Doris Fisher’s Pre-emption of Wike and Kalabari’s Guber Aspiration
The year 2023 has become a watershed in the long race of the Kalabari ethnic nationality to the Brick House of Rivers State, a race marked by anything but team play by the sprinters themselves and their divisive supporters who have been studied to be easily prone to switch into discordant tunes that had in time past demoralized and even sprained the frontrunners away from the finishing line.
The 2023 general election offered the Kalabari nation a time for critical circumspection and coordination to get it right with concessionary considerations from co-runners looking good in their favour this time.1 it doesn’t seem that the drummers of discord on the sidelines have been appeased, and it took nothing but the groundbreaking Kalabari Civic Reception in honour of the man who held the aces, the Executive Governor of Rivers State, His Excellency Chief Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, an event that put the collective political aspirations of the Kalabari people in the front burner, to spring up the internal tunes of discord that attempted to assail the hopeful outcome like a bull in a China shop.
A bull straying into a shop of valued china wares doesn’t have the intent to take any for a prize, except to destroy everything in its hysteria. But it doesn’t seem so with Dr. Doris Fisher, the Veterinary Doctor of a Kalabari origin that has taken headlong the priced job to undermine Kalabari’s collective quest for the governorship of Rivers State. In her own case, she seems to have a target amongst the wares displayed in the shop, and her destructive hit at the prime Brick House ornament is plausibly in exchange for the job of Deputy Governorship to an eventual snatcher of the coveted gubernatorial ticket outside her Kalabari group, because in her vile antecedents of political brinkmanship, Dr. Doris Fisher has always had an offer of porridge for her role of spoiling the political broth, even though she had got fooled all along but never seemed to relent.
To every discerning political watcher, the Kalabari Civic Reception for the Rivers State Governor, grandiose as it turned out to be, was more than a “Thank You” gesture for the Governor’s magnanimity to Kalabari people whom he gave the offices of Deputy Governor and Secretary to the State Government in his Cabinet and to whose benefit he has also commenced the first phase of the long abandoned Trans Kalabari Road project to connect six coastal communities by road and bridge. The reception was also to nudge the Governor on the side about Kalabari long and deserving wait for the Governorship of Rivers State, and this fact was not lost on the Governor himself.
It is a normal thing to do in the circumstance such as even the Ogonis and other ethnic groups had done before the Kalabaris, and the Governor did not mince words in telling the Kalabari people that the Brick House plum job is up for their grab if only they would be united and purge themselves of the self destructive tendencies of the past and, most importantly, if there comes up amongst them a man with the capacity required of the office.
The Governor openly condemned the manner any Kalabari leader close to him is being made a target for destructive calumny by Kalabari people themselves, and the message was thought to have reverberated home. But the red carpet on which the governor strode to the podium to make this comment had hardly been rolled off when Dr. Doris Fisher fired the first salvo against Kalabari’s aspiration for the governorship seat of Rivers State.
For the records, Doris Fisher in her publication just after the event called on the Governor to disregard Kalabari’s Governorship bid and branded the organizers of the event as attention seekers and misfits for the exalted office of Governor of Rivers State, declaring her support instead for any other successor the Governor may pick outside Kalabari “even from his own political Ward”.
Although, Doris Fisher has denied that her vile outburst was borne out of her being refused audience at the event in keeping with an agreement that no political appointee in the Governor’s administration from Kalabari should speak at the event, she gave her reason in her subsequent publication as “the non-invitation of her younger sister and wife of Edo State Governor, Her Excellency Mrs Betty Obaseki to the event”, which has itself been proven to be a blatant lie with the release of acknowledged official invite and follow up correspondences with the Edo State First Lady.
All of these call to question the motive of Doris Fisher’s gambits and why she chose to single out Dr Tammy Wenike Danagogo,, the Secretary to the Government of Rivers State, as the target of her political warmongering to the extent of declaring publicly that “he will never be Governor of Rivers State”. Indeed, her audacious and unwarranted persecution of the fine, unassuming gentleman widely called “LL”, has thrown up public interrogation of not only the cause of her prejudice against him amongst other Kalabari Governorship hopefuls, but also of the person and credentials of the man ALABA that have become unsettling for Doris Fisher even when he has not declared intention to contest for the office of Governor of Rivers State.
The findings are quite revealing and perplexing, suggesting that Doris Fisher in her preemption of the Rivers State Governor may have revealed the Kalabari’s trump card for the gubernatorial ticket. D. Tammy Danagogo is one Kalabari political leader that has everything considerably counting for him, having had about two decades long sterling public service career, from the local government level up to tbe national horizon. A thoroughbred lawyer with a P.hD degree, DR. Danagogo since the founding of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in 1999 has served the party loyally and meritoriously as the Rivers State PDP Legal Adviser, before becoming the elected Executive Chairman of Akuku-Toru Local Government Area in 2004. He thereafter served as a two-time Commissioner in the Rivers State Executive Council between 2008 and 2014 when he was elevated as the Minister for Sports in the Federal Executive Council of Nigeria under President Goodluck Jonathan, before His Excellency Chief Barr Nyesom Ezenwo Wike as Governor of Rivers State, appointed him Secretary to the Rivers State Government in 2019.
The fact that he has acquitted himself excellently in all these public offices has earned him not only the trust of the establishment but also a trailblazing and unprecedented all-levels public administration experience that weighed heavily on the scale of preference for a governorship hopeful for Rivers State. Coupled with these is his unalloyed loyalty to his boss and mentor of many years, Chief Barr Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, who had once cited Dr. Danagogo as a typical example of his definition of politic in respect of which he made the famous declaration that “99.9% is not good enough”, implying that DR. Danagogo is a 100% loyal party man. DR Danagogo has, in spite of all these, never been a man driven by inordinate ambition as to overreach anyone or trample on anyone’s aspirations, not even that of Doris Fisher. One then wonders what could have informed his being made the unjustifiable target of Doris Fisher’s political rabble rousing.
The only plausible thing, as suggested by credible postulations, is her Deputy Governorship ambition which will be doomed should the Governorship come to Kalabari, and this selfish grandstanding and horse-trading against the larger Kalabari interest has been found to be her stock in trade. It was reported that in 2003, some Kalabari sons, prominent amongst them was Chief Chamberlain Oyibo, former Group Managing Director of NNPC, nursed the ambition to take over the Governorship of Rivers State from incumbent DR. Peter Odili who was running for 2nd term. Doris Fisher schemed to take over the Rivers West Senatorial ticket from incumbent Senator Ibiapuye Martins Yellow, a fellow Kalabari man who was apparently not in favour of Odili’s return, and, deluding herself that she had secured Odili’s affirmation, she let loose her goons not only to scatter the Buguma campaign ground prepared for the flagoff of Chief Oyibo’s Governorship Campaign, she also ensured that the campaign was permanently grounded, knowing Chief Oyibo to be an easy going man who wouldn’t return her violence. Both Odili and Senator Martins Yellow won their re-election respectively and ‘Madam Fisher’ woefully lost out in her fishing for a Senatorial seat.
Doris Fisher’s readiness to betray anybody in furtherance of her selfish goals was showcased fully in 2008 when she betrayed and opposed her first cousin, Hon. Ojukaye Flag Amachree’s LGA Chairmanship bid in Asari-Toru Local Government Area of Rivers State in support of MR. O.J.J. Braide, the preferred candidate of then Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State who had promised her a Commissioner position for her “sell out” role. Again, her cousin won and her treachery only got her a short-lived tenure of the Commissionership she bargained for.The climax of her failed bids for political offices that weighed above her public recognition and competence, and which may be the source of her petty vendetta against DR Danagogo, was her scheming through associates of the then First Lady, Mrs. Patience Jonathan, to be chosen in filling the Ministerial slot of Rivers State in the Federal Executive Council made vacant by the removal of Ms Ama Pepple in September 2013.
Her hopes, being desirous to be in the ranks of Rivers State female Federal Ministers like Boma Browmillow Jack and Ama Pepple, was pitiably dashed as DR. Tammy Danagogo was chosen and appointed the Minister for Sports in March 2014 in replacement of Ama Pepple. She probably had nursed grievances against him since then that has only now found a vent .
Doris Fisher’s lacklustre political walk has been fraught all along with inordinate ambition and failed scheming, except for a tenure she served as Chairman of the Rivers State Primary Schools Board, her short-lived State Commissionership and her present appointment under Governor Nyesom Wike as Chairman of Port Harcourt Water Corporation.
And so, for her, 2023 is her year of political baptism for the position of Deputy Governor of Rivers State it offers her if the Kalabari nation’s aim at the Governorship of Rivers State is thwarted, and for that to happen, she has to play the spoiler for the Governorship seat coming to Kalabari. But what political expediency would make Kalabari with a Deputy Governor position presently to gun for another Deputy Governor position in the next dispensation? She made the same move in 2015 when it was clear to all that Chief Wike would pick a female running mate for the first time in Rivers State. But, obviously, Wike was looking out to get the best quality for the job and so he chose Dr. Ipalibo Harry-Banigo, her fellow Kalabari female medical doctor, but a woman of substance and pedigree, who had been Commissioner for Health and Secretary to the State Government in Rivers State.
No doubt, the Governor of Rivers State has declared that he would bequeath the running of Rivers State only to a man with the kind of capacity that he (Wike) himself has displayed. But to the watchers of Rivers State politics, there is presently no way of testing that capacity because the stakes are different from what it was when Wike fought his way to power against a sitting opposition Governor in 2015. There is now no opposition Governor to fight off. There is instead a Governor who has won the unalloyed loyalty of all his followers who would just have to wait for him to decide the way to go for all to follow.
It was thus an inward fear of losing out in her Deputy Governorship ambition, borne out of the Governor’s comments at the Kalabari Civic Reception for DR. Doris Fisher to have preempted the Governor with her Anti Kalabari, nay anti Danagogo Governorship gambits. The Kalabaris bid for the Governorship of Rivers State is a conscientious one. At the inception of the present Democracy in 1999, the power of the the party (PDP) to determine who becomes Governor of Rivers State was in the hands of the Kalabaris, holding the positions of State Chairman and National Board of Trustee seats of the party.
But they acceded to the clamour of the Upland that Rivers State since creation has been ruled by the Riverine bloc both under military and civil rule, from Commander Alfred Diette Spiff, Chief Melford Okilo, to Chief Rufus Ada George, and, therefore, the Kalabaris denied themselves and conceded power to the Upland in the person of DR. Peter Odili, through whom power had been retained by the Upland bloc for 24 unbroken years, 16 out of which has been under Ikwerre rule. Governor Nyesom Wike has led Rivers State extremely well, and he knows the quality of leadership he wants to bequeath to Rivers State when he leaves office and this cannot be influenced by Doris Fisher’s preemptive tantrums because she is not God to make proclamations over men and make them stand. But one thing is clear, the Kalabaris have shown utmost good faith in the concession of the Governorship of Rivers State and therefore deserves reciprocation.
Douglas is a Buguma-born Public Affairs Analyst.
