Nigeria: Rivers Of Blood

By Chuks Iloegbunam

“When you use soldiers to kill, just to win a rerun election, just know that you will need the same soldiers to protect you while in of­fice. Or else, INEC will conduct a bye-election to fill your seat.” Sena­tor Shehu Sani.

*Gov Wike Nyesomof Rivers State

Looking at the weekend’s charade generally referred to as rerun elections in Riv­ers State, the profundity of Senator Sani’s statement strikes with the force of brutal truism. How come that a broad segment of Nige­rian politicians carry on with the mentality of creatures who possibly feed through their anal cavities? The imagistic representation out of Rivers State is a vast canvass of mindless violence by the two domi­nant political parties in contention. What was the objective of all the wantonness – a State Assembly to make laws for the living, or a fune­real conclave for cemeteries?

The following front-page story in the Sunday Sun of March 20, 2016, is entitled Rivers of Blood: Election Rerun Turns Deadly: “NO fewer than 10 persons, including one Immigration officer, were killed in yesterday’s Rivers State. Also, two National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members working as ad ­hoc staff were abducted at Abual Odua. But they were later rescued at 5 pm, by a team of mobile police­men.

“Meanwhile, heavy shooting marred voting in Abalama Town, in Asari-Toru Local Area. It was during the sporadic shootings that a bullet hit the Immigration officer.

“Sunday Sun gathered that some thugs had stormed the RAC centre and shot sporadically, after a disa­greement between supporters of two major political parties.

“Also, four persons were feared dead in Ogoni, in Rivers South-East, following late arrival of voting materials, which created tension in the senatorial district.

“Also, a soldier allegedly killed a young man who came out to cast his vote at Rumuokwuta area of Port Harcourt. In Nonwa, Tai Lo­cal Government Area, a voter, simply identified as Tombari, was shot dead by some hoodlums who stormed the area. The victim was said to be on queue, waiting to cast his vote before he was shot dead. Another person was also feared killed in Eleme, while two persons were reportedly killed in Abual/Odua and Ahoada West Local Gov­ernment Areas, respectively.

“Meanwhile, security men ar­rested over 32 persons for various offences. Of the number, 18 were arrested for being in possession of military uniforms and electoral ma­terials.”

 

President Buhari and Rotimi Amaechi

Other media houses reported stories. Elections were postponed in Abual/Odual, Andoni, Bonny, Eleme, Gokana and Khana. Dy­namites were used to blow up the INEC office in Gokana. Many swore that the so-called INEC ad hoc staff were, in fact, militants. The sum to­tal of this mess is that INEC proved incapable of conducting rerun As­sembly elections in one of the coun­try’s smallest states of just 319 wards and 4442 polling stations.

Nigerians must not pretend that the cause of this maelstrom is unknown. The Judiciary stands accused. A document was pub­lished by elombah.com, which was neither denied nor refuted, and which showed that the APC con­sidered the victory of the PDP in oil-producing states in the last gen­eral elections as “a national security risk.” What followed, therefore, was a wholesale nullification of guber­natorial and Assembly elections on grounds that called to question the sense of justice of the courts and tribunals that handed down the verdicts. Abia, Akwa Ibom and Riv­ers gubernatorial elections were not sorted out until the Supreme Court attended to them.

The Hon Justice Muazu Pindigi made a public statement to this ef­fect: some unknown people and some Security personnel offered him bribes that he refused. He was invited to curious meetings that he declined. What followed was his abrupt removal as the Chairman of the Rivers State governorship peti­tions tribunal. A country seriously fighting corruption will not sweep this grave matter under the carpet. Those judges and courts that abuse their privileged positions and sa­cred mandates to negate justice, what becomes of them? Who takes responsibility for the lives needless­ly lost on account of their iniquity? Do they retire ever after to happily enjoy the filthy lucre from their miscarriages of justice?

Further, what does it portend to flood the military in towns and vil­lages, intimidating voters, arresting many and shooting some? Does this promote democracy? Does it promote amity? Does it chart a proper way to a life of fulfillment for Nigerians?

To introduce President Muham­madu Buhari. What is his sense of the bloody developments in Riv­ers State? President Buhari knew that Nnamdi Kanu, the arrowhead of the media campaign for Biafra, holds two passports – Nigerian and British – but had arrived the country using neither. If he knew so much on a minor matter, what information was fed him by the Se­curity and Intelligence services on the Rivers reruns?

The multitudes that swear by Buhari index their incessant oath-taking on the man’s straightfor­wardness. But personal virtue does not abide in itself alone; it does not begin and stop with the person that is its embodiment. If someone is a saint, his best friends and closest as­sociates cannot and should not be assassins, pedophiles, looters and incorrigible election manipulators. Perforce, the grace of the virtuous rubs off on all those around, es­pecially on those that are subordi­nates. This is the point: Unless, the style of the military was all along misunderstood, it must be assumed that if the Nigerian Commander-in-Chief expressly forbade the involvement of men and women under arms in electoral manipula­tion, that became the law cast in stone! How did President Buhari pronounce in the matter of the run of election reruns that have left an avoidable trail of blood?

Someone laughed at the conster­nation expressed on the political desperation in Rivers State. He thought it should have been obvi­ous that the idea all along was to topple Governor Nyesom Wike, a man sworn to “expose” his pre­decessor’s plundering of Rivers’ patrimony in order to bankroll Bu­hari’s presidential campaign. The Supreme Court saved Wike from the spectre of a gubernatorial re­run, he argued. Therefore, it was imperative that one of two enact­ments should come into force. The one was to douse Rivers in a sponge of blood and, by so doing, utilize Federal might to impose a State of Emergence, an effective way of forc­ing Wike from office. The other was to seize a majority of the seats in the State House of Assembly, and then employ the sledgehammer of impeachment to achieve the same purpose of making Wike’s tenancy of the Rivers Government House defunct.

The one extrapolating couldn’t explain why not even one of all those killed for nothing is remotely related to either of ex-Governor Amaechi and Governor Wike. He didn’t claim not to have heard of karma, which natural law makes people to reap what they sow. How could life have become so meaning­less in Nigeria that any number of citizens may be cut down in order that politicians may grab power? How could Senator Sani’s wisdom be out of range to politicians? How could they miss William Ralph Inge, the English educationist, who said that, “A man may build himself a throne of bayonets but he can’t sit on it”?

*Mr. Chuks Iloegbunam, an eminent essayist, journalist and author of several books, writes column on the back page of The Authority newspaper every Tuesday. (Email: iloegbunam@hotmail.com)