Realpolitik is also called practical politics. It adopts practical principles rather than moral or ideological considerations in critical situations. President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration was seen to have adopted this principle between 2000 and 2003.
Right now, a similar scenario is playing out as exemplified by the developments in Rivers State. The question out there is on which side will President Bola Tinubu fall? Rewrite history or hug realpolitik?
The relationship between Governor Sim Fubara and his godfather Nyesom Wike started with a firm bond. And that made the sudden collapse of the relationship unbelievable at the start.
Wike had done everything possible to install Fubara as governor in the March 2023 election. He did many unthinkable, including hiding the then PDP governorship candidate, his adopted candidate, away from public glare for months.
The former governor, now FCT Minister covered the grounds, utilising the several projects he commissioned to campaign for his anointed successor. He needed to do all that as Fubara’s name had been advertised on the wanted column of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in respect of some transactions in the oil-rich state.
As the storm appeared to be simmering down towards the last days of the electioneering campaigns, the Wike camp gradually opened the veil on Fubara and his route to Government House was assured. There was never a hint of any possible insurrection. Things were so assured that a close friend of Wike had joked that his legacy in office was already guaranteed since he has two good friends, the GSM and Sim (card). Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State has GSM as his acronym, while the first name of the incumbent Rivers governor is SIM (inalayi). In truth, anyone with a GSM and a SIM can easily make calls to all destinations, perhaps except heaven or hell.
And as if nature is out to confirm the eternal realities contained in the words of God as seen in Ecclesiastes 1:9 and the French proverb traced to novelist Alphonse Karr (1808-90), the more things change, the more they remain the same with the Nigerian democratic character.
The Bible in Ecclesiastes 1: 9 says “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” Away from the spiritual, French novelist, Karr, was reputed with the proverb: “The more things change, the more they remain the same.” The same proverb was used in George Bernard Shaw’s ‘Revolutionist’s Handbook’.
While it appears that an agreement in the spiritual and secular world provided the foundation slabs for the political character pioneered by the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo in the build-up to the 2003 election, it cannot come as a surprise that such political behaviour has subsisted to date. What we do not know is whether the administration of incumbent President Bola Tinubu will succeed in undoing what has been since 1999.
As if in a replay of the drama we witnessed between the year 2,000 and 2003, the Presidential Villa under President Bola Tinubu announced early last week that it had brokered a truce between Wike and his political godson, Fubara. The contents of the eight-point resolution tilted towards Wike’s camp, possibly a replication of Obasanjo’s earlier drive in the battle between Abuja politicians and state governors at the start of the Fourth Republic.
Part of the eight-point deal indicates that all court cases would be withdrawn, while Fubara would recognise the defection of G27 members of the House of Assembly as well as their speaker, who had flashed an impeachment notice on his face. Fubara is to guarantee legislative autonomy for the lawmakers, even though they had defected to the APC, while accepting the return of the commissioners who had resigned their portfolios in a show of solidarity with the godfather, Wike.
In the early days of Obasanjo, the Abuja politicians fought what looked like an internecine war with the home-based politicians led by state governors. Obasanjo openly supported the Abuja clique, which included ministers, senators, and ambassadors. As the war raged, the political scene was replete with seemingly endless battles, impeachment threats, and factionalisation of State Houses of Assembly and the ruling parties in the states. The Abuja politicians, with the covert support of the presidency, succeeded in anointing factional speakers and factional state chairmen of parties. They replicated these in states like Enugu, Anambra, Borno, and Abia. The push by the presidency at the time was to curb the “overbearing” powers of the governors.
At first, it looked like a battle without end until the primaries ahead of Obasanjo’s 2003 re-election approached. Then, it dawned on the presidency that the governors would have an upper hand in the unfolding battle since they control the structure of the parties in their states and would also control the delegates to the national convention. With that realisation, Obasanjo’s camp shifted allegiance and empowered the governors, who were almost unfurling the carpet under Obasanjo’s feet in support of Vice President Atiku Abubakar.
Though Tinubu’s eight-point agenda looks more of an endorsement of Wike’s leadership of Rivers State, something akin to the scenario in the early days of Obasanjo, when the Abuja politicians held the thicker part of the yam, only time will tell whether the raw power encapsulated in the seat of the governor of a state would reignite itself in the current case in Rivers.
On Friday, some video clips emerged of massive campaigns against the Abuja accord in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. It is obvious which camp was at work. Will history repeat itself this time, or Wike’s camp would have the last laugh? That is the question in the belly of time.
History, however, records that only on scanty occasions have the awesome powers of the governors been undermined in this Republic. We saw something of such in Borno State when Senator Alli Modu Sheriff unseated Mala Kachalla; Chinwoke Mbadinuju was upstaged in Anambra and Akinwumi Ambode was stopped in Lagos recently. How will Jagaban Borgu fare in handling the ghosts of Obasanjo’s politics unfolding in Rivers?
