My Neighborhood Watch #68 - Reporting Events Around us

Rivers state politics today

Recently, the political gladiators have been putting Rivers state in the map for negative reasons as a result of the clash between the former governor ( the godfather) and the present governor (the god son).

No one knows what exactly their agreement was behind closed doors, but the godfather single handedly handpicked him to be his successor when he vacated the sit as governor. However, one thing the godfather failed to realize is that godfatherism can never work in rivers state. He knows this but I guess, he wants to be the first person to break the jinx.

Rivers state is not like other states where they have one common language and we have several ethnic groups that divides us. So, it’s not possible for one man to call all the shots without raising an uproar.

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Well, it was time for the governor to pay back the favour he promised him, it became difficult to meet up with the terms of agreement and that was the beginning of their fallout. At first, the governor, been a quiet and gentle man, tried to make his godfather see reasons with him and to settle with him but it didn’t work out.

The godfather kept poking him, even went as far as trying to impeach him as governor through the assembly members loyal to him but the governor narrowly escaped it and that was when world war 3 started in rivers state.

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The godfather had the chairmen, councilors, assembly members, judges, senators all loyal to him. Since he handpicked them as well. So, his structure in the state was very solid. The governor is just a former accountant general to rivers state that had just few friends in the political sphere loyal to him. The godfather and his loyalist made the state ungovernable for the governor and slammed him with all manner of court cases.

But this is where the whole story gets interesting. The governor went to form strong alliances with some key political stakeholders in the state to destroy that structure and the first thing he did was to dissolve the 27 legislative assembly members loyal to his godfather and increase the ranks of the four lawmakers loyal to him.

All the commissioners loyal to the godfather that were placed in strategic positions were forced to resign from his cabinet and he appointed new ones.

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The most challenging part was taking out the whole 23 local governments council chairmen that were loyal to his godfather. After their tenure elapsed in office, the dissolved legislative assembly members that refused to leave office came up with a plan to extend the chairmanship tenure for extra 6 months again.

The governor didn’t even listen to them. According to the governor those dissolved assembly members are “committee of friends”, deceiving themselves. The governor had to use force to chase them away. The best part is that the people of rivers state were solidly behind him. They went to all the 23 local government and chased them away. After that was done, the governor installed care takers that will be handling the affairs of the local government till a proper election is done.

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Well, the godfather, had to react. You don’t expect him to sit down and fold his hands and see his governor destroying what took him 8 years to build. His boys took to the streets protesting all the time, calling for a state of emergency , while the godfather try to manipulate different court cases against him

Since the pressure was too much on the governor and he had know political structure of his own, he had to tell his supporters to move to a new party entirely. That brought a lot of fear to his godfather because he knows once that happens, his strong grip on the state will be broken.

When the six-month tenure of the caretakers expired, it was time to conduct proper elections to install new chairmen. The few days to the election was filled with lots of dramas. Protest every where in the state, another fresh court judgement slamming the state electoral board from conducting the chairmanship election and Police men coming like arm robbers in the midnight hours to the rivers state election office to cease the election materials but was stopped by the governor.

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Despite all the plenty drama, the governor still insisted that nothing is stopping this election from holding on October 5th. The election was held without any single uniform men on board for protection incase of any electoral malpractice. But to everyone greatest suprise, it was the most peaceful election.

On the 5th, i had to go out as well to exercise my fundamental human rights by voting. The streets was really empty without vehicles, so I had to take a very long walk to my polling unit to vote.

Well, the election is over and the chairmen has been sworn in today. The structure of the godfather has been brought down successfully!!

Will he sit down and watch as his “boy” destroys everything he has put in place to be like a small god in rivers state politics?

What is the governor’s plan to get the federal government allocations for his new local government chairman and councilors that has been sworn in… now that people are saying he went against court order by conducting an election. A court order that was masterminded by his Godfather!!

Well, lots of interesting things to watch out for in rivers state politics.

The governor have won the battles but the war is far from over!!

Till we meet next time!!

I will be inviting @us-andrew and @basil20 for the contest.