By Oyewamide Ojo
Rotimi Amaechi is currently twisting in the painful grip of hunger. That’s why he is angry. He could no longer manage the pains. So, he cried out few days ago. “We’re all hungry. All of us are. If you’re not hungry, I am,” he told the guests at an event organised to mark his 60th birthday.
At the event were personalities such as former Vice President Abubakar Atiku, former Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai and other ex-this or ex-that. These people are hungry according to Amaechi.
For those who may not know, Amaechi served as the Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly from 1999 to 2007. He was the first chairman of the Conference of Speakers of State Legislatures of Nigeria. He also served twice as governor of Rivers State between 2007 and 2015 and was the chairman of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum from 2011 to 2015. After serving as governor, he was appointed as Minister of Transportation by ex-President Muhammadu Buhari. He also wanted to be president. He contested the APC nomination against President Bola Tinubu in 2022.
Amaechi was in power uninterruptedly for 24 years. Since the country returned to civil democratic rule in 1999, he has only been out of power for two years, from 2023 to 2025. But he is now hungry. Hungry for food! That’s what he has told the whole world.
Just two-years hiatus from power, Amaechi is complaining of hunger! Imagine what a fish out of water will suffer. That’s what he is suffering. Who will now save him from hunger? Instead of wishing him well, some people are wishing him the fate of the royal phyton known as monamona in Yoruba. But that’s not my wish for him.
The impression Amaechi gave is that he has no food to eat. But how truthful and honest is he? Nyesom Wike, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, has flayed Amaechi’s I-am-hungry statement. If he is hungry, it is not for food. It is for power, Wike said. Felix Morka, the APC National Publicity Secretary, has also condemned Amaechi’s hunger statement. Amaechi had been dependent on state resources and patronage. The former governor of Rivers State, in Morka’s opinion, is only hungry to return to his dependency on state resources.
Wike and Morka are right. Food is not the problem of Amaechi. His problem is his greed for power. He is so enslaved to power that he could not openly acknowledge the obvious blessings of God in his life. He has diminished these divine blessings with his cry of hunger. Out of sixty years of his life, he spent twenty-four years in various leadership positions in the country. What more can anyone deserve from providence?
Amaechi disclosed that his Nigerian passport was seized in Germany. He said he committed no offence. But his green passport was seized for about 30 minutes because of his Nigerian nationality. He was on his way to Vienna for a medical check-up when the incident happened.
Who is he blaming for the shameful incident? Is his confession not self-indicting? He was governor of a state for eight years. Yet, he could not build a hospital where he could go for medical checks. These are the people seeking to wrestle power from President Tinubu. Where is their moral qualification?
Amaechi said: “There are no capitalists in Nigeria. Capitalists are those with capital to invest for production. Do we produce here?” He added: “In Nigeria, there are no capitalist ideas among the politicians. It is about sharing.”
Nigerian politicians don’t have ideas of producing. What they know how to do is sharing the country’s resources. Is that not what Amaechi meant? Was he not saying the truth?
Amaechi’s statement has given us an insight into the true nature of politics in Nigeria. It is all about sharing the country’s resources. The statement has confirmed the validity and applicability of the theory of prebendalism to the Nigerian political situation. The postulation of the theory is that state offices are viewed as prebends that can be appropriated by office holders.
Not a few scholars are of the view that prebendalism is a defining feature of the Nigerian state and her politics. In Nigeria, state resources are seen as national cake. Nigerians see political offices as prebends and thus strive or contest for them for prebendal purposes.
Most Nigerians that compete to hold political office are not motivated by true interest to serve the country. Rather, they are motivated by greed and uncontrolled impulse to loot in order to boost their narrow selfish interests. Those who find themselves in power use state resources to enrich themselves, their constituents and ethnic groups.
In a prebendal system like Nigeria, political office holders grant contracts for white elephant projects. They have absolute disregard for due process. As a result, uncompleted and abandoned projects are everywhere in the country.
Like prebendalism, neo-patrimonialism also flourishes in the Nigerian political system. In a neo-patrimonial system, access to political power guarantees wealth and luxury in an environment of utter poverty. Political power is not held on behalf of the people. It is held on behalf of the power merchants, the godfathers. This is the fact of the country’s political system that Siminalayi Fubara failed to realise after he became governor of Rivers State. He has now learnt his lesson.
Amaechi and his co-travellers are united by their hunger for power. But what will they do with power if they regain it? They were once in power. What did they do with it? These are the questions.
It is well!
