Former President, Goodluck Jonathan
The perception in some quarters is that former President Goodluck Jonathan was Bayelsa State’s first serious participant in national politics and that his defeat has placed the state at a disadvantage in the future of national policy-making. This is a totally wrong-headed view that must be resisted by the political leadership of the state.
Apart from key figures from the past in elective politics such as the late Melford Okilo, and in military politics like Alfred Diete-Spiff, or effective operatives like former Petroleum Minister and a key architect of the founding of the state Chief Dan Etete, one of the key figures in the defunct National Party of Nigeria, NPN, was the late technocrat Ranami Abah who was that party’s National Vice-Chairman when its government was overthrown by General Muhammadu Buhari’s coup in 1983.
Abah’s legacy is one that every Bayelsan should seek to be aware of when considering the role of the state in the political and socio-economic existence of the Nigerian nation. He was an Estate Surveyor and Valuer who hailed from the small village of Otuasega in Ogbia Local Government Area near to Yenagoa, and rose to become the Chief Lands Officer of the Federation in the sixties.
After his retirement he established one of the most successful property and estate management firms in the country and then became a powerful political advocate and organiser in the Second Republic. It was Abah who devised, articulated, and developed many of the principles behind the regulations governing compensation for environmental damage in oil-bearing areas and ensured that these principles were written into Federal laws governing the exploitation of mineral resources.
In an ironic twist of fate just after the recent elections Ranami Abah’s son Enaiye Abah, the Chairman of Ogbia Local Government Council, was kidnapped and held for ransom by thugs claiming to be representatives of the Ijaw struggle for self-determination. Awareness of the historical relevance of the State and the wider Niger Delta region to the national polity will play an increasingly important part in the new order that will emerge from the outcome of the recent polls.
For this reason, if for no other, the APC will certainly target the political space there for seizure at any opportunity, and the forthcoming gubernatorial contest in Bayelsa State will certainly be regarded as a prime opportunity. Already, former Governor Timipire Sylva has raised the apprehensions of the PDP in Bayelsa State by stating openly that he regards it as imperative that he should complete the second of two terms of his truncated tenure.
The victory of his supporter Israel Sonny “Adi” Goli in the State Assembly elections in Brass Constituency 1 is therefore being touted as a harbinger of the future revival of his own political credibility in the state as well as of the beginning of the abdication of the electorate from their traditional loyalties. Any such abdication signals not a truly serious re-orientation of the state polity but the opportunism of some political actors.
Timipre Sylva
The announcement that the sitting Senator of the Eastern Senatorial District, Dr. Jonathan’s own home constituency Senator Clever Ikisikpo and the House of Representatives member for the President’s constituency Hon. Nado Karibo have declared their loyalty to the APC might shock outsiders but within the state these announcements have come as no surprise.
Both of these gentlemen lost their tickets at the last polls and even though they had been regarded for some time as being close partners with the President. However, when it was convenient they were also known to be closet Sylva sympathisers.
This situation has been compounded by the widespread perception that Ben Murray-Bruce the new Senator for the Eastern District, while being a well-respected and internationally known celebrity, does not have the local knowledge and gravitas to overcome the kind of challenge that will be mounted by the Sylva machinery.
Already, the grandson of Ernest Ikoli, the major historical hero from the Brass locality, the former Attorney General of the state Anthony George-Ikoli (SAN), angry over having lost the PDP ticket to Murray-Bruce, has filed a case in an Abuja court challenging the Senator’s legitimacy on grounds related to the allegation that he holds dual Nigerian and US citizenship.
Although George-Ikoli was Sylva’s AG he was brought to prominence as a Bayelsan citizen when Dr. Jonathan as Governor officially recognised the professional achievements of some of the state’s sons and daughters living elsewhere. The battle over the selection of the Senatorial ticket was particularly bitter and the fallout from this is now also being regarded as signalling the revival of the Sylva machinery, especially since Sylva stood as the APC Senatorial candidate in the election and lost.
Inevitably, Bayelsa’s future is either to be a solid PDP state over the next four years or to succumb to overtures from a triumphant APC seeking to consolidate its federal victory. The outcome will depend to a large extent on ways in which the incumbent leadership collaborates with the party’s elders and founding fathers to maintain its formidable machinery. There are certain leaders of the PDP in the state whose credibility remains intact.
If popular figures like former Niger Delta Affairs Adviser to Dr. Jonathan, Timi Alaibe, one time FCDA Executive Secretary and pioneer State Party Chairman Charles Dorgu, one time Deputy National Organising Secretary of the PDP Blesson Akpuluma and others of that ilk remain active in the party, especially in the rebuilding of its national image and relevance, Bayelsa could become the base for its national renewal in the same way that Lagos served as the foundation for the APC’s eventual success in spite of being an opposition stronghold for over a decade and a half.
Bayelsa is however at a disadvantage economically when compared to Lagos and its relevance and virility as the PDP’s national support base will depend largely on whether it can operate in alliance with resurgent PDP regimes in neighbouring Niger Delta states to sustain links with the party’s national support base in the other geo-political zones.
Party elders led by former President Jonathan have set up a reconciliation committee headed by former Governor D.S.P. Alamieyeseigha to examine the grievances that have surfaced as a result of the polls. This seems to indicate a growing willingness by some key leaders in the state to take the challenges raised by the new circumstances seriously.
The choice of Alamieyeseigha to undertake this task, on behalf of a party hierarchy nominally headed by King Serena Dokubo, suggests that acrimonious differences from the past have been jettisoned in the search for ways to renew the party’s relevance. There have been signs that the issue of productive governance versus the privileges of power has already begun to rear its head in the discourse over the direction that politics will take in Bayelsa State now that it has lost the advantage of the presidential imperative.
In public conversations throughout the state the nature of the Dickson Administration’s conduct of its affairs is the most prominent subject of discussion. In the run-up to May Day, for example, discussions on local electronic media focussed on the mood of the workers in the state and some highly critical and distressing comments were made about their conditions of service.
Hardly anyone, however, mentioned the most potent reasons for the downturn in the economic circumstances of the state. While all previous state governments, from Alamieyeseigha through Jonathan to Sylva, recorded a constant increase in their monthly allocation, the Dickson Administration has suffered a steady decline.
In spite of this Governor Dickson initiated the most extensive programme of infrastructural expansion of any governor of Bayelsa State so far at the start of his tenure. At the same time he is saddled with the burden of repaying a major schedule of loans taken from major banks by his predecessors. This has culminated in the most recent allotment being a mere 25% of the amount that it received in its first month in office.
Governor Dickson’s detractors are likely to use problems arising from the downturn in the state’s fortunes, caused by reasons beyond his control, to undermine his image in the atmosphere of recrimination and disenchantment that is prevalent in the fallout from the PDP’s electoral loss at the centre.
Vanguard
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