2019: As PMB, Amaechi prospect for encore

THE Yoruba proverb - omoinalianransi ina - transliterated as - it is the child of fire that we send to fire - quite explicates the philosophy behind the 2014 appointment of Rotimi Amaechi, who was then Rivers State governor, as director general of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Organisation. His task was to coordinate the electioneering onslaught by the party’s candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, against the sitting president and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2015 presidential election, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan. Although, the assignment was writ-large delicate, Amaechi’s choice was, in the context of strategic politics, in apple-pie order. What it intended to achieve was to unsettle Jonathan’s re-election gambit from within the enclave of his south-south zone. It was a creative and precise strategy that required the commitment of a gutsy politician to accomplish. Amaechi’s acceptance of the job was audacious and emphatic of his resolve to act against the run of play in the huge battle by Jonathan and his southsouth allies to retain the presidency in the zone.

To be sure, Jonathan’s presidency approximated the political patrimony of the southsouth zone. It was a novel reality-largely a product of an act of God and an affirmation of the same in the 2011 presidential election via a nationwide consensus - that shattered the myth that it was impossible for the minority group to appropriate presidential power in Nigeria. That reality was, however, short-lived and the oppositional momentum that resulted in that terminal earthquake bore the coordinating and operational imprimatur of Amaechi. The decision by Amaechi to serve as the arrowhead of the huge oppositional movement to deny Jonathan (read south-south zone) a second term in office did not receive the approbation of the geopolitical region. And that was understandable. Regardless, the Ikwerreborn politician was single-minded on the electioneering that eventually resulted in Jonathan’s 2015 historic electoral defeat. Amaechi remains one of the protagonists in the story of the making of the Buhari presi- dency. As director general of the presidential campaign of the APC, a rainbow coalition against the Jonathan presidency, he was the power house of the crusade while Buhari was the face. Despite the seemingly perfect oppositional configuration that the APC typified, Amaechi’s role in the campaign was, without a doubt, precarious. He, however, did not care a hoot. He had crossed the Rubicon in his grudge fight with Jonathan.

The fight had worsened when, as chairman of the Governors Forum, he decided to spearhead the forum’s campaign for the sharing of $1 billion ECA fund saved up in the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) and the savings in the ECA to enable governors use their shares for infrastructure development and/or other issues of public importance in their respective states. The Governors Forum had gone to the Supreme Court in 2011 for judicial intercession on the matter, forcing the Federal Government to propose an out-of-court settlement. For Amaechi, all gloves were off. On its part, the Jonathan government was ready to engage him bare-knuckles. One of the onslaughts resulted in the factionalisation of the Governors Forum. Attempt to stop the re-election of Amaechi fell through. The governors loyal to the presidency decided to nurture a factional leadership with Jonah Jang, then governor of Plateau State, as chairman. Amaechi continued to chair the forum of 19 governors that voted for him while Jang chaired the forum of 16 governors whose votes he got. The incidents supra formed the bases of the bitterest political battle ever fought between a sitting president and a sitting governor from the south-south zone. The battle resulted in the defection of Amaechi on the wings of the new PDP to the APC. There were reports that the intrepid political navigator went for broke by heavily funding the opposition movement that swept off Jonathan from the presidency.

He made the risky moves despite that the PDP was well rooted in the south-south zone, especially in Rivers. He operated from a position of disadvantage. Ojeifo,anabuja-basedjournalist.