Nwanosike allegation against Bala Mohammed is mischievous, argues Kola Oyerinde

“Nigerians should know that democracy is played by the rules. There is the electoral act; there is the party constitution; there is the Nigerian Constitution. You cannot turn the table or shift the goal post in the middle of a football game”

— Dr. Samuel Nwanosike speaking on Arise Television’s The Morning Show in March 2023, where he described then Governor Nyesom Wike as “the embodiment of the PDP”.

If there is one area in which conspiracy theories have a field day, it is in the arena of politics. In Nigeria in particular, conspiracy theories are very attractive because most influence peddlers or sycophants instigate these theories, some call them rumours, for a variety of reasons.

One is that, lacking access to the powers that be, they initiate the rumours to gain access. Others do so to ingratiate themselves to would-be benefactors or existing godfathers whose ego must be constantly massaged. Another reason is to gain currency and relevance in their local communities, something akin to the tales with which returnees from the Second World War regaled the ladies they were wooing. Yet, for another group, this is a strategy to position themselves to swindle gullible or unsuspecting members of their communities.

You would have read in the news the allegation by Dr. Samuel Nwanosike, a Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) stalwart in Rivers State, to the effect that the Bauchi State Governor, Senator Bala Abdulkadir Mohammed, is doing all in his power to lure the Governor of Rivers State, Siminalayi Fubara, to be his running mate in 2027. There would have been nothing wrong with Nwanosike’s claim given that there is no law that stops anybody from running for the presidency or any political office, let alone someone who has the pedigree of Bala Mohammed.

However, Nwanosike’s claim that Bala Mohammed’s plan is to corner the money of Rivers State and some other states for the touted presidential bid is not only fallacious but an attempt to deflect attention from the fundamental issues of constitutionality and political morality that Bala Mohammed is spearheading in his multiple role positions as a chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum (PDPGF), member of the Board of Trustees and a member of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party.

What are the issues at stake? Number one is the vexed question of the failure of the PDP to adhere to its constitution as it affects the filling of vacancies in the National Working Committee of the party. Specifically, as Chairman of the PDPGF, Bala Mohammed insists and correctly too, that in line with the Forum’s resolutions at two different meetings in Enugu and Jalingo, the acting National Chairman of the party, Ambassador Iliya Damagun should step down for someone to emerge from the North Central Zone, to serve out the tenure of the former substantive national chairman Dr. Iyorchia Ayu. Damagun comes from the North East Zone.

The second bone of contention is the totally unjustified and unsustainable opposition of the Minister of the Federal capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike to the decision of the PDPGF that, in line with the convention of the party, Fubara, as the incumbent governor of Rivers State, should be allowed to control the structure at the state level as every other Governor is doing. Rather than respect that principled stand by the PDPGF, Wike, who leaves no one in doubt that he has an over-bloated sense of entitlement, continues to push back on the collective decision of the Forum.

To now reduce the collective decision of the Governors’ forum as Nwanosike is doing, to the political ambition of one man, in this case, Bala Mohammed, is the height of mischief. It is obscurantism of gargantuan proportions and if Nwanosike cares to know, Nigerians are no longer fooled by the inconsistencies and grotesque somersaults of political actors who possess a far greater dexterity in changing their colours than the famed chameleon.

Ironically, two years ago, while appearing on The Morning Show of Arise Television to discuss the exchange between Governor Obaseki and then Governor Wike, Dr. Nwanosike had candidly and ebulliently told Reuben Abati and co that, you do not change the rules in the middle of a game. Why then are the PDP constitution and conventions being subjected to so much violence by Wike whom Nwanosike described in that interview, as an embodiment of the PDP? Should Nwanosike undertake a painstaking review of that interview, he would begin to understand why Bala Mohammed insists that what is good for the goose is indeed sauce for the gander. That, and nothing else, is the challenge facing the PDP at the moment.

Therefore, to suggest, as Nwanosike has done, that Bala Mohammed’s goal is personal and self-serving runs against the PDPGF chairman’s established credentials as a patriot and constitutionalist who, at critical moments, had placed a greater premium on national than personal survival. The year 2010 is still fresh in our memories. Recall, then, how the country was faced with a constitutional dilemma on account of the failing health of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua who eventually died.

With Yar’Ardua’s ill-health paralysing governance and with sundry characters blocking the seamless transmission of power to Goodluck Jonathan who was vice president at the time, the country needed patriots and statesmen to arrest the drift and put an end to the usurpation of presidential power by a group driven by an unbridled sense of entitlement. That was the point at which Bala Mohammed and his compatriots, in the Integrity Group, stepped in with the Doctrine of Necessity. It was a masterstroke. Jonathan stepped in as acting president. The rest is history.

But history has a way of repeating itself. From recent developments, it appears that Bala Mohammed has a pact with history, the history of Nigeria’s survival. Reminiscent of the 2010 constitutional stalemate, today, just as in 2010, he is caught in the vortex of another major political hurricane, one that is threatening the survival of the main opposition party and by extension, democracy in Nigeria.

As in the 2010 crisis when the constitution was put on hold by power grabbers, today, against the explicit provisions of the constitution of the PDP regarding the procedure for replacing any member of the National Working Committee of the party, Ambassador Iliya Damagun (North East) who has been acting as chairman of the PDP since Dr. Iyorchia Ayu (North Central) was forced out in 2022, has dug in. And that is despite two resolutions of the PDPGF at two separate meetings of the Forum, upholding the Constitution of the party.

As Nwanosike so eloquently put it in his 2022 Arise Television interview, you do not change the rules in the middle of the game. That is all that Bala Mohammed and the PDPGF are asking for; and it has nothing to do with the presidency of the country or any man’s ambition, or the stupendous wealth of Rivers State.

Oyerinde writes from Abuja