By Abraham Ogbodo
Auntie Remi has not handled the matter of the protesting women of Rivers State with characteristic candour. From the details that I am getting, it is even a much smaller matter than what happened between her and those School of Nursing students in Delta State when she visited the state in March. In Delta, the Master of Ceremony (MC) was pulling some musical stunt on stage, and without a rehearsal to allocate roles, he expected the students to key in just like that. The students refused to remain within bounds. Instead of “(Remi Tinubu) na our mama O” that was advised as a complimentary refrain to the running lyrics, they rejected the gift and threw it back at the singer, chorusing: “(Remi Tinubu) na your mama O!”
That was like openly rejecting the symbolic motherhood of the First Lady by these students who are much younger than her biological children. It was not a palatable situation for the host state and the school. Or so it had seemed before the first Lady offered her own interpretation of the situation. She granted the right of expression to the students and added that none of them should suffer any form punishment by the school authority on account of the incident. That, alone, diffused the mounting apprehension in official circles in Asaba.
I was not surprised. Mrs Oluremi Tinubu is first, a trained teacher before being a politician. In fact, she is a teacher by profession and only a politician by occupation. It explains my addressing her as Auntie Remi. That is her perfect classroom name. She understands students’ psychology and what happened between her and those students was not anything more challenging than a typical rough classroom situation where skills in managing the overflowing exuberance of adolescents and young adults are required in abundance.
Overall, the media and reputation managers of the First Lady did a good job. They left nothing for exploitation by mischief makers. They simply said that in a democracy, freedom of expression, outside the crime or tort of defamation, is not only legitimate, but a fundamental right. This same dexterous handling was my honest expectation when attention regarding the First Lady shifted from Asaba in Deita to Port Harcourt in Rivers State.
The story was that the Renewed Hope Empowerment Initiative of First Lady Remi Tinubu berthed in Port Harcourt last Friday to spread empowerment among women of Rivers State. There was, however, a little problem that has been mismanaged into a big deal. The First Lady forgot to accommodate something very crucial. She was going to distribute democratic dividends in Rivers State, where democracy had been truncated since March through the declaration of an emergency rule by the President, who is her husband. The people did not ask for any emergency. It happened because the President could do so without letting loose the heavens or hell on planet Earth. His emergency meant the dismantling of all democratic structures in the state, including the sacking of the elected Governor and House of Assembly members. Since then, the arising anger has been boiling over. It is only being endured and managed to stop it from exploding into a bigger catastrophe.
The appointed sole administrator to oversee the state is a retired Admiral from Cross River State. His name is Ibok-Ette Ibas. It was an emergency and so nobody was given an opportunity to ask how Ibas, a non indigene, became the most suitable to run the state during the period of the emergency, which the President graciously limited to six months in the first instance, instead of allowing it to run forever. The Administrator, on his part, thinks he has a mandate from above to assume full control and act comprehensively. He does not talk like a stranger or usurper. He hardly exhibits the disposition of a peacemaker. He talks and acts like a man with power and authority to conquer. He talks as if he also can do and undo like President BAT. In one instance, he warned the incessantly protesting women of Rivers State to desist from tasking his patience.
This is the real matter. Ibok-Ette Ibas is robbing it in massively. Some people have attributed this to a hangover effect from the command and control structure of the military where he came from. This sounds very plausible. It is just that, in the matter of the Rivers emergency rule, it is in his own interest to permit the military hangover effects to wear-off completely and fast too.
A man cannot be perpetually drunk on power. Even BAT is beginning to understand this. This is why he is using other means to create a soft landing for the highly turbulent Rivers State Emergency Flight. Ibas is not doing like a man whose time is short. Or like a man in another man’s land. He is getting too involved, like a substantive factor. He is firing and hiring. He lacks gumption. Even if he has the instruction of the Commander-In-Chief to go, conquer and return to base, a tested Field Marshal would always appreciate the real situation in the frontlines and accordingly adjust his battle plan to come out alive.
On the contrary, Ibas has been advertising tactical and strategic naivety. He should be reminded that there is no such thing as No Retreat, No Surrender, in the many battles of life. A wise man applies the brakes or retires altogether when danger outweighs hope. Ibas should understand that acting as a sole administrator to subvert democracy or the will of the people has never been a heroic task. Therefore, he should stop seeing himself as an achiever or saver of a bad situation. Indeed, being a sole administrator in a democratic milieu is an undertaker’s task that comes with so much honey but no honour. It is a job for traitors and hustlers, and no sole administrator, in similar historical circumstances, had ever come out enhanced. They came out diminished and damaged beyond repair. I shall avoid naming names but from Pa Awo’s Western Region through IBB’s Interim National Government to Obasanjo mad declarations all over the political landscape between 1999 and 2007, no hero had ever emerged from the usurpation of democratic mandates. Sole Administrators, as it is in Rivers State, are opportunists used by central despots, to buy time to re-arrange the politics and polity for personal gains.
Painful still, the Administrator in Rivers is insisting on full options. His wife, Mrs Theresa Ibok-Ette, is effectively edging into the mainstream of official protocols. She answers Rivers First Lady, and she was the one on hand to stand in for First Lady Remi Tinubu in Port Harcourt last Friday. Auntie Remi ought to have seen what was coming. She is too experienced for this kind of gaffe. Whatever she needed to do in Rivers State could wait until the Government House in Port Harcourt is put in order and the housekeepers are separated from house owners. This is not the time to delegate her powers or functions as First Lady to an agent in Rivers State. Doing so could bring a lot more issues. This was what happened in Port Harcourt when Mrs Theresa Ibok-Ette Ibas showed up at the gathering of Rivers’ women as First Lady of Rivers State and a representative of the First Lady of Nigeria.
Like her husband, Mrs Ibas is also getting expansive. She is failing to see a dividing line between the wife of an elected governor and the wife of an appointed administrator of a state in Nigeria under a democracy. She is desirous of exercising all the attendant powers of the wife of the governor of the state.
The women of Rivers State have refused to be persuaded. They are saying that even though both the butterfly and bird can fly, the former does not replace the latter in the taxonomy. When they didn’t see Mrs Remi Tinubu and the Rivers State First Lady, Mrs Valerie Fuburu, that they know, they decided to retire to their homes. They were like saying: Remi, we know, Valerie, we know; but who are you? Is there anything wrong in saying so? This question is specifically for Nyesome Wike, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, to answer. He is feeling more hurt than the injured. In the matter at hand, he has come to approximate the entire state and he has been apologising profusely on behalf of the people of Rivers State to the First Lady for the embarrassment caused her in Port Harcourt.
There is something called eye service in street language. It means acting to please the senses instead of the heart. It is a metaphor for insincerity, duplicity and absolute lack of character. That is what Wike is doing. He is even acting worse than that. He is that accursed fellow who sets fire on the field and then runs to alert the farm owner of the raging fire.
Wike is on stage preaching decorum. Hear him: “Insult on anyone representing the First Lady of Nigeria in an event is a direct insult on the office of the President and Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and as a leader in Rivers, I apologise.“ Can you imagine this? The unfortunate thing, though, is that Wike does not seem to know that he is being tolerated for a purpose. He is only useful for a while, and time may be fast ticking on him. It shall soon be time-up. A man who insults his father with gusto cannot be taken seriously when he prostrates for elders or displays pretentious courtesies outside his home.
My pain is that First Lady Remi failed to say the right thing at the right time. If she had just said, it was within the democratic freedoms of the women of Rivers State to so act, I guess Wike would have been shut out and forced to shut-up his mouth promptly too. The First Lady has left it hanging, allowing Wike all the room to revel in sanctimonious cheap talk. “You say you want peace and at the same time, you are sponsoring people to insult everyone including the President and his wife,” he said. He is sounding as if he has become the moral compass that points the only direction to peace in Rivers State. You do not spank a child and also deny him the freedom of crying from the pain. Wike now thinks he is the best that has happened to Nigeria politics because his wishes are gradually equating a command on the institutions of state to act accordingly. For now, Nyesome Wike may get what he wants. He does not have reason to fear any force except one man called Bola Ahmed Tinubu. But it doesn’t end here. I must add that his emergence and continued tenacity are a lesson for the so-called political leaders in Rivers State and elsewhere, who, for their immediate benefits, chose brawn over brain in leadership recruitment.
Back to the starting point. It is not too late for First Lady Remi Tinubu to come out and say it as it is. The women of Rivers State have the right to choose to deal directly with the First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria outside the wife of the appointed administrator for Rivers State.
