The political war between President Goodluck Jonathan and Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State gets worse by the day. Analysts observing the drama came out with the scenario of a pincer attack on the Governor.
On the first flank is what they see as an attempt to create anarchy, capable of leading to the declaration of a state of emergency and, finally, Amaechi’s removal. Political pundits also see a plot to cast him in the mould of a less-than-upright political figure, a state of affairs that may make him the subject of probe and possible impeachment by a state House of Assembly that would have been drained of his loyalists.
While the first scenario manifests in the manipulation of the Peoples Democratic Party Executive in Rivers State and the state legislature, the second came up in the Akure aircraft seizure drama.
On Tuesday 30 April, the Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, Otelemaba Amachree, raised an alarm over a plot to impeach Amaechi by the Felix Obuah-led Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, state executive committee. In a statement he signed on behalf of other members of the House, he alleged that a fake mace had been smuggled into the state to enable anti-Amaechi lawmakers impeach the governor (through an emergency session even when the House adjourned sine dine on Tuesday 23 April 2013) and cause mayhem, as a prelude to the declaration of a state of emergency.
Obuah was installed PDP chairman in the state after an Abuja High Court sacked the Chief Godspower Ake-led executive, a stratagem geared at whittling down Amaechi’s control of the party in the state.
The Abuja plan on ground is, according to Amachree, to illegally impeach Amaechi and create confusion through varied responses, which they hope would make the state ungovernable and provide them with some kind of warped basis to introduce emergency Rule in Rivers State. He added: “Furthermore, there are strong indications that some persons have been detailed exclusively to create systemic collapse of security in the state, putting lives and property in danger. This is undemocratic, unacceptable and a complete violation of the mandate that the good people of Rivers State have vested on us”.
Obuah, however, denied this allegation. At a press conference held at the PDP secretariat in Port Harcourt, he said at no time did he nurture or call any meeting of his executive to plan the impeachment of the Governor of Rivers State. He explained that his Executive does not have the plan to create tension in the state. “Rather my plan is to unite every member of PDP in the state. I can’t work against Amaechi. I don’t have the power to impeach the Governor. I have not come to divide the party but to unite the party as one family,” he said.
Obuah said his executive was ready to work with the Governor and would support him like any other elected public officer in the state as long as they deliver the political campaign promises made to the people and they are transparent.
What Amachree said about transparency was like a Freudian slip, a speech carelessness or physical action that is interpreted by psychologists as occurring due to the interference of some unconscious subdued wish. This wish, as political analysts submitted, is to paint Amaechi as corrupt, as the aircraft drama showed.
On Saturday 27 April at the Akure Airport, Ondo State, the Rivers State Government’s Bombardier Jet, Amaechi’s official aircraft, was delayed from taking off on the ground that it did not file its manifest, an accusation which David Iyofo, Chief Press Secretary, debunked.
What beat the imagination of the watchers of the drama is that there was a different reason for delaying Amaechi’s plane on Friday 26 April in Akure. “It was in Owerri that the pilot of our plane was first tipped off that there is a plot to ground our plane,” said Iyofo. He added that before leaving for Ekiti, the pilot went to the airport offices to make statutory airport payments and fees, file his flight plan and declare his manifest. With Speaker Aminu Tambuwal’s intervention (he was present at the airport), the plane was allowed to fly that day.
When that accusation could not hold water, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, shifted to gear two the second day. The Acting Director-General of NCAA, Joyce Nkemakol, announced the grounding of the aircraft indefinitely on Saturday 27 April, alleging that the plane had been operating illegally. According to her: “The controversial aircraft on the service of Governor Rotimi Amaechi is operating illegally in the country. The aircraft, a bombardier–BD700, Global Express, with registration no N565 RS has its clearance approval expired since Tuesday, April 2nd, 2013.” She claimed further that by NCAA records, the last flight clearance for this aircraft was approved for operation on Thursday 28 March 2013 on Accra-PH –Accra and to terminate on 2 April 2013. With this development, the aircraft has, as NCAA put it, exceeded the extra two days or 48 hours leeway for it to leave the country.
The Agency argued that while still operating illegally, the aircraft had been sighted in several places, including Owerri and Akure. She further said “The owner of this aircraft according to the certificate of registration is Bank of Utah, trustee of Salt Lake City, Utah USA. The clearance for the aircraft was sought by Cavernton Helicopters on March 27, 2013. Consequently, this aircraft in reference is hereby grounded at any airport that is located right now in the country”.
However, in her reaction on behalf of the State Government, the Rivers state Commissioner for information and Communications, Mrs. Ibim Semenitari, told newsmen that government was awaiting formal communication from the regulatory agency. “As we speak, all I have is information that I have gleaned from the media. All we have as a government is that information. No formal communication has reached us in Rivers state government. We believe that it will be best that we await formal communication from the regulatory agency,” she noted.
She said all the government documentation were in place and that the state had complied with the norms that regulate aviation business in Nigeria. She argued that the state government applied formally to the minister of aviation for the import license. That application was received in her office in September 2012. “So, we believe that all of the procedure, we have complied as best as we know. However, we do understand that the regulatory agencies are best equipped to tell us if they think there is any lapse and we will expect that the communication will come to us formally and not through the mass media. We believe that we are obligated to comply with all the regulations that govern the aviation business in Nigeria. We are a responsible sub-national and we will not defy the regulatory agencies”, the Information Commissioner said.
Just as the state government was getting to terms with the demobilisation of the Governor, other controversial issues about the true ownership of the Aircraft cropped up. Felix Obuah, the factional Peoples Democratic Party leader, on Monday 29 April, gave Amaechi a 48-hour ultimatum to explain the true ownership of the jet. He said Amaechi should also explain the identity and the role played by the Bank of Utah of U.S.A in the purchase of the aircraft and the owner of the company. Obuah asked the Governor to explain the “billions of naira expended on the aircraft or face disciplinary action from the party in the state”.
The State Government, however, gave a clarification in a press statement signed by Semenitari. She explained that the Aircraft N 566 RS arrived Nigeria and had been operating since October 2012. To qualify for N registration, an operator must, according to her, be a US citizen. Hence the state government entered into a trust with Bank of Utah Inc, a bank that specialises in aircraft trust. She added that the relationship between the state government and Bank of Utah is that of a trustor and trustee. All N registered Aircraft enjoy the privileges of a US citizen, she informed.
“Trust agreement for the purpose of N registration is common in the aviation industry. It is important to state that there are other aircraft owners in Nigeria with N registered aircraft. This practice is because of the ease of movement that N registered aircraft are privileged to enjoy. We do not therefore understand why Rivers State Government has been singled out,” it said.
On the issue of the clearance, the Commissioner argued that it was “PH- Accra- PH and not Accra PH Accra as stated,” by the Aviation authorities. Semenitari explained further that the aircraft was being operated through a local operator, Caverton Helicopters, pending approval of importation licence by Minister of Aviation. The request for this license was, as Seminitari revealed, filed by the operator on behalf of the Rivers State government and this was expressly stated in the request filed on 27 August 2012 and received in the Minister’s office on 4 September 2012.
The issue of the aircraft cropped up when the Obuah-led PDP announced the suspension of the 27 members of the Rivers House of Assembly, including the Speaker, Amachree, for their refusal to heed the 48-hour ultimatum ordering them to reverse the sacking of 17 members of the Obio-Akpor local government Council by the state government.
On Monday April 22, the 17 members of the Local Government Council, including the Chairman, Prince Timothy Nsirim, were sacked by the Rivers House of Assembly which accused them of financial recklessness and security breach.
However, the lawmakers secured a court order restraining the party from suspending them or declaring their seats vacant. The Order of Interim Injunction was granted by Justice Sika Henry Aprioku. It restrains the PDP, its agents and privies from suspending them pending the determination of the motion on notice filed. The Lawmakers have also secured the court order restraining the Independent Electoral Commission, INEC, from conducting elections to replace them as members of the Rivers House of House Assembly.
The drama in Rivers has attracted comments nationwide. The House of Representatives on Tuesday 30 April unanimously condemned the action as not only political vendetta, but a “witch-hunt of perceived political opponents”. It, therefore, directed its committees on Justice and Aviation to investigate the Akure Airport incident. The national lawmakers lashed at the executive arm and stated that its action is “detrimental to any democracy and tends towards dictatorship and draconian tendencies typical of the military era.”
Adopting a motion tabled by Ahmed Idris (PDP, Plateau), the House directed the two committees to “extensively investigate the justification and circumstances surrounding the grounding of the Rivers State aircraft and report back to the House within two weeks.”
Also, the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, in a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said the action was a political witch-hunt against Amaechi to totally demobilise him. The party said the action also amounts to gross abuse of national institutions, and expresses concern about the danger ahead for all perceived enemies of the Jonathan administration.
The party regretted that a body like NCAA, which is supposed to carry out its regulatory duties within the ambit of global best practices without political interference, in this case has now become a tool in the hands of politicians. The ACN said the inconsistent reasons given for grounding the plane have exposed the hypocrisy of those who think they could deceive Nigerians.
It recalled that the plane was ostensibly grounded in Akure because the pilot did not declare the flight’s manifest to the appropriate authorities. Then it was said that the plane’s clearance certificate had expired, hence it was banned from flying in the Nigerian airspace. The opposition party wondered how low a government could sink just to get at a perceived enemy. “The questions that arise, therefore, are: Has the clearance certificate for the plane really expired? When did it expire? Was this communicated to the Rivers State Government before the plane was grounded? If so, when, and if not, why not? In any case, would the NCAA have acted with so much alacrity if the plane had belonged to a state whose Governor has no political differences with President Jonathan?”
Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka who came to Port Harcourt because of its emergence as 2014 World Book Capital, said he is alarmed that the judiciary is being debased and manipulated by desperate politicians, citing the recent Abuja High Court judgement that removed the Chief G. U. Ake-led PDP State executive in Rivers State. “I think that the judiciary, right now, while it is trying to reform itself, recognises the fact that there are still some dark areas and I think it is the effect of the dark areas that seems to be creating a crisis in Rivers State right now…. I am just alarmed. I am alarmed that a situation exists at all where it strikes me, it appears to me that the judiciary is being manipulated. That is the impression which I had and that is an alarm which should be sounded in every corner of the nation”.
Also, Governor Babangida Aliyu of Niger State was quoted by a national daily as saying “Anybody who thinks, whether at the party or presidential level, he can clip the wings of the governors is wasting his time.”
source: pmnewsnigeria.com
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