WHEN a convention runs unbroken, it strengthens into a culture and even a law. This is where we are with the governorship politics in Delta State.
At the onset in 1999, the Governor, Chief James Onanefe Ibori had good reason to preach inclusiveness. His sermon on rotation of the governorship among the three senatorial zones of Central, South and North sounded sweet. It was fair to all concerned.
It meant, after Ibori who represented the Central, the governorship of the State must move elsewhere to either Delta South or Delta North Senatorial District.
On the surface, no other deal for the distribution of political power appeared more altruistic and equitable.
But beneath, the grand architect of the plan, Governor Ibori, was focused on a direction. He only wanted to take everyone along in the voyage to anchor the governorship at a designated port in 2007. This was the arrangement that made the coming of Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan as governor after the eight years of Ibori in Government House Asaba to look very good. It was taken as an equitable movement of power from one zone and ethnic stock to another. It didn’t look like a filial transmission of the governorship. It looked like a product of normal political horse-trading in a multi-party democracy.
Ibori was applauded. This singular act of correctness upped his stakes in Delta politics. But as an Urhobo man, Chief Ibori was adequately guided by the prevalent sentiments. The siting of the headquarters in Asaba at the creation of Delta State on August 27, 1991 was seen as a great loss by every Urhobo man and woman. Losing the governorship wad therefore double jeopardy.
In this context, Ibori might have intended his power rotation formula as a default mode to achieve a narrow interest in the short run. Others, however saw the enduring beauty and joined massively to promote the formula into a standard mode for the management of the governorship seat among stakeholders.
Inadvertently, Chief Ibori wrote the operating manual of the governorship contest in Delta State. It is a turn-by-turn arrangement that requires patience and sincerity of purpose on all sides for the governorship to make the turns and return to the starting point.
This has not meant an untroubled consensus. Each time, there had been some reason, good or bad, for the incumbent to offset the formula.
It almost happened in 2015. After the Central and South, the North was the next anchor point. But when Governor Uduaghan came short of his own scheme to enthrone a successor from Delta North, he had back-tracked to the Centre in a move that threatened the Ibori-created power-sharing formula for the state.
Former Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa was set to lose big at the PDP primary to elect the governorship candidate. But higher principalities in the Central and South rose to the occasion. In the end the formula prevailed to the benefit of Okowa.
After Ibori, an attendant practice of testing the formula for further fitness and resilience had emerged. This was what Uduaghan was practising when he hesitated on the choice of Okowa as his successor.
And at the peak of his glory as Governor, Okowa himself described the equitable formula as an unwritten agreement that did not enjoy the protection of law. He was a kind of saying that he could still leave the governorship in the North or elsewhere outside the Central after his eight years and the heavens would not fall.
In 24 years, the formula had assumed a life of its own. Killing it would have amounted to a murder charge against the killer.
Thus, after the initial gra gra at the podium of political tough-talking, Governor Okowa climbed down to the village square to speak the language everybody understood. He chose not to commit a political murder.
In Sheriff Oborevwori, he found reason to continue with the unwritten agreement on power rotation.
It should be noted also that the arrangement was not a multiparty therapy to the challenges of power sharing in a multi-ethnic setting. It was strictly a PDP’s antidote. Other parties were at liberty to run parallel shows.
It was the dominance of the PDP at that time on the State’s political landscape that made its formula seem like an almighty formula in the determination of the subsisting political equation.
Senatorial Districts that had been waiting for their turn had a way of breaching the rule in each electoral season. Even within the then PDP, the formula owner, it was not all noiseless in build-ups to elections.
It had always looked like an open contest without any regard to the arrangement to give the crown to one person and one zone at a time.
It was this laissez-faire approach that Governor Uduaghan exploited to almost offset the cart in 2015.
It was even more threatening for first-term governors on the quest for mandate renewal. Uduaghan, Okowa and even Ibori fought to contain challenges within and outside the PDP in their bids for re-election after their first tenures.
The most challenge often came from elements within the zone in power. They gave reasons why the incumbent was unfit for a second term in office.
The lead challenger would purport a piety unknown in political transactions in Nigeria. He would ask for a tenure to complete the zonal allocation of eight years and then back down to keep the equity value of the turn-by-turn arrangement.
The beauty though is that, often than not, the survival of the formula is guaranteed by the other two senatorial districts waiting to have their turn at Government House Asaba.
The 1999 Constitution does not stop a first-time governor from contesting after the first four years. It allow a renewal that runs for another four years to make it eight years in all for the incumbent.
The zones which are in the waiting room of power know this. They also know for sure that the challenger posing as a beautiful angel and offering beautiful promises just to get by, may become the real Satan upon becoming the champion.
If the opportunity exists, everyone likes a full cup and a complete loaf of bread. The waiters are therefore guided to stay with the devil they know instead of cutting new deals with the unknown angel.
It is better late than never.
This reluctance on all sides to switch the champion midstream has helped to keep the rotation formula alive.
Nothing has changed after the migration of the PDP to APC in Delta State. The PDP has only changed medium. The persons and mode of operation have remained same.
Last Tuesday, the APC held its congress to elect party leaders in the State. Amid reports of dissensions, the party seems set, overall, to face 2027.
The complaint by those feeling short-changed is that, he that was invited to the dinner table has washed his hands beyond the elbow. They also say that the guest is appropriating every empty plate around to load more food for himself.
Well, that is the way of politics in Nigeria.
No half measures. And no real accommodation either. It is a zero-sum game where the impact is extreme at both the winning and losing ends.
Meanwhile, the stage is set for sundry calculations.
Emerging groups, like the ADC, are hoping to exploit the reported cracks in the APC to spring surprises. The battle lines are defined. Friends of yesteryears have separated and now camped in stiff opposition.
Delta Central is the epic-centre. Challengers to the Oborevwori’s throne are expected to emerge in droves in the months ahead from the zone.
Amid the cacophony, the golden rule will still rule. Going by the rotation formula, the heir apparent is Delta South. That will be in 2031 after Delta Central is done.
The waiter has only four years to wait. This is somehow guaranteed by the constitution.
The other option is not guaranteed. It runs on the promise of the challenger to do a tenure and back down. That promise can be broken and the injured cannot even go to court.
Unfortunately, this has been the pattern. The quest is for power and not performance.
This is also what gives Governor Sheriff Oborevwori a slight edge. To some of us outside the partisan belt, his performance is better than his politics.
While politicians are attracted to politics, the people are attracted to performance. Therefore, in battling the forces that want his job in 2027, the Governor stands better with performance than he does with politics.
Ultimately, his performance will help his politics but his politics cannot help his performance.
Any winning formula outside this, portends danger.