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ALL over the world, it is the victors who write the history to favor themselves and also heap blames on the vanquished. Such history is usually a product of political manipulation laced with outright lies. This scenario is exactly what has played out in Port Harcourt, capital of Rivers State. It is therefore not surprising that the media accounts of the fracas which took place in the Rivers State House of Assembly on July 9, were based on the stories as told to them by the victors. No attempts were made, whatsoever, by the journalists who covered the legislative madness to balance their reports by also reflecting the views of the vanquished. In journalism profession, the dictum is that there are always two sides to a story. Hence, all the media reports on the fracas were incomplete because they were one-sided.

Anybody who was privileged to watch the video clips of that show of shame will readily say who the victors were. But what gave rise to the fracas? There were two versions of the story told from the victors’ point of view. The first version was that the group of five, otherwise known as the anti- Amaechi legislators, met as early as 8 o’clock in the morning of July 9, to effect a change in the leadership of the House. It is not very clear where that session held since the normal legislative session in the House holds from 10 A.M. It was also said that Evans Bipi, leader of the group of five, used the session to announce himself as the new speaker after the purported impeachment of Otelemaba Dan Amachree, hitherto, the speaker, and other 15 unnamed legislators. If that was what really happened, it is highly condemnable because such acts of impunity in the past had been set aside by competent courts.

The second version was that trouble started when Bipi and his group assaulted Chidi Lloyd, House majority leader, for attempting to block a session that was to impeach Amachree and subsequently, the governor. In the resultant confusion, Bipi and Michael Okey Chinda, a member of the group of five, allegedly held Lloyd and flogged him thoroughly. At this point, according to the story, Amachree tried to rescue Lloyd but Bipi and Chinda grabbed the tripod of a camera stand to hit Lloyd. But there were no video clips to confirm that. The questions that emanate from that story ever since are: How heavy is a tripod stand of a camera? Did the two of them jointly hold the tripod stand of the camera to hit Lloyd? Why is it that since that day, no camera man had complained that he lost his camera stand during the violence? Even though the cameras did not record that aspect of the story, Lloyd was later shown lying in a clinic bed heavily bandaged and put on drips as a result of the injuries he allegedly received from the beatings of Bipi and Chinda. Amachree, Martins Amahule and other members who also received various degrees of injuries were also said to have been treated in unnamed hospitals. The question that begs for an answer here is: Were they really injured as they claimed?

Rather, what the video clips showed was a furious Lloyd using the mace, the symbol of authority in the House, to mercilessly hit Chinda on the head and even pursuing him with a broken piece of the mace as the man attempted to run away from further beatings. This version of the victors’ story was manipulated to portray the vanquished as the aggressors. The purported injuries Lloyd, Amachree and others were said to have received from the group of five were feigned as cover-ups. It is regrettable that up till today, the vanquished group has not deemed it necessary tell its own story knowing full well that any falsehood that is not challenged tends to be accepted as the truth.

But going from what Emmanuel Okah, a former commissioner of information in the state, told Realnews, if Amaechi had not rushed to the House with his security details to energize his supporters , what had happened on July 9, would have ended as a non-event. It is disappointing that Amaechi, who is a lawyer and a former speaker, could jump to a rash conclusion that five out of 32 members of the House could have validly impeached him when there are already many judicial precedents for him to rely on to get back his job. It is also condemnable for Amaechi to have broken protocol by rushing to the House with his security details on hearing that Amachree had been removed as speaker and that he was the next on the line of impeachment. Opposition governors who are goading Amaechi to be an irritant member of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, know that what he did was wrong but are hypocritically hailing him. If what Amaechi did was done by President Jonathan, they would have shouted hoarse in condemnation of his action and also accuse him of dictatorship.

All over the world, protocol demands that no head of the executive arm of government, whether president or governor, can bump into the legislature without first conveying his intention to do so and the purpose of such visit, to the head of the legislature in writing. The Senate President or the speaker, as the case may be, will read the letter from the Executive on the floor of the Chamber in order to get members’ approval through a resolution which would be communicated to the executive also in writing. Even when such approval is given for the Executive to come, he cannot be admitted into the legislative chamber direct unless a motion is duly passed to suspend the business rules of the Assembly before a visitor can be allowed in. Amaechi did not follow this procedure before he bumped into the Assembly that was said to be in plenary and disrupted its proceedings.

It is sickening that instead of blaming the governor for what he did, 10 opposition governors put the blame for the violence on the doorstep of Jonathan who did not start it. They attributed what happened on July 9, to be part of the president’s strategy to remove Amaechi by instigating violence in order to impose an emergency rule on the state. They warned President Jonathan to make sure nothing happens to Amaechi. But Okah told Realnews that it was Amaechi’s supporters who started the violence. He said prior to Amaechi’s unannounced arrival, the Assembly was properly constituted after it had formed a quorum with 23 out of 32 members in attendance. Although the name of the member who moved the impeachment motion was not given, the impression one got was that the supporters of Amachree who were in the Chamber raised no objection to the motion apparently because they were about to defect to the anti-Amaechi group but for the arrival of the governor just at the time Bipi got up to make his acceptance speech as the new speaker. Amaechi’s presence in the House energized them and the equation suddenly changed. It was at this point that Amaechi’s security details led by the aide- de- camp, ADC, started beating people suspected to be opposed to the governor.

Some pro- Amaechi supporters have made spirited efforts to defend his action arguing that it was a justifiable strategy to pre-empt his impeachment by his opponents which appeared inevitable. But it is  surprising that a lawyer of Amaechi’s caliber could be thinking like a man who is not knowledgeable in law whereas the procedure for impeaching a governor or his deputy is clearly spelt out in section 188 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended. Those governors who were removed from office in the past in a flawed process got back their jobs through the courts. Perhaps, Amaechi, who knows how to pursue his rights in court, thought differently this time and that probably explained why he immediately reached out to Aminu Tambuwal, speaker, House of Representatives to protect him and his job. The House goofed when it relied on Section 11(4) to hastily adopt a resolution on July 10, to take over the functions of the Rivers State House of Assembly, that had sat immediately after the fracas to amend the 2013 budget submitted to it by the deputy governor before adjourning indefinitely. The only thing the Senate can do to save the face of the House is for it to refuse concurrence to the resolution and let it die naturally.

Unlike the House of Representatives, the Senate exhibited some level of maturity by adopting a resolution that called on Mohammed Abubakar, inspector- general of police, to urgently investigate what led to the fracas while it also decided to send its own team to Port Harcourt, to carry out a similar assignment. But it appears that the Senate team was either in a hurry to complete its assignment and return to Abuja or was prevented from meeting certain stakeholders or groups who would have made suggestions on how to resolve the lingering political crisis. That was why some independent groups of stakeholders cried foul and complained bitterly that despite their spirited efforts to meet with the team, their overtures were ignored. If that allegation is true, then the team has failed in its mission. I believe it will be nearly impossible to bring peace to Rivers State if any fact-finding team does not go beyond the evidence of the combatants in seeking solutions to the crisis. Independent- minded people are in a better position to proffer genuine suggestions to what can bring a lasting peace in the state.

But from all indications, peace will continue to elude the state because of the rascality of the governor. Why should he set up a panel to investigate the cause of a violence he started instead of allowing the police and the Senate to do it? What sort of report does he expect to get from such a panel? The panel already knows the answer. What he probably wants it to do is to walk back to the question and write its report from the victor’s point of view to absolve him. The people of Rivers State do not deserve what they are getting now as a result of the clash of political ambitions of certain individuals. Let the fight of the elephants not bring avoidable sufferings to the grass.

Mike Akpan 
Editor-in-Chief

Email: makpan@yahoo.com

— Jul. 29, 2013 @ 01:00 GMT

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