By Donu Kogbara

MY home state, Rivers, is currently in turmoil and has, for the past few months, been both a theatre of war and a theatre of the absurd.

When I heard, last weekend, that my Governor Rotimi Amaechi’s Chief Of Staff (Chief Tony Okocha) and a serving Senator (Magnus Abe) had been subjected to brutal tear gas and rubber bullet attacks at a rally – by police officers who were allegedly loyal to their political opponents – I was absolutely outraged.

I was convinced that Amaechi and his cohorts – who walked out on the PDP and the President a few weeks ago and are now APC members – were being savagely victimised by superior powers and at risk of losing their lives; and I called a pro-Jonathan friend to convey my fury and fears.

My friend told me to calm down and quit spitting fire and then insisted that neither Abe nor Okocha had been harmed during the fracas…and that the clash between Amaechi’s supporters and the police was being “grossly exaggerated and cynically milked for maximum publicity by the Governor’s camp.”

And so the show goes on.

My pro-Amaechi friends tell me that Abe was so badly injured that he had to be flown abroad for medical treatment. My anti-Amaechi friends say that they won’t believe that Abe was shot until they see a bullet wound.

Pro-Amaechi elements say that some children were killed during the ugly incident. Anti-Amaechi elements say that they will regard this story as a blatant lie unless Amaechi produces names, photographs and bereaved parents.

I am not currently in a position to confidently comment on Abe’s medical condition or find out whether children died or didn’t die. But I AM in a position to extract a few basic truths from this sorry mess; and I CAN confidently say that both sides misbehaved.

Basic Truth Number One is that the police felt obliged to disperse the crowd because the rallyists did not have a permit to gather in a public space.

Basic Truth Number Two is that the rallyists applied for a permit but didn’t get approval….but went ahead anyway because (according to a rallyist I’ve spoken to) they regard the police as hostile, felt that the permit had been withheld for dubious reasons and weren’t willing to be deprived of their democratic rights.

Even-handed Mbu

Basic Truth Number Three is that even though Mbu, the Commissioner of Police, does not conceal his hatred of Amaechi, Mbu’s office is sometimes very even-handed in its treatment of the anti- and pro-Amaechi factions.

When the anti-Amaechi faction wanted to hold a rally in Gokana last year, their permit application was rejected on the grounds that the police had already given the pro-Amaechi faction permission to hold a rally in the same area on the same day…and didn’t want the two groups to run into each other and fight.

Basic Truth Number Four is that Abe, a legislator who also happens to be a lawyer, should uphold the law and had no business showing his face at a rally that had not been sanctioned by the law enforcement authorities.

Basic Truth Number Five is that the police were too heavy-handed. The absence of a permit is a pretty feeble excuse for the unnecessary and shameful show of excessive force that was unleashed on the rallyists.

At any rate, it is time for the President to behave like a serious leader and save Rivers State from total meltdown, not least because it is his home turf.

Bayelsa and Rivers are neighbours and closely linked on many levels and were one state when Jonathan was growing up. And he’s married to a Rivers indigene and is our in-law and has a Rivers chieftaincy title.

Some folks suspect the President of secretly encouraging his feisty First Lady to fuel the crisis in a bid to drag Amaechi into the gutter. Others simply accuse him of sitting on the fence and allowing his wife to do as she pleases.

Even those who don’t blame either of the Jonathans for the status quo and have an essentially amicable attitude towards them are complaining about the President’s failure to step in and prevent the situation from deteriorating.

If Mr. President doesn’t feel moved to stop the rot for the sake of decent citizens who are tired of rubbish, he should stop the rot for his own sake because the mayhem that is engulfing Rivers is making him look really bad. And his image will be further damaged if a State of Emergency has to be declared.