As powerful forces in each of the state’s three senatorial districts voice their views and expose their strategies for the contest, some contentious issues have been aired that have generated comments in the media, suggesting that acrimonious rivalries are being unearthed, as a consequence of these activities.
However, some analysts and informed observers of political affairs in Bayelsa State assert that the highly visible political manipulations that have been initiated by some key actors in the political arena are in themselves signs of the restoration of credibility to the process of political discourse and contest in that small but vital state.
Bayelsa’s importance, as a symbol of the health of the democratic process in Nigeria should not be under-estimated. As the home state of the president, it represents the bellwether of the political atmosphere in the entire South-South geo-political constituency.
Because neighbouring Rivers State is embroiled in a divisive and unprecedented battle between the incumbent governor, who now champions the cause of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) and the stalwarts of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to which he belonged when he was elected and which he has now abandoned, it is imperative for the credibility of the president’s bid for re-election that his home state must record an unassailable victory for the PDP across the board.
Some key leaders of the party’s affairs in the Western Senatorial District, which is made up of Sagbama and Ekeremor Local Government Areas recently followed the lead of the president’s own Eastern Senatorial District, made up of Brass, Nembe and Ogbia, when they held a meeting of stakeholders in Sagbama and announced that the elective posts of senators and House of Representatives members would be zoned according to previous rotational practice. The rationale for this announcement has since been made even more emphatically in private and public utterances by some influential leaders in the state. For example, the former pioneer Chairman of the state chapter of the PDP, Engineer Charles Dorgu, who is now a key consultant on several development projects in the state, and who hails from Sagbama Local Government Area, which is also the home community of Governor Henry Seriake Dickson, has asserted publicly that the zoning principle was established by the founding fathers, as a sacrosanct pillar of the fundamental objectives of the party to promote and preserve harmony at both local and national levels.
“The zoning of political offices is not meant to undermine the interests of sitting candidates but is rather meant to ensure that fairness and equity prevails in the selection of the party’s candidates and reflects the real interests of the home constituency,” he says.
However, as more respected political leaders, including King A.J. Turner, a powerful community leader reputed to be a close friend of President Goodluck Jonathan, voiced support for this principle, in the East and people like Governor Dickson’s political adviser and former state party chairman, Fred Agbedi, did the same in the West, a problem arose in the Central Senatorial District, which is made up of Yenagoa, Kolokuma/Opokuma (KOLGA), and Southern Ijaw Local Government Areas. This is the most populous and largest single territorial entity among the three districts. The fact that it also contains the state capital as well as Southern Ijaw the largest local government area in the state, tends to give the impression that those elected from this Senatorial District are usually the leading force in the state’s national presence in the National Assembly in Abuja.
As a consequence, concerned observers are waiting with bated breath to hear the strategic announcement from the Central Senatorial District. Many of them assumed that this would simply follow the formula laid down, as a precedent by the two other districts and that the reinforcement of the zoning principle was a foregone conclusion. However, instead of that the first major announcement that was aired, concerning the issue was a declaration by a group, claiming to represent the interests of the electorate in the Central Senatorial District, announcing that the sitting senator, Emmanuel Paulker from Yenagoa, had been endorsed to stay in the seat for an unprecedented third term. This announcement has apparently inspired a backlash from Senator Paulker’s colleagues from the other two districts over the earlier announcements and reports have now been published, claiming that they have disowned the zoning announcements that were made earlier.
In order to comprehend the complexity of the political situation in Bayelsa State, one must examine the provenance of the three incumbent senators and the history of the occupancy of their seats since the advent of the new democratic dispensation. In the western district, the first senator was from Sagbama and the seat was lost by the PDP in the first election. Senator Emmanuel Difa, who was the pioneer senator was a member of the opposition Alliance Congress (AC) but at the end of his first term, the PDP re-asserted its state-wide supremacy, which had seen almost all of its other legislative candidates in the state assume office virtually unopposed. The next PDP Senator J. K. Brambaifa, also hailed from Sagbama Local Government Area. When his term ended the issue of zoning was raised, as it was asserted by the then leaders of the party that the tacit agreement had been for each local government area to occupy the senatorial seat for two terms, and so, regardless of the effectiveness of Senator Brambaifa’s performance, the party granted the slot to Ekeremor represented by the former Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Hon. Heineken Lokpobiri. Senator Lokpobiri has now served for two terms and those who believe that the zoning agreement should be regarded as being sacrosanct insist that the position should now be returned to Sagbama.
In the case of the Eastern Senatorial District, the pioneering senator was the late Chief Melford Okilo, the almost legendary advocate of the political liberation of the Ijaw peoples and the Niger Delta as a whole. He hailed from the Ogbia Local Government Area. However, in spite of his stature and seniority in both experience and age when he had completed only one term, some political activists in the territory insisted that in their own perception, it had been agreed that the senatorial seat would be rotated after each single term and that it was the turn of Brass LGA to assume the office. This argument won the day and after an acrimonious contest for the PDP ticket between two prominent sons of the Brass community, Hon. Timipre Sylva and Hon. Inatimi Spiff, the latter won the contest and was duly elected. Again, at the end of only one term, the issue of rotation was deployed, as the central theme of the succession campaign, and Nembe LGA now claimed its right to take over the Senate slot. Senator Barigha Amange from Nembe emerged as the next senator then and he too served only one term until 2011 when the slot was returned to Ogbia LGA and Senator Clever Ikisikpo, the present holder of the seat took over. Given this record, it is not surprising that highly vocal agitation for the senatorial seat to return to the Brass LGA has now surfaced.
In the case of the senatorial seat for the Central Senatorial District, the pioneer senator was the dynamic young activist, David Brigidi, who hailed from the Southern Ijaw LGA. Brigidi quickly became one of the most visible and vocal senators in his first term, as he became a focal figure for issues, concerning the oil and gas industry and a close ally of the late Chuba Okadigbo when he served as President of the Senate. It was generally acknowledged that Brigidi’s performance was highly effective in his first term and he had hardly any challenger that could overcome his desire to serve a second term. He achieved a relatively easy victory when he ran for his second term and actually mounted a bold attempt to obtain the party’s ticket for a third term in 2007 but he confronted two major obstacles. The first was that since President Goodluck Jonathan, who had started off the campaign season, running for governor of the state, had been elevated to the national presidential ticket, as the running mate, political alliances in the state were changing drastically. The second obstacle that he faced was the argument in favour of switching the seat from Southern Ijaw to either KOLGA or Yenagoa in keeping with the conventions that were extant in the other two districts. It was widely perceived that with Jonathan headed for the centre, it would be appropriate for at least one of the senators to be someone drawn from his own political structure the Green Movement and this gave Hon. Emmanuel Paulker, from Yenagoa a definite edge. Hon. Paulker was endorsed by the party to take over from Brigidi and has now served two terms.
It is against the above background that issues, arising in the political arena of Bayelsa State have to be judged as considerations, surrounding the approach of new elections in 2015 become the central elements of political discourse in the state. After the initial announcements in support of zoning the candidacies in the Western and Eastern Senatorial Districts the announcement by Senator Paulker’s supporters, counteracting that sentiment brought the process of political representation in the state to the forefront of public scrutiny. This occurred at a point at which there was a noticeable increase in public statements of support and endorsement for the re-election of both President Jonathan and Governor Dickson. While the Jonathan support movement was largely a national phenomenon though, the manifestation of this strategic campaign in Bayelsa State became the focal point for considerations of local support for the PDP tickets, especially that of the governorship. As a consequence, when an independent group of supporters of both the governor and the President in KOLGA mounted a rally, expressing their confidence in their leaders there was a surprising reaction from some PDP leaders in the LGA, who apparently believed that this was a clandestine attempt to present new aspirants for the local and national legislative contest. This incident created an atmosphere of caution and wariness in the affairs of the party in KOLGA, which might have accounted for the delay in the party’s leaders in the LGA announcing their support for the zoning of candidacies. So the strategic move by Senator Paulker’s support group to promote the endorsement of the incumbent National Assembly members became the focal issue in KOLGA.
Subsequent utterances from supporters of the senators in the other two senatorial districts since then have given the impression that there is growing resistance against the rotational principle from the incumbents in Abuja as a group. This is not unexpected, given the fact that political office-holders in Africa have often been noted for developing a “sit-tight“ attitude once power is in their hands but this particular circumstance may be generated by more complex motives than simple self-interest. Supporters of the senator in the East, Mr. Clever Ikisikpo, for example, have argued that the single-term exchange of territorial right has rendered the position of senator from the district less effective than it should be. Their argument is that senators from that district have not been able to develop effective contacts and seniority in the upper house, as each of their terms have been regarded as lame duck tenures since it has become conventional for them to be removed after only a single term. They suggest that at least two terms should be granted each senator in order to increase their effectiveness in office.
However, those who oppose this change say that the convention that has been established cannot or should not be changed arbitrarily based simply on the incumbent’s wish to have it changed. They say that it would be unfair to deny the Brass LGA its expected advantage at this point without enabling the stakeholders to enter into a proper dialogue and negotiation on the issue. Advocates of the maintenance of the status quo at this point say that since the Senate slot is slated for Brass, any discussion of a change in the duration of the zoned tenure should be entered into only after the transfer has been implemented this time around.
The basic arguments concerning the electoral ambitions of the various aspirants in the senatorial constituencies reflect the differing circumstances that exist in each of them. Apart from the questions of conventional expectations that have arisen in the Eastern District, the argument in the West is based on a well-recognised formula of territorial transference between the only two local government areas that make up the district. This political entity is unique as well in that since it has only one House of Representatives member, covering the entire district, it is presumed that the representative will emerge from one LGA and the senator from another. Attempts by supporters of the incumbent Senator, Lokpobiri, recently to suggest that since the governor is from Sagbama LGA, the Senate seat should remain with Ekeremor have been dismissed by supporters of the status quo ante by showing that when the then deputy governor of the state, Rt. Hon Peremobowei Ebebi, was on the seat, the present senator was serving his first term. In addition to this, those who support the retention of the rotational principle argue as well that the process has preserved political integrity and harmony among the stakeholders of the political process in the senatorial district to an extraordinary degree and should thus be retained indefinitely.
It is in the Central Senatorial District so far that the issues arising out of these contentions have generated most controversy and near crisis. Ironically, the arguments being deployed in that vital constituency by some of those promoting the reform of the status quo are intertwined inextricably with presidential rather than local politics. Some of Senator Paulker’s allies claim that his close relationship with the president serves to guarantee the existence of an intimate and protective supporter of the President’s interests in the Senate. Other supporters of Senator Paulker say that his role so far has been that of a privileged advocate of the interests not only of his constituency but also of the entire state and as such he deserves to serve at least one more term, in tandem with the president’s desire to serve for a second term.
However, these very arguments have provided fuel for opposition to the continuation of Senator Paulker’s tenure in office from influential stakeholders in Bayelsa State. The main argument offered by these forces is based on the provenance of the senatorial seat and its role as an important symbol of the empowerment of the political class at the community level. They say that if an important LGA, like KOLGA, can be denied the right to present a candidate for the slot at the appropriate time, this might be perceived as a denial of the rights of local stakeholders to choose their representatives at the centre, unless they do so on the directive of those who have already enjoyed the privilege of being chosen.
KOLGA counts such influential party figures, as the state party chairman, retired Col. Sam Inokoba; incumbent House of Representatives member, Hon. Warman Ogoriba; former NDDC Managing Director, Timi Alaibe; former NDDC Chairman (and one-time state party secretary), Dr. Tarila Tebepah; former Deputy National Organising Secretary (and now special assistant to the National Chairman), Hon. Blesson Akpuluma and the Principal Executive Secretary to the Governor, Hon. Douye Diri, as indigenes. Some knowledgeable analysts, who have considered the implications of the situation now argue that if the retention of the senatorial seat for a third term by Senator Paulker is to be considered, the decision must be based on principles that are acceptable to such influential stakeholders, who have helped to build the almost impregnable PDP ascendancy in the state.
According to Hon. Fred Agbedi, this demand reflects the central premise of the democratic transformation that has been promoted by President Goodluck Jonathan’s principle of governance. “Everybody, who is a member of the party has the right to seek office on the ticket of the party regardless of their place of birth or origin but when the party establishes criteria for choice, this must be tested through the regulatory processes,” he says.
He added: “The fact that incumbent National Assembly members have been encouraged to sit tight by their supporters cannot prevent the party from conducting primaries based on its constitutional requirements. Primaries are the only legitimate form of selection while endorsement is only an expression of the right of free speech by the people.”
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Forces in contention in Bayelsa politics |
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