Brain Ajuriebie Gokpa, the newly elected Chairman of Eleme Local Government, with his back to a burning section of the local government secretariat, stood in front of an Arise News TV camera that was waiting to beam live. He reached out for a white handkerchief in his right pocket as he waited for the anchor on the live TV to call him. He wiped his creased face of the beads of sweat that had formed there. The atmosphere was cool. But the events of that morning made things hot, actually burning for Chief Gokpa.
He had woken up ready to have his first day in office as the executive chairman of the local government with the major of the event of the day being the inauguration of the Legislative Assembly, and then the reception that would follow after. But one phone call changed it all. Very early in the morning, a group of arsonists backed by a political faction in the local government area and some security personnel had broken into the local government secretariat and set fire to the complex.
After making frantic calls, Gokpa gathered as many people that he could including Oji Ngofa, the leader of the Simplified Movement (the political support group of the Rivers State Governor), and moved immediately to the secretariat. By the time they got there, the entire secretariat was up in flames.
Moments later, information that came in from Ikwerre, Emohua and other local government areas indicated that there was a coordinated attack on local government secretariats across the state, to prevent the newly inaugurated council chairmen and councillors from taking over affairs at the local governments.
A day earlier, a Sunday, against convention, the 23 local government chairmen and their deputies were sworn in by Governor Siminalayi Fubara at Government House, Port Harcourt. The purpose it was learnt was to take the opposition unawares and get the chairmen installed before an unexpected court order could stop the inauguration.
The burning down of and attacks on the local government secretariats was the highpoint of a long running battle for the control of the local governments in Rivers State by the political factions of the Rivers State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara and the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Chief Nyesom Wike.
The battle is an extension of the struggle of power between the two political leaders, whose relationship crashed in October 2023 when members of the House of Assembly loyal to Wike attempted to impeach Fubara over some disagreement between them.
Though most of the former Chairmen of the 23 local governments after the crisis went with Wike, like most of the members of the House of Assembly, the governor resisted the temptation to disband them and waited patiently for their tenures to expire.
But a few weeks to the expiration of the tenures of the local government chairmen and their councillors, the House of Assembly faction loyal to Wike amended the local government to extend the tenures of the local government chairmen by six months. And so, began the dingdong.
Fubara appointed caretaker committees to run the affairs of the 23 local government areas and directed the allocations from the federation account to them. On the day the caretaker committees were to start work, skirmishes erupted at most of the local government secretariats involving supporters of the outgoing chairmen and the supporters of the incoming caretaker committee chairmen.
On the orders the Inspector General of Police, the police sealed off the council secretariats and prevented the caretaker committees to move in. Governor Fubara, not wanting to create chaos directed the caretaker committees to operate from any other suitable location until the police withdrew from the councils.
Meanwhile, the Federal Attorney General, Lateef Fagbemi, had approached the Supreme Court to seek a declaration to make the local governments financially and democratically autonomous, with the implication that the states would no longer interfere with their allocations and appointment of caretaker committees for them. That prayer was granted and it put Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission, RISIEC, in a tight corner.
State Judicial Service Commission on Arson, Killings, Justice Ibiwengi Roseline
Minakiri (3rd left); shortly after the inauguration of the State Commission of Inquiry
to the violence, killings, and arson, at the Executive Chambers of Government House
in Port Harcourt on Tuesday.
But Hon. Justice Adolphus Enebeli (Rtd.), chairman of RISIEC soon gathered his officers together and came up with the October 5, 2024 date for the local government election. The new date changed the turn of events. With an existing Supreme Court directive that no court of law should stop the process of an election once initiated, it was difficult for the opposition to get the court to stop the election.
But legal spinners soon got to work. Opposition lawyers tried their luck. INEC was required by law to provide RISIEC with the voters’ register after being served with a 90-day notice. The lawyers reasoned that that notice could not have been possibly issued. So, the lawyers secured an order from an Abuja court to stop INEC from providing RISIEC with the voters’ register. It also went ahead to get an order to restrain the police from providing security for the election since the election would be irregular without a voters’ register.
However Justice Enebeli assured that he has received the voters’ register much earlier in 2023 and was ready to go on with the election. As Election Day drew close, tension increased. The police, which had withdrawn its men from RISIEC returned to RISIEC headquarters, raising fears that it had laid siege to the office. But the commissioner of Police in Port Harcourt, Olatunji Disu, explained that the police went to secure the headquarters building in view of the Hunger protest of October.
The police soon withdrew its personnel two days after, leaving the security of RISIEC porous. Governor Fubara consequently seconded some of his police security personnel to RISIEC. On getting the information, the police commissioner replaced the Government House police personnel at RISIEC and deployed a contingent of police personnel from another command to RISIEC early on Friday before the election.
A media alert from Government House that morning alleged that the police personnel deployed at RISIEC were there to break in and steal sensitive election materials and stall the October 5 election in the state. Not long after the news broke, Governor Fubara at about 2am personally led a team including members of the state executive council to RISIEC office and dislodged the policemen.
That was the state of affairs on Friday before the Saturday election. The nation stood with bathed breath to see what would happen on Election Day. A thawing came when the police eventually announced that they would not be part of the election.
The election eventually came and it was generally peaceful even without police coverage. A relatively unknown political party, Action Peoples Party won in 22 of the chairmanship elections and 314 of the 319 councillorship elections. Action Alliance won the chairmanship election in Etche. The peaceful turnout raised suggestions as to whether the police were still relevant to Election Day coverage.
On Sunday, the governor swore in the 23 new local government chairmen at Government House. The police announced that they were withdrawing their personnel from the local government offices. The Chairmen were to return to their respective local government secretariats to inaugurate the councilors on Monday.
This was the situation when the news of the attacks on the secretariats spread. The governor visited some of the affected areas, particularly the Ikwerre local government secretariat at Isiokpo. Moved by what he saw, he set up a judicial commission of inquiry to investigate the mayhem, vowing that all those indicted would be made to pay for it.
Article By Emmanuel Obe,
Chim Ogwutum and
Clifford Christopher Solomon
