April 18, 2010
The current travails of Chief James Ibori, the ex-governor of the oil-rich Delta State in the hands of Mrs. Farida Waziri’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has quickened the writing of this biography. I am not a good biographer, but I can write a good biography of our “great” leader, Chief, Dr, Sir, Peter Otunaya Odili, the ex-governor of Rivers State. But before I write it, I need to read the would be biography that “great” biographer of our time, Mr. Andy Ikeotunye Briggs, a medical doctor, born of Anambra (Igbo) father and Kalabari (Ijaw) mother is putting together.Odili had commissioned the aforementioned to write his biography. I learnt that the proposed book would be on our news stands, bookshops, and shelves soon. I am just waiting, to grab a copy of that “wonderful” book. I was told that Richard Akinnola, a veteran journalist, journalism teacher and human rights activist is writing a book about Odili. Akinnola wrote that famous book, “Prisoner J. 60 – The legal struggles of Gani Fawehinmi and what it means for all of us” (2009). Akinnola, one of the architects of the civil rights movement in Nigeria surprises me. How he ended up working for Dr. Peter Otunaya Odili is my stark bolt from the blue. Above all, some of us are earnestly waiting for the “great” books of a “great” leader and whose styles and administration negatively touched the lives of millions of Rivers People and beyond.
I am just imagining the title of the books. I am also trying to get in touch with those rain makers (Briggs and co.), to suggest to them a befitting title for their coming works on Odili. Please, those who know those biographers should tell him of my proposal (to suggest a splendid name for their coming book). I advise those chroniclers that if they have a title for it already they should re-christen it, “The Damned Days of A Corrupt and Violent Administrator An authoritative political biography of Peter Odili (1999 - 2007).” The books need to have four (4) chapters only. Reason! Because it is an abnormal book about an abnormal ruler.
Chapter one of the books should bear the sub-title, “His inroad into Brick House”. This section should examine in detail how Peter Odili emerged as the flag bearer of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and later governor of Rivers State. On February 12, 2003, I can’t forget that day. I and Minere Amakiri, the publisher and editor-in-chief of The Beacon, a leading weekly newspaper then, had “ambushed” Chief Dr. Marshall Sokari Harry and Alabo Graham Douglas at Harry’s hotel in his Obuoma hometown in the Degema Local Government Area of Rivers State. Then I was the paper’s special senior correspondent, investigating and writing hard-hitting reports about corruption, violence, human rights and environmental abuses by the state, corporations or individuals. Under his misrule, I was partly responsible for the paper being famous for its independent and diagnostic posture exposing violence, corruption and fraud that characterized the Odili’s administration; in spite of the lots of threats to my life I remained gutsy.
We engaged Harry in a marathon interview on the making of Odili as a governor. Harry lamented to us how they (Douglas and he) cheated Chief Sergeant Awuse, who was the leading contender, among other for the office of the governor with Odili in 1999. He said that Awuse was the most popular candidate and that he changed his mind, and disallowed Awuse to emerge as the flag-bearer of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the state. He revealed that Douglas told him that Awuse’s “face is too scary and that he can’t be loyal to them if they make him governor of the State”. At that same time, Odili was the least known amongst the aspirants and would come regularly to Harry’s house and would prefer to sit on the bare floor, displaying an innocent face and the willingness to polish his shoes and those of his wives and children, but Awuse was not doing that. Alabo Graham had to fabricate stories that Awuse was a thug, a drug addict and a brute and if he eventually becames the governor he would send non- indigenes away from the state. He said the lies gained grounds and made him (Awuse) unpopular among Rivers people and party faithful in and outside the state. So, when Awuse was rigged out in spite of his popularity and protests nobody sympathized with him. While narrating the story to us, tears would gush out of his eyes at intervals as he told us how he sold his properties, to pursue the Odili for governor project.
Chapter two, should deal with “the praxis of Odilism”. This concept is not a new one to our political lexicon. Before now we have had other villainous concepts such as Babangidaism, Abachaism, Obasanjoism, Abdusalamism, and again, Obasanjoism amongst others. Odilism is just a re-manifestation of other evil concepts; Odilism is the suppositional and applied basis of Odili’s 8 years of horrible governance in Rivers State. Professor Bernard Onuegbu, a crop scientist and die-hard Odili pupils had earlier propounded this pointless design of Odilism. In the Midweek Telegraph of May 30-June 5, 2007, page 13, writing under the title, “Defying Onuegbu’s Odilism Hypothesis” I had dismissed it as a worthless perception. Odilism is a fatal cure for a sick state. It is a capsule when given; sends its patient to an early grave. It was Odilism that was given to our educational institutions and they collapsed finally, and are now a breeding ground for cultists, prostitutes and criminals.
Chapter three should be titled, “Rivers of Blood”. Under Odili’s administration, it was a deliberate state policy to maintain its heavy grip on power and clear the political space of dissenting voices and opposition. The administration achieved this by encouraging the formation and funding of secret gangs, cult groups and assassination squads, to intimidate and eliminate its perceived political enemies.
Dr. Marshall Harry, former state chairman of the PDP, and later south-south head of the party was demoted from such position by Odili. Subsequently, Harry left the party and joined the “opposition” All People’s Party (APP) which later changed its name to the All Nigerian People’s Party (ANPP). He was also leader of a political association called Rivers Democratic Movement (RDM), Harry had vowed that Odili would not become governor of Rivers state again come April 2003. Before the general elections during which Rivers state and other places witnessed unparalleled violence and bloodshed: Harry was assassinated at his Garki residence in Abuja, the cockpit of Nigeria’s political power. Obasanjo, Odili’s business partner was quick to educate us that armed robbers killed Marshall Harry, their political opponent. Obasanjo, needs to tell us why armed robbers in Abuja are different from others around the globe. They only come for our lives and not our money or property.
Under him as the governor of the state, corruption was elevated as a way of life. I am one of those that never accepted any bribe or any thing from Odili. Several attempts were made to bribe me, but I stayed true to my principles, he wanted me to stop criticizing his evil policies. Obasanjo, Odili’s business partner once said during the commissioning of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) secretariat in Port Harcourt, the capital of Rivers State, that if Jesus Christ was to be around Odili could bribe him (Jesus Christ), when a well-known traditional ruler, and also a prominent novelist and writer stood up and heaped wild praises on Odili. The murdered Marshall is quoted to have said when he was alive that “Odili can bribe a dead man back to life”. While, Prof. Ben Naanen, the famous historian, activist and politician once told me that, “Odili gives the kind of bribe that one cannot resist”.
Virtually, there is no body except I and few others, who did not benefit from Odili’s corruption. Journalists, writers, religious leaders (Whether Pentecostal or orthodox), government officials, politicians, foremost civil society activists, you name them; had their greed quenched temporarily by Odili.
Chapter 4, which is the final chapter, should appraise the negative consequences of Odili’s misrule and evil on Rivers people, our democratic development and economy. This chapter should be tagged, “Prelude To Perdition”. Today in Rivers state we are harvesting the proceeds from Odili’s violence, corruption and anarchy. Justice Ibrahim Buba of a Federal High Court in Port Harcourt on March 5th, 2008 issued a perpetual injunction against EFCC from probing Odili. Wonder in nairaland! Justice Buba is now a judge in another Federal High Court in Asaba, the capital of Delta State, on Wednesday, April 14, 2010, issued a similar injunction against the EFCC in Ibori’s case. Osita Mba, a Nigerian patriot and activist had sent a petition against Buba to the National Judicial Council (NJC) in Abuja. NJC dismissed Mba’s petition as “unmeritorious”. Odili gives the kind of bribe one can’t resist (apologies to Prof. Ben Nanen). This article serves as Odili’s real political biography and not the one either Briggs or Akinnola is writing.
Naagbanton writes from Port Harcourt, the capital of Rivers State, Nigeria
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