This is why Nigerians shouldn’t join in the fight. We must pick up our fight for the liberty of this country and reverse those tendencies that have continued to bring us to our knees. We must realise that our divergence is only artificially created by these purveyors of greed who lack conscience but always use divisive tendencies to tear us apart and making ethnic irredentist out the people due to the nature of the toxic political atmosphere created by our political elites.
There is never a North and South dichotomy with Nigerian political class, but only occur in the fragments imaginations of the mass of the Nigerian people. So, let not be hoodwinked by the agitation of rotation of power to the south or the north. It is a political gimmick or game that comes up each political cycle and dies off after it and only to surface in the next political recycle and that is why it is difficult to a place where lie the interest our the Nigerian politicians whether for it is for national cohesion or their private interest as individuals but the fact is, they belong to the same tribe and group. It doesn’t matter if they are from the South, or the North and Muslim or Christian. They are one of a coin.
The Merriam Dictionary describes “tribe” as a social group comprising of numerous families, clan or generations with slaves, dependants, or adopted strangers. Let us take particular notice of slaves and dependants – and that is how politicians view the rest of us. The same dictionary also described the “group” as people who have the same job description or common interest. There is bipartisan consensus when it comes to looting, exploiting, and sharing the nation’s treasury, but the same politicians withdraw to their tribal cocoon when they lose out in the power struggle equation. So, politics carries tribes across the divide. They use region and religious sentiments to divide you when they want power but can’t you use the same to hold you in unionism when in power. You are either the exploiter or the exploited, the used or the user. The politicians are the users while the rest of us are the used or the exploited.
Now, I am bringing up this on the recent faux pas put up by Governor Nysemo Wike of Rivers State and Minister for Niger Delta, Godswill Akpabio throwing jabs at each other in the day time and they made us believe that there is a fight between them because of party difference but by the cover of the dark, the two sat to wine and dine and making banter.
The duo, exchanged verbal incursions on party politics while attending the official inauguration of a Police Protection Unit facilities built in Port Harcourt, Rivers State by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
In a report by The Nation Newspaper, it was Akpabio who stirred the hornet’s nest when he cited the crisis in the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the reason why we would not join other party bigwigs to appeal to Wike to defect to the APC.
Addressing Wike, he said: “I will not join others to lobby you to the APC. We have enough problems in the APC already”.
The Minister, while later alluding to the encomiums poured on Wike by Tunji-Ojo following his performance in Rivers, however, made a U-turn saying he could only declare Wike a performing Governor if he joined the APC.
To Wike, he said: “Because you are not yet in APC, I won’t call you a performing Governor. When you come over to the APC, I will call you a performing Governor”.
But Wike, who spoke immediately after Akpabio, wondered why the Minister turned the inauguration into a political campaign.
The Governor, juxtaposing the crises in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the APC, said he would not leave “where there is malaria to a place where there is cancer”.
He said: “I thought we came to inaugurate this project. I didn’t know Akpabio will turn it into a political campaign. I prefer to stay where there is malaria to where there is cancer. Malaria is treatable but cancer at the fourth stage is not treatable. I don’t want to die now”.
Wike, who refused to acknowledge Akpabio as a Minister in his order of protocol, referred to him as a former Governor.
He said Akpabio enjoyed the title, uncommon when he was a Governor under the PDP.
He said: “Akpabio, you became uncommon Governor under the PDP. You are not uncommon under the APC. Come back to where you became uncommon. Or would you say you are uncommon now as a Minister?”
But later the same day the duo was seen in yet another short video of about 10 seconds in the night wining and dining in their usual “language of how they will grab power and hold on to it”.
This is always their modus operandi pretending to be at each other throats but behind the scene, it is a different ball game where they trade and bargain for what suits them. They are never in short supply of agitations using regional and religious colourations to woo sentiments but once they have gotten what they want they retreat to the tribe and group. That is why often they cajole us the citizens pretending that they are on our sides using divisive and acrimonious statements to tear us apart meanwhile they belong to one group and tribe.
It is very convenient for them to be for or against power rotation now but virtually all of them carried the sentiment before they grabbed for or against. A particular Governor in the southern part once said “I don’t believe in the rotation of power in his state “. He then thwarted the arrangement and grabbed power but now he want the rotation of power at the centre. What can be more hypocritical than this?
This is why Nigerians shouldn’t join in the fight. We must pick up our fight for the liberty of this country and reverse those tendencies that have continued to bring us to our knees. We must realise that our divergence is only artificially created by these purveyors of greed who lack conscience but always use divisive tendencies to tear us apart and making ethnic irredentist out the people due to the nature of the toxic political atmosphere created by our political elites. These are people without conscience and whose currency lie only what they grab not what they can give. I am sure Invictus Obi will frown at a comparison that politicians are yahoo-yahoo because the main yahoo guys still have some conscience, but not the politicians who leverage on the primitive nature of our people and continue to exploring and exploiting it to their advantages.
We as a people must use our divergence to our convergence hence, they will never stop using us against each other while they throw jabs at each other in open but sit to dine and wine behind the curtain to make banters on our gullibilities.
Tife Owolabi
