[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t was Edmund Burke who said Good order was the foundation of all things and Jeremy Bentham corroborated by saying the foundation of morals is the happiness of the majority.
The foundation of any movement, ideology or concept is not as, but more important than the shimmering glitters of the superstructure. The foundation, its substructure is the sustaining factor. This was the reason the Psalmist asked in Psalms 11: 3 that if the foundation be destroyed, unreliable, weak and fractured, what shall the righteous and good people do? Your guess is as good as mine.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) was founded not really on the superstructure of promising change but on the substructure of wresting power from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The motive was not based on any ideological difference or value. It was simply about power grab, to which strange bedfellows flocked and brooded to actuality. But substance was missing irrespective of the ovation that heralded its grandeur promise of change. That was all there was: vast beautiful vessel of emptiness. As usual the gullible latched on to the primed dubious narratives and sunk into today’s untoward reality. The foundation was and remains faulty.
In Rivers State the story was different. It was one of massive rejection and solidarity against buccaneering slave drivers. So from the very first step, it was a misfortune foretold, a failure that was definite and unavoidable. And it happened and has continued to happen.
As if the solidarity of the vast majority of Rivers people against primordial hegemony in Nigeria and towards the liberalisation of the political space was not enough caution to the APC in the State, consumed by its unbridled desperation and vaunting ambition, the Party went on, in spite of the warning signs to devise devious duels aimed at emasculating Rivers people and compromising their liberty and future.
What did they not do?
After failing to gain the acceptance and support of the vast majority of Rivers people, and failing to keep to promises made especially to the Ogonis and further failing, as expected, to muster majority votes at any of the elections in Rivers State, it embarked on an attempt to scuttle the smooth handover to and take off of the Governor Nyesome Wike administration.
As a matter of fact, the rejected Rivers APC administration did not only make it clearly difficult to orchestrate a smooth transition to the new government, the captain of its sunk ship openly boasted to leaving nothing behind for take off but mounting debts and monumental sleaze such as was never witnessed in the history of the State.
They further proceeded to Federal High courts around the country forum shopping for a suitable one to grant an exparte motion to stop the swearing in of Governor Wike into office after being duly elected, just to create a vacuum and the catalyst for misfortune and political crises in Rivers State. They went from Owerri to Sokoto, Kaduna to Abuja and all about town. They still failed. The Judiciary refused to be used as a tool to set such dangerous precedent that was capable of compromising Nigeria’s democracy and integrity.
They also failed in their blackmail of the judiciary and the person and office of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, thereafter, for directing the Chief Judge of Bayelsa State to perform the constitutional duty of swearing in the new governor upon a vacancy that existed in credit to the political turmoil strategically sustained by the APC in Rivers State, even in spite of the clear provision and position of the Constitution on the matter. Nothing but crises made sense to the Party and nothing was sacred to its fettering appetite for the mundane. But then again it failed and has continued to fail irrespective of the methods and schemes adopted to scuttle the peace and mandate of Rivers people.
It failed to secure the much flaunted Secretary to Government of the Federation portfolio, which outcome undermined its standing nationally in spite of the gargantuan investment of Rivers money in the exercise. Not even the coming transport portfolio is a soothing relief. But as is said in proletariat parlance, ‘at all at all naim bad pass’. We wish them well but the failure, again, is on record.
We can go on and on to numerate the damning details of APC’s catalogue of woeful failures. They are many. We can even dig deeper to x-ray the character of its leaders one after each to reveal incontrovertible deficits in value. There’s so much to be said. So much to reveal. But those are not the imports of this piece. Rather, to make the point that a political system devoid of solid substructural value, one that has to its credit many superstructural failings, lacks the integrity to sustain the future and livelihood of the vast majority and no amount of propaganda can vitiate this infallible principle. It is law.
All the same, by the leadership style of Gov. Wike and on the basis of good conscience built on solid foundation, we cannot but also follow to accommodate them as we point out the catalogue of their consistent failings, in order to bring them back to the path of honour.
God bless all Rivers people and our dear State.
Oraye St. Franklyn, a strategic communicator and good governance advocate, writes from Port Harcourt, Rivers State. He tweets from @RealOraye. He is also on Facebook.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
