Ladies and gentlemen, it is all politics!

If anyone had told me in 2004 that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu would one day, as president of Nigeria, declare emergency rule in a state and suspend a governor because of a squabble between a godfather and his godson, I would have said: “Stop it! Tinubu would never do that!” But you should forgive me: those were the days I still vehemently believed the battle for the soul of Nigeria was between the good guys and the bad guys, the forces of good and the forces of evil, the progressives and the reactionaries, the heroes and the villains. I was a sympathiser of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) and Afenifere. I loved their rhetoric about “principles”, democracy, rule of law, justice and all.

But I gained my freedom from the fantasy sometime in 2006 when I saw the “progressives” and the “reactionaries” romancing each other on the podium “to fight President Olusegun Obasanjo’s dictatorship” and “rescue our democracy”. In an article titled ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, It’s All Politics’ (THISDAY, 15/04/2007), I wrote: “Each time I see Tom Ikimi and Lam Adesina stand by each other on the Action Congress soap box, something dies in me. I easily remember the Sani Abacha era when Chief MKO Abiola was clamped into detention and Lam was taken as ‘prisoner of war’ by the military. Ikimi, then foreign minister, went around the world justifying the murderous reign of Abacha…”

That was when I gained my freedom — both as a political animal and a writer. Many people who used to read me before and after 2007 started accusing me of “sitting on the fence”. I laughed. No, I wasn’t sitting on the fence: I only stopped being an idiot. I only overcame deceit and naïvety. As Igbo elders would say, what a dog saw and is barking is the same thing a goat saw and merely grunted. If you want to fool yourself, keep propagating the belief that the battle in Nigerian politics is between the good guys and the bad guys. I started seeing clearly a very long time ago. People will commend something today and condemn the same thing tomorrow depending on their biases. So it goes.

That was why when the All Progressives Congress (APC) was formed in 2013 “to rescue Nigeria from bad governance” and “save our democracy”, I chuckled — but I was still happy that the opposition was finally getting its act together to take on the PDP. In an article titled ‘Every Reason to Cheer’ (THISDAY, 01/12/2013), I wrote: “I do not believe PDP is a party of sinners and APC is a party of saints. I do not believe only PDP rigs or only PDP is filled with corrupt and inept leaders. I would love to say that in order to earn some applause, but my conscience will not allow me. Nigerian politicians, no matter their party, language and religion, are basically the same. Let’s not kid ourselves.”

Let’s now travel back to May 2004 when Obasanjo declared emergency rule in Plateau state and suspended Governor Joshua Dariye. Tinubu, then governor of Lagos state, was politically opposed to Obasanjo and had survived the 2003 governorship election by the skin of his teeth. In fact, on the INEC website, PDP’s Funsho Williams had been declared the winner even before the votes had been collated. Obasanjo and the PDP had taken the governorships of the other five south-west states in an operation executed with military precision. How Tinubu survived the blitzkrieg is a story to be told another day, preferably by him. The long and short of it was that Obasanjo could not take him out.

But Tinubu still felt very vulnerable with the Plateau development. He condemned Obasanjo, declared the suspension of the governor as illegal and unconstitutional, and raised the alarm that he was also a target. AD leaders condemned Obasanjo’s action as well. The “progressives” rose up against Obasanjo. Respected constitutional experts, including the late Prof Ben Nwabueze, told Obasanjo he did not have the right to suspend an elected governor. Senator Tokunbo Afikuyomi, representing Lagos West, told reporters in Abuja: “This is a sad day for democracy. It’s a day we should hang our heads, not celebrate.” However, Obasanjo’s men and lapdogs supported the action.

It’s been well recounted how President Goodluck Jonathan came under fire from Tinubu in May 2013 for declaring emergency rule in three north-eastern states — Adamawa, Borno and Yobe — to tackle Boko Haram. Jonathan did not even suspend any governor, yet Tinubu took him to the cleaners, describing the action as “a deliberate ploy to subvert constitutional democracy”. Yes, he said it. Hear him: “The body language of the Jonathan administration leads any keen watcher of events with unmistakable conclusion of the existence of a surreptitious but barely disguised intention to muzzle [these] elected governments for… diabolic partisanship geared towards 2015.” It was all politics!

Mr Mohammed Bello Adoke, then attorney-general, said he had advised against suspending the governors because no single constitutional provision gives the president such powers. If the framers wanted the governor suspended, they would have so stated. Suspending a governor is too weighty to skip the minds of the framers. A basic interpretation principle is that what the law does not provide for, you cannot import into it. Adoke said what Obasanjo did in Plateau in 2004 — and repeated in Ekiti in 2006 — was unconstitutional. They don’t make attorneys-general like Adoke anymore. He was hated by the PDP hawks for this but he stood his ground. Credit to Jonathan for standing by him.

Well, the PDP is long gone — since May 29, 2015, to be precise — but the APC that fought “for democracy” is now doing the same things they used to criticise. All the acidic statements issued against the PDP back in the day by the APC, usually signed by Alhaji Lai Mohammed, are still valid — all you have to do is delete anywhere “PDP” appears and replace it with “APC”. Bizarrely, it is now the turn of PDP (or SDP or whoever) “to rescue Nigeria from dictatorship” and “save our democracy”. I laugh! I am not saying our politicians should not talk a good game. I am only saying I’ve seen enough not to be deceived into seeing it as a game between saints and sinners. The APC is my witness.

After the protracted face-off between Governor Simi Fubara and Chief Nyesom Wike, Tinubu finally gave Rivers the Obasanjo treatment on Tuesday by declaring emergency rule. He suspended Fubara and the house of assembly for six months. First, let it be on record that I am against the fact that Fubara started fighting with Wike so early. He was naïve to think he could take out Wike so easily. That was tactless. A Yoruba proverb says a child does not start investigating his father’s death until he can handle the sword. Let it also be on record that I am against how Fubara bulldozed the assembly complex and started presenting bills to just four out of 31 lawmakers. What is wrong is wrong.

That said, Wike himself is too intense in his desire to control his political base. I know that no politician wants to be muscled out in the game. He will be aware that the day Tinubu drops him from the cabinet, he will become stark naked without controlling his Rivers’ base the same way the president sits on top of Lagos state. So, I can smell Wike’s anxiety and insecurity. But he has been picking fights with too many of his friends and allies. He needs to pause at some point and rethink his politics. No doubt, he is an achiever: nobody can go to Port Harcourt or Abuja and deny his footprints on those cities. But he risks sacrificing everything and everyone on the altar of political nerves.

Are we really surprised at Tinubu’s action? He is a godfather himself and has quenched every rebellion in Lagos, including the recent attempt to remove the speaker without his express approval. Wike is not only his minister but also played a key role in weakening his own party, the PDP, in the 2023 presidential election to help Tinubu. Wike is also holding down the party ahead of 2027, so there are no prizes for guessing why Tinubu is in his corner. And as Olusegun Adeniyi, the frontline columnist, wrote, Fubara and his advisers failed to reckon with federal might in picking this fight. In the words of Bolaji Abdullahi, the former youth and sports minister, “Nigeria will always defeat you.”

I am aware of the argument that there was a breakdown of law and order in Rivers. But it was a crisis that could have been resolved with sincerity and without a state of emergency. Fubara had started retracing his steps after the Supreme Court ruling. There were no other issues that could not have been resolved over dinner. I am also aware of the news that a pipeline was “bombed” supposedly by militants loyal to Fubara — a perfect setting to justify the declaration of emergency rule a few hours later. We know all these things. With all the huffing and puffing, we know that the whole drama is not about food, shelter and clothing for the poor people of Rivers. Fellow Nigerians, it is all politics.

AND FOUR OTHER THINGS…

‘AYE’ SAYERS

Someone said if they explain Nigeria to you and you understand, then they didn’t explain it well. Aware that it was going to be difficult or even impossible to get the constitutionally stipulated two-thirds majority to approve the emergency rule in Rivers, the leadership of the national assembly chose to do “voice vote”. Did they even form quorum? Why not do a headcount for the sake of transparency if they were really sure of themselves? Then, how will saying “aye” and “nay” give us the accurate figure of those who voted for and against the motion? Our lawmakers have never covered themselves in glory but they took duplicity to a higher level on Thursday. Abracadabra.

EMERGENCY LAWYERS

Some commentators have tried to justify the emergency rule in Rivers by referring to the Emergency Powers Act 1961 that the Balewa government used to suspend the Western Region government in 1962. They contend that the law is still valid. The late Prof Ben Nwabueze addressed this issue as far back as 2004 by explaining that the law lapsed under section 65(2) of the 1960 Constitution which defined its lifespan. It was no longer in force thereafter, he wrote, and it was not even reproduced in the Laws of Nigeria 1990. That apart, I think the framers of the 1979/1999 Constitutions would have incorporated the provisions under section 305 if they wanted the laws and regulations retained. Easy.

CRUDE ARRANGEMENT

When you think it is all calm and quiet, then another eruption. The naira-for-crude deal between the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Ltd and local refineries seemed to be going well, at least in my reckoning. Then we woke up one day to learn that it had ended and a renewal was being negotiated. In the meantime, the Dangote refinery has stopped loading products for local markets, a situation that could cause shortages and hurt the economy. I have lost interest in the underlying politics but whatever the issues are, they have to be sorted out. Why do we wait till the end of a deal before renegotiating? Why create an avoidable lacuna? Why are we always like this? Ridiculous.

NO COMMENT

Has anybody heard former president Olusegun Obasanjo comment on the state of emergency declared in Rivers state by President Bola Tinubu? Did I miss it? I have been googling without success. This is very unlike Obasanjo. He usually has an opinion on every national issue. He is not known to be a fan of Tinubu and they have been having a cat-and-mouse game for as long as I can remember. You would expect Obasanjo to be the first to comment on such a critical matter. Let me be fair to him: what would he say? Let me guess: “What Tinubu has done by declaring a state of emergency and suspending the governor is unconstitutional and an act of dictatorship.” Hahaha.