By Ochereome Nnanna
WHEN former  President Olusegun Obasanjo went on a campaign to Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital in December 2007, he told his People’s Democratic Party (PDP) rally: “you all know that anything that concerns Rivers State I take it personally”. Rivers matters a lot to Nigeria, indeed, for obvious reasons.

But Obasanjo was not exactly making a patriotic speech. A few moments later, rather than hand over the flag of the party to the winner of the gubernatorial primaries of the PDP, Hon. Chibuike Amaechi, he ended up giving it to Sir Celestine Omehia, a loyal party member who was in the crowd assisting to make the rally a success. It was on this occasion that Obasanjo declared Amaechi’s candidacy as having developed a “K-leg”. The outcome of it was that a person who did not win the primaries took the ticket of the PDP to campaign and win the governorship election in 2007.

Consequently, when the Supreme Court went out of normal orbit to hand over the governorship seat to Amaechi, a person who did not ask the people of Rivers State for their votes emerged as their Governor, all because Obasanjo saw Amaechi as a threat to his economic interests in the Niger Delta.

You will recall how he later begged Governor Amaechi not to go against his business interests, and Amaechi replied he would not go against anything Obasanjo acquired legitimately.   Obasanjo’s selfish meddling in Rivers politics thus sowed bad blood that is still haunting the stability and development of the state.

Between 1999 and 2003, Nigeria produced a number of very powerful state governors who sought to plant themselves as the new post-military leaders. These included Bola Tinubu of Lagos, Orji Uzor Kalu of Abia, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa, James Ibori of Delta and Peter Odili of Rivers. Of this lot, only Tinubu successfully established a party that has ruled under his thumb till date. He has also moved on to become the “National Leader” of the new ruling party, the All Progressives Congress , APC. The rest have lost out, with Ibori rotting in a foreign jail.

Odili had used the proverbial stick and carrot to unite all the fractious elements in Rivers under his platform. He was also seen as the closest “ally” of President Obasanjo. Unlike Tinubu, Odili could not say “No” to any of Obasanjo’s wishes.

In fact, Odili so “loved” Obasanjo that, in addition to the prominent Olu Obasanjo Way (which was used to replace an Igbo name that was there before the civil war) he also created a major by-pass and bridge in Port Harcourt and, again, named it after Obasanjo. When Amaechi came, still seething with the anger of what Obasanjo did to him, he renamed the second road after GU Ake, a former Chairman of the Rivers State Chapter of the PDP.

Still boiling with rage, Amaechi declared Odili a persona non-grata in Rivers. Odili had to hide in Abuja for most of Amaechi’s first term. Odili’s men were not allowed to freely meet anywhere in Rivers. The owner of any meeting venue discovered by Amaechi’s spies was threatened with withdrawal of his certificate of occupancy and demolition of his property.

To top it all, Amaechi constituted what he termed Truth and Reconciliation Commission and appointed a retired Justice of the Supreme Court, Kayode Eso, as its Chairman. It turned out to be a mere witch-hunt against Odili, as it neither dwelt on the “truth” about the problems of Rivers State nor did it bring about the reconciliation of Amaechi and his political enemies. Odili insisted it conducted a kangaroo process, as he was not given a fair hearing to state his own side of the case. He went to court and had his indictments quashed by a Rivers State High Court presided over by Justice RI Ahiakwor.

The shoddy and jaundiced handling of the Odili “probe” made it impossible for the public to separate the fact from fiction of Odili’s alleged “looting and killings” during his tenure. The probe appeared deliberately programmed to fail because, in truth, Odili as pointed out above, was the imperial governor of Rivers State, and all the major political actors, including Amaechi, Wike, Omehia and their followers, were once enthusiastic “Odili boys” raised to their current statures on the juice of the medical doctor’s benevolence.

Meanwhile, Amaechi continued his unbridled, loose-cannon politics. He took Rivers State to the opposition APC and provided the chunk of financing for Muhammadu Buhari’s campaigns directly from the coffers of the state.

When his attempt to produce an APC governor in his state failed, the winner, Wike of the PDP, came in and announced that Amaechi and his officials went beyond “looting” the state but actually stripped the Government house of its furniture and made away with the exotic vehicles attached to officials. Pictures were seen of expensive cars with market values of over twenty million naira per unit being forcibly recovered from the premises of a “mere” Commissioner (apologies, Senator Bukola Saraki).

And now, we are back to where we met Amaechi in 2007. The new kid on the block, His Excellency Nyesom Wike, has started a probe of the Amaechi years with a view to recovering “stolen” government property. And (wait for it!), Amaechi is crying blue murder, accusing Wike of being on a “witch hunt”! Amaechi is accusing Wike of giving him a dose of the bitter medicine he (Amaechi) had served Odili. Is this Justice made in Rivers State?

The vicious circle must be broken now. Let the probe of Amaechi’s government proceed in earnest. But unlike the type Amaechi organised against Odili, this one must be fair and transparent. Amaechi and his cohorts must be given ample opportunities to defend themselves and possibly clear their names. Nothing less than that will be acceptable.

But those found guilty must return their loots. Then, they must go somewhere nice, smell rod and eat beans.