AMAECHI, PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE AND DESTINY! Barr Sogbeye Eli Unties The Mystery Surrounding This Enigma In The Politics Of Nigeria Today

Rotimi Amaechi

We have been reading since last night and will yet read more Postscript here on developments ahead of the forthcoming National Convention of our great party, the All Progressives Congress. As usual, Amaechi has been central to the conversations here and elsewhere. 

Now whether you quote HE Governor Nasir El-Rufai who spoke last night about the Convention and matters arising on POLITICS TODAY with Seun Okinbaloye on Channels TV copiously or not. Whether you quote him scantily or paraphrase him or generate loads of sound bites from his outing last night or not is immaterial. Whether you quote him as vilifying Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi or, in fact, burying him does not count. What matters is that before our very eyes, God has risen a man from the nation's ethnic minority who even without making public declaration of an intention to run for the office of Nigerian President in 2023 has become the centre of the presidential debate. 

Write tons and tons of epitaph on Amaechi's political grave in your cruel, roving and vile imagination, it has not stopped, and will not stop, him from gathering momentum on the national space. Even their Almighty Jagaban knows and has this same nobody on some closed WhatsApp platforms, Facebook groups and in familiar quarters of contemporary Rivers politics in his 2023 political calculations. 

E no easy for ordinary minorities to gain this degree of traction in an ethnic-conscious and religiously polarized nation like 🇳🇬. Not even Dr. Goodluck Jonathan who ascended the presidency by divine ordination rode the crest of this wave of national attention prior to 2007. That is where we are as a nation right now!! Deal with it.

Amaechi survived a judicial surge in 1999 to arrive at the State House of Assembly after joining the race only two weeks to the election with the dropping of Dr. Kieran Wobodo from the ticket as PDP candidate for Ikwerre Constituency. He went through heavier political bad weather as he transitioned from Speaker of the House to the office of Governor in 2007. In fact, he has been ruled out with a Rivers State Government under his cousin, Celestine Omehia, effectively in place. NOTHING in our jurisprudence hitherto suggested that his journeys through the portals of our judicial institutions would yield fruit at that stage! Not statute! Not by case law (precedents)!! But Governor he became and that is history today.

En route becoming a Minister of the Government of the Federation, another storm arose sponsored by a household enemy. The National Assembly where his old friend from the days of the Nigerian Governors Forum sat as Senate President was turned to the theatre of the absurd. Did Amaechi survive the absurdities of that moment? Yes. Has this appointee justified his appointment by President Muhammadu Buhari? The answer my friend, according to Bob Dylan, is blowing in the wind. He was the last Minister to be cleared after all the back and forth but alas...

Is history repeating itself with the new upsurge of opposition? Of course the blueprint is already before us. Does Destiny walk back because men (enemies) fight to push it back? Sometimes when the carrier of his Destiny crawls back with his tail tucked in between his thighs (hind legs). Has Amaechi demonstrated sufficient courage and strength of character in the face of past odds to hazard a guess that he would not cringe in the face of the calamitous defacement of his next political interests? Yes, of course. Let those who are led or lead themselves to believe that it is over for this man take their ringside seats. We shall return anon to crosscheck the facts hereafter.

Sogbeye Eli Esq.