fighting to save the party from collapse and not to destabilise it and we are sure that with the support of all Nigerians, we will salvage the PDP from destruction.”

He said he had been elected under the new PDP as the national youth leader and that his immediate goal is to rally all the PDP youth leaders across the nation in support of the new agenda of bringing sanity to the party.

Amaechi has said he is opposed to President Goodluck Jonathan because the South-south region where the president comes from has not benefitted from his administration. He also listed the poor state of the economy, the poverty rate and the poor infrastructure, especially the East-West Road, as some of the reasons he is opposed to Jonathan’s presidency.

Amaechi stated that the Nigerian economy is struggling to survive, contrary to the rosy picture painted by the finance minister. Amaechi spoke at a programme organised by the Rotary International, District 9140 for young future leaders at the Rivers State University of Science and Technology, Port Harcourt engaged the audience in an interactive session and drew responses from participants.

Delta State Governor, Uduaghan remarked that opposition to Jonathan should not come from the president’s South-south region; Amaechi stated that he considered Nigeria’s national interest far and above any other interest. He bemoaned the fact that those fighting a just cause were being maligned on the altar of public criticism, pointing out that Nigerians usually suffered for not asking the relevant questions.

Political analysts opined that Amaechi’s fight with Jonathan was more than the poor state of the economy. Observers’ point to the fact that the duo are fight on the controversy surrounding that ownership of Soku oil wells deepens between the Rivers State Government and the Bayelsa State Government. Amaechi had earlier claimed that the oil well belongs to the people of Rivers State and that Mr. President was trying to his executive power to usurp the oil-well. Collaborating to Amaechi’s claim, former Minister of Petroleum Resources and rights activist, Professor Tam David-West warned President Goodluck Jonathan who is from Bayelsa, to leave the controversial oil wells in Rivers State, whom he claimed are the known historical owners of Soku.

Professor David-West also averred that the people of Kalabari kingdom (Soku is part of Kalabari land) are prepared to fight the Presidency over the ceding of Soku oil wells to Bayelsa State at every level, stating that no part of Kalabari Kingdom would be allowed to be ceded to any other part of the country. He revealed that the Kalabari oceanic communities of Kula, Soku, Idama, Elem-Sangama and Abisse have been existing for over 300 years of Kalabari history in Rivers State.

“I thank you, Governor Amaechi particularly on what you have been doing for the Kalabari Kingdom. Unfortunately, some of our brothers and leaders don’t understand this. I know what you are going through. But, why an Ikwerre Governor should be sacrificed, for saying that, don’t take away Kalabari Communities from Rivers to Bayelsa State. Kalabari people need to go round such person and carry him high. When Nnamdi Azikiwe came to Port Harcourt, I remember, we carried him and I think every Kalabari person should be carrying Amaechi high to replicate the kind gesture. I learnt of a new word for the Oceanic communities in the Kalabari Kingdom, those are the original Kalabari settlements. So, the Oceanic communities are older than, Buguma, Abonnema and Degema. The communities called, Oceanic communities have been existing for over 300 years of Kalabari history, and over the years, our forefathers fought to maintain the integrity of the Kalabari kingdom. And, any one that is dismantling it now, whether from Borno, Kaduna, Sokoto or Bayelsa State, will never succeed. Our ancestors fought also with Canon guns to protect these territories, but, at this time, we have other implements to fight the struggle.” David-West said.

Continuing, he also explained the attempt by some Kalabari chiefs to sign a secret document to cede the Oceanic Communities to Bayelsa state as a ploy to distort facts that have genuine historical antecedents since the period of the colonial era.

 “So, I think, we owe Governor Amaechi a chain of gratitude for agitating severally that, this is my territory, I am the Governor of Rivers State and, I will not concede to cede any territory from the state to anybody. You swore by the Bible, when taking the oath of allegiance to protect the territorial integrity of the state. Let me say categorically that, I have nothing against President Jonathan, but, I hate the style of his leadership and I have no apologies for it. Let me say also that, I will not support somebody who wants a political office because he is an Ijaw man, but will only support such person, only when that person is good. I remembered that, President Jonathan was schooling at Imiringi at his young age, when I was a serving commissioner in Rivers State. I am not against him, but, I am particularly against everything about his government and leadership, especially, his style of divide and rule system. He will not succeed. I have told his brother who is a fantastic engineer to tell President Jonathan that, I will not pull him down, but, if I see people pulling him down, I will not stop them, because, he is not doing well.”

 Amaechi assured the people of the Oceania communities that his administration would work towards the completion of all ongoing projects as a means of showing government presence in the area, and further urged the people to vote out PDP in 2015 to get back their oil wells from Bayelsa State. According to him, “The question you should ask yourself is; where are we going to? And what you need is to vote out PDP in 2015, and be assured of getting back your oil wells”, Amaechi said.

Rotimi Amaechi was born in Ubima, Ikwerre Local Government area of Rivers State to the family of late Elder Fidelis Amaechi and Mrs Mary Amaechi. He had his early education at St Theresa's Primary School from 1970 to 1976. He earned his West African School certificate in 1982 after attending Government Secondary School Okolobiri. Chibuike received a Bachelor of Arts degree (honours) in English Studies and Literature from University of Port Harcourt in 1987, where he was the President of the National Association of Rivers State Students (NURSS).

He completed the mandatory National Youth Service in 1988. He thereafter joined the Services of Pamo Clinics and Hospitals Limited owned by Dr. Peter Odili, the former Governor of Rivers State where he worked until 1992.He is married to Judith Amaechi and they have three boys.

Rotimi Amaechi cut his early teeth in politics as secretary of the now defunct National Republican Convention in Ikwerre Local Government Area of Rivers State. From 1992 to 1994; he was Special Assistant to the Deputy Governor of Rivers State and also a member of the Board of West Africa Glass industry as well as Rison palm Nigeria Limited. He was the Rivers State's Secretary of the Democratic Party of Nigeria (DPN) caretaker committee after in 1996 during the transition programme of General Sanni Abacha junta.

Speaker (Rivers State House of Assembly) 1999-2007

In 1999, he contested and won a seat to become a member of the Rivers State house of assembly to represent his constituency. He was subsequently elected as the Speaker of the house of assembly. Amaechi was elected the Chairman of Nigeria's Conference of Speakers of State Assemblies. He was re-elected back into the State house of Assembly in May 2003 and was also re-elected as the Speaker.

Though the battle line has been drawn in 2015 between Amaechi’s APC and Jonathan’s PDP, but the winner isn’t yet known. Should Amaechi win Jonathan in 2015?  The answer lives in the womb of time.

Charles Anike, Eastern Union (EU), President General said Amaechi’s Pyrrhic victory is for some time but that the presidency shouldn’t underrate the governor because as he would put it, his ‘cow is strongly tied to a strong tree’. He advocated for a total reconciliation between the two brothers.

 “Let’s think and recall our history”, he stated. Those who were used in the past to fight their brothers were later disappointed and even killed by those who used them; I don’t want to mention names but we know what happened.  President Jonathan needs our support and corporation”, Anike advised.

He said Amaechi’s Pyrrhic victory at the Governor’s Forum election and APC membership was a warning to Jonathan’s camp and for the people of South-South and South-Eastern people, as it could cause the zone to lose power to other zones in the 2015 election.

According to him, Politics is a serious business and very dynamic, so Jonathan must reach out and not rely on the assurances of those who have opportunity to work with him. Power of incumbency and all that may not stand this time around, what the Presidency need is to re-strategise his plan of action.