Ambassador Desmond Akawor is the immediate past chairman of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party in Rivers State. The former Nigerian Ambassador to South Korea speaks with OLAJIDE OMOJOLOMOJU and DENNIS NAKU, about the political crisis in the state and the intervention of the elders, among other salient issues
There seems to be an uneasy calm in Rivers State now following the events of October 30. What steps has the PDP, which is the ruling party in Rivers State, taken to resolve these crises?
Well, when you say crisis, it is difficult for me to see a crisis, because I don’t see any crisis. As a party, we are there to interact with our people. As a party, issues come up daily and we address them daily.
And as a party, whatever comes up that is beyond the party, we have different levels of authority within the party hierarchy, which will end up at the table of the Board of Trustees, BoT, of the party.
A lot of people are envious of the situation and if we cough, the other group of people will have malaria! And a party is like a family relationship. I can tell you whatever that must have happened, whatever you may have perceived, the party is on top of it, our leaders are there, and they have the capacity.
You said there were no crises…?
(Cuts in…) Yes, no crisis.
*But the state Assembly has two Speakers. A few days ago, one of them was attacked, and two days after he said some people were trying to link him with the murder of the DPO of Ahoada East, who was killed by cultists.
The other day, the two factions of the House sat differently. Are these not issues that need to be addressed?
You are talking about the House of Assembly. You are not talking about the state. The House of Assembly has its crises and it is such that, you know where you have young men and women in charge of position, of course, some may do one thing or the other to outsmart the other one. But the most important thing is what effect does it have on the state? As far as the state is concerned, you may have one who says he is of this faction. The other one who says he is of the other faction. At the end of the day, what is the position of the party? The position of the party is the position of the state.
One of them has already run to the court and the court has made a pronouncement that the status quo should be maintained. So there is nobody who will disobey the court order. So as far as the Assembly issue is concerned, at the end of the day, it will be sorted out. It is a leadership crisis as far as the Assembly is concerned. The members are all our sons and daughters and they are all party members. But remember, when this started, I’m sure they must have been privy to the press statement of the party.
What is the status of the impeachment notice the House issued to the governor?
It is not standing, because as far as we are concerned, people can do things in annoyance. After that, the elders of the party moved to Abuja and discussed with the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory. The elders came back and met the governor and we agreed as elders that, the issue had been settled. And we took the governor to the minister’s residence and we had a lengthy discussion that took us from 9 am to almost 1 am.
Why was Governor Fubara’s 100 days in office not celebrated?
You know everybody has his style. I am sure. Fubara has his style. 100 days in office, we are even saying commissioning. The issue is, is governance on course? Yes. Is the man doing his job? Yes. We saw what happened in Lagos between Raji Fashola and Bola Tinubu.
Tinubu was in charge of politics and Fashola was in charge of governance. And we were all clapping for Lagos. Why don’t you think we should copy that? Politics is a different thing. The issue is that governance is taking place. Today we have gone to commission project. With that project, value has been added to it because it has been commissioned. We have other things, maybe this week there will be another commissioning, next week there will be another commissioning, you know since commissioning is the only way to show performance.
There still seems to be a cold war amongst some key political actors in the state. What will be your advice to them to move the state forward?
There is no cold war. But my first advice will go to those on social media. Most of them, we are aware, are being sponsored by other political parties to create disharmony, and disunity within our party. The party will go after them. I have instructed my own social media group to go after them because they do not mean well for our party. That is one.
For Rivers people, whatever has happened, whatever people have seen, let’s put them behind us because the issues are settled.
The day you cut the tree is not the day the leaves will wither. So there needs to be some healing process and it is going on.
My advice is that people should allow Rivers State to have its peace. Those who do not understand politics should forget about politics.
Projects are on course, activities are on course. And our brother too in Abuja has not stopped helping Rivers people. As I speak to you, at the last count, we have 10 Rivers men who have secured jobs in Abuja.
We never had such during Rotimi Amaechi’s time as the Minister of Transport. We have ten Rivers men who have secured permanent jobs today in Abuja in six months. How else do we thank God as a state? So we can only support these young men, the minister, and the governor of the state and try to see ways to help them, not to keep dropping words that will divide them. You are up-land, your Riverine.
I am up-land Ijaw. Have you heard that language before? So these are not the issues. It has nothing to do with ethnicity. It has nothing to do with that, After all as a journalist you know the political strength of Opobo when we want to go into politics. That is the local government with the least population. But Wike with other leaders decided that the leadership of the state should move to the South-East zone. They have never had it and it should move to that part of the riverine. That is why that decision was taken and he (Wike) has no regrets about that decision.
What advice will you have for the PDP at the national level to be able to stand as a virile opposition?
That’s completely another phase, my advice to them is that if you make a mistake in your journey, go back to the junction where you made the mistake and take your bearing. They made a mistake. When Wazirin Adamawa came here when he was going around, it is on tape, after his brief to us, I openly told him I said, ‘Sir, I know you very well, I worked under you as a minister and you did well in the economic reform under then President Olusegun Obasanjo. Telecommunication, this, this, this…you did very well, sir.
But in our party today, there is a problem. The problem is that we in Rivers State, I’m speaking on behalf of Rivers people. We are not happy that the party has jettisoned our zoning system.’ Dino Melaye stood up to defend. I remembered his defence, but I have made my point. Where did it land us? You see where we are now. So the party must go back to the junction and get its bearing. That’s the only advice I have for the party at national level.
They are my bosses. They are my officers, I’m in touch with them. We are the PDP. Are you not surprised that with all that has happened and what Wike has received, he said he remained a PDP member and he is not leaving the PDP? Can’t people believe that this is a man who means his words? We are in the PDP. We have no other party. We have got things from this government and we said we are PDP members, what else? People who are losing their state, who can’t even win counsellorship are the ones in Abuja telling you that they are PDP members and you believe them. Our friend Dino, with all the jumping he has done, even came third. But those are the people who believe in the Wadata House. No opposition party has taken a counsellorship position in Rivers State. And we will talk people will not listen to us. You go to Yobe, Maina who has not won any counsellorship position, is talking. You go to our former Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Transport, who was the former governor in Niger State, Babangida Aliyu, who has no counsellorship in Niger State, these are the people talking at Wadata House, abusing Wike, abusing Rivers people. Meanwhile, here no counsellor is not a PDP member. Sometimes let us tell ourselves the truth.
We voted for a Southern President because that’s what we believed in and I told Waziri Adamawa when he came here to this party secretariat that we are not happy that the party has jettisoned the zoning system.
The opposition in the state is saying that the elders could not resolve the issue the way they should, because they are PDP elders and not Rivers elders. How would you respond to that?
The issue that came up, is it Rivers issue or the PDP issue? Is it the other Rivers people or our father, King Alfred Diette-Spiff, that will come and handle it? It is purely a party issue and the party, like you mentioned, outside the technocrats in the party like our level, we have people we call the party elders. The party elders intervened. They are people of impeccable character, and when they step into an issue it has nothing to do with any financial reward. It has to do with the integrity of the state and his integrity.
There still seems to be a cold war amongst some key political actors in the state. What will be your advice to them to move the state forward?
There is no cold war. But my first advice will go to those on social media. Most of them, we are aware, are being sponsored by other political parties to create disharmony, and disunity within our party. The party will go after them.
For Rivers people, whatever has happened, whatever people have seen, let’s put them behind us because the issues are settled.
The day you cut the tree is not the day the leaves will wither. So there needs to be some healing process and it is going on.
My advice is that people should allow Rivers State to have its peace. Those who do not understand politics should forget about politics. You just stand up and start talking about episcopal issues, you don’t know about it. You are not a clergyman, you are not trained, and you start discussing about clergy issues. You are not an economist, you start talking about Gross Domestic Product, GDP. What GDP is you don’t understand. So I think they should equally allow politicians to play their game in the way they play.
Sometimes some of these things are there for everybody to play wing.
There are allegations that the last employment in the civil service was hijacked by the PDP. Many Rivers youths who applied said they didn’t get any feedback, yet employment is going on. How would you react to that?
Well, I am sure you are aware of the number that was announced. Ten thousand youths, and you believe that all are just PDP people that is not the truth it is not true. These things were shared segment by segment. PDP as a party, of course, was given a particular percentage which was a peanut far from what they are talking about.
Does that mean the recruitment process is still ongoing?
Yes, it is still on.
Still worrisome is the situation in the House of Assembly. What is the party, or government, doing to ensure that the issue in the House is amicably resolved?
As far as the party is concerned, I’ve mentioned to you that first, you sort out what are the issues. And once you settle, the next level is that those who may be casualties, you bring them back together.
I’m in touch with both Edison Ehie and Martin Amawhule. I’m in touch with them on the phone. I talk to them, but you can’t build a house from the roof. You must start from the foundation and once you have a good foundation, the roof will stand. You can’t just say ‘Ehie come, Ahmawhile come, follow me anywhere I am going, join me in the car.’ Meanwhile, the foundation you’ve not sorted out.
But I told you we just sorted out the foundation, because of the intervention of the elders. Senator Adolphus Wabara, the BoT chairman of the PDP called me on this issue and I gave him all the pictures and sent to him the press release made by the party at the state level. And he said to me, ‘Desmond, thank you so much. You people have done very well.’ I told him all
the efforts the elders have made and where we are. Sanusi Dagash called me from the BoT office and I told him equally what we have done and what is on the ground and he said that we have done well.
