Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Nigerian Political Party System (2)

I have traced the foundations, evolution and (lack of) ideology of Nigeria’s major political parties and concluded that we are yet to evolve a political party system in its normal characterization in which there are clearly defined parties with contrasting visions, ideologies and policy platforms and with stable membership and programmes. Instead the parties have fluid and fluctuating members (the ACN’s presidential candidates in the last two elections came from the PDP and one has since returned there; several ACN legislators and commissioners have been members of other political parties; one ACN governor has been a PDP senator, and governorship candidate for ANPP and CPC(!); another ACN governor previously contested on ANPP platform; PDP has previously handed the party governorship ticket to an ANPP deputy governor; the current PDP chairman has previously been expelled from the party (!); two former PDP chairmen were previously members, officials and candidates of other parties; many politicians across all parties have been known to cross to another party solely to contest an election and cross right back thereafter; APGA recently disqualified probably its best governorship aspirant in one state allegedly because of opposition to his candidacy from a PDP president (!); the two governors elected on the Progressive Parties Alliance (PPA) platform duly returned to the PDP leaving the party the empty shell it was; all the initial national chairmen and many governors elected on APP/ANPP platform decamped to the PDP; Labour regularly offers its platform seemingly to the highest bidder…), and there is very little discussion around policy and ideology. Yet since the ultimate objective of any political party is to win elections, form government in the society in which it is organized, and govern that society based on its beliefs and philosophies, it is often a political party’s actions in government that reveals or confirms what it actually stands for. We must thus examine the question, “how have these parties performed whenever they have had the opportunity of forming a government, either at national or sub-national level since 1999?” I will exclude local governments from this analysis for reasons of their de facto control by the state governments and because unlike Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, Femi Gbajabiamila and their colleagues in the House of Representatives who appear intent on foisting a unitary constitution on Nigeria, I do not regard local governments as a separate and independent tier of government, and I believe in a federal constitution in which the regions or states are the federating units! Since PDP has exclusively formed the federal government since 1999, it bears the burden and benefit of accounting for all the successes and failures at that tier but fortunately we are able to review the performance of AD/AC/ACN, APP/ANPP, APGA, Labour, PPA and CPC which have formed various state governments across the country. The PDP has to accept responsibility for the country’s parlous state-corruption, acute insecurity and crime, increasing poverty and unemployment and the erosion of societal values. Obasanjo successfully carried out some economic reforms-telecommunications liberalization, banking consolidation, pension reforms and crucially, the Paris Club debt write-offs. He also enacted reform legislations for power and mining sectors which unfortunately he didn’t implement. Obasanjo also re-integrated Nigeria into the international community and took steps in his first term to prevent the recurrence of military intervention in politics. Beyond these, Obasanjo’s eight years failed to curb corruption; worsened the practice of democracy and conduct of elections and left infrastructure and power almost worse than he met it. Obasanjo’s successor, Yar’adua had no economic policy beyond stalling reforms and PDP’s internal troubles have made the country unstable under Jonathan. Jonathan has been plagued by indecisiveness and seeming tolerance of corruption, but he has resumed economic reforms and power privatization. Overall the PDP’s national performance has been very much less than glorious! At state level, PDP has been even worse! Its first set of governors included Diepreye Alamieyesegha, James Ibori, Peter Odili, Joshua Dariye, Achike Udenwa, Orji Kalu, Chinwoke Mbadinuju and Lucky Igbinedion!!! The AD/AC/ACN has fared significantly better in the states. Its governors have tended to be more level-headed and the welfarist heritage of governance in the South West has somewhat endured. While Bola Tinubu laid policy foundations in Lagos, Babatunde Fashola has been the party’s best advertisement and probably provided the impetus for other states in the region to return to ACN. APP/ANPP’s legacy can be seen starkly in polio and VVF, the problem of 10 million Almajiri children, the nation’s highest rates of poverty, unemployment and illiteracy, and the problem of Boko Haram-all these phenomenon you will notice are most concentrated in states substantially (mis)governed by the party-Borno, Yobe, Kano, Sokoto and Zamfara. There is nothing in ANPP’s governance record to recommend it to anyone! The CPC, until recently a part of ANPP by-and-large shares the ANPP’s dismal record and if winning Nasarawa was an opportunity to demonstrate what it could achieve at the federal level, it has thrown away that chance with both hands!!! The Labour Party has been lucky that many of those who contested elections on its platform (Fayose, Andy Uba, Patrick Ubah?) have lost and that only Olusegun Mimiko who has governed Ondo with competence and some vision has been successful.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Nigerian Political Party System

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Nigeria’s ruling party since 1999 is a centrist, non-ideological “rally” united by money and power rather than any shared vision, ideology or ideas. It is the political party that best approximates the character of the Nigerian state and bears its limitations and dysfunction-corrupt, sub-optimal, incompetent (except in matters of easy money, unmerited power and diabolical strategies!) and mediocre, and it presents a façade of unity while its most powerful components covertly pursue hegemony while simultaneously retaining a balance that keeps stakeholders within the fold rather than outside. The party’s centre of gravity, like the country is in its Northern half, so when nominal power resides outside, there is tension and instability. However it is also the most “national” (actually “unitary”) of our political platforms and has been most favoured by the Northern and Southern minorities who fear domination by their larger ethnic neighbours. The PDP to its credit has managed to minimize the role of religion in its politics and governance. The party was founded by relatively noble politicians and elder statesmen-Solomon Lar, Sunday Awoniyi, Alex Ekwueme, Adamu Ciroma, Bola Ige, Abubakar Rimi, Sule Lamido, Onyeabo Obi, Ayo Adebanjo, David Jemibewon, Olu Falae, etc but these elements were displaced by the Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM) elements (Abubakar Atiku, Tony Anenih, Lawal Kaita and Co) who were less-principled and willing to do the departing military’s bidding as the Generals (Abdulsalam Abubakar, Aliyu Gusau and IBB) sought to impose Obasanjo as its presidential candidate. The successful military infiltration and take-over through PDM proved fatal to PDP’s character and essence and foisted a political system devoid of high ideas on the nation! The combination of PDM’s mercenary politics and Obasanjo’s ( supported by a large cast of soldiers and policemen including Babangida, T. Y Danjuma, Ahmadu Ali, Tony Anenih, Aliyu Gusau, Abdullahi Abubakar, David Mark, Bode George) military authoritarianism has become the dominant strain in PDP’s DNA!!! The new All Progressives Congress (APC) is a merger of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) with additional elements from All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and Democratic Peoples Party (DPP). ACN evolved from the Alliance for Democracy (AD) and Action Congress (AC) in terms of membership and political character, even though AD technically remains a different, marginal political party. AD was a protest formation of the Yoruba Afenifere political establishment who saw themselves potentially marginalized within the omnibus PDP as old NPN elements in the group began to coalesce into a dominant faction. Bola Ige who harboured a presidential aspiration pulled Afenifere out of PDP, first into All Peoples Party (APP now ANPP) and then formed AD. The evolution through AD, AC and ACN reflected the internal power struggle within the movement as first the two “Bolas”-Bola Ige and Bola Tinubu, and later Tinubu as “Asiwaju” snatched power from the elders. I have always viewed ANPP as a Northern “insurance” against the PDP. It did seem that having adopted PDP as its preferred “special purpose vehicle” (SPV) for power transfer in the run up to 1999, the military and security overseers of the transition and the more atavistic elements up North felt an imperative to create a Northern fallback in case Obasanjo (the appointed caretaker CEO of the SPV) and PDP went astray! The APP duly became the party of the North winning nine northern states in 1999, and of Sharia as Sani Yerima in Zamfara and other ANPP governors led introduction of the Islamic legal system across the North, a process correctly described as “political Sharia” by Obasanjo. It was a strategy to use religion as a bulwark against the rampaging PDP as the 2003 elections approached. The ANPP reinforced its ethnic, regional and religious authenticity as Muhammed Buhari, ex-military leader and leading Sharia advocate regarded as religious and pious, became its leader and presidential candidate. It was inevitable however that Buhari and the ANPP Governors would fall out after his failed 2003 and 2007 campaigns, given their differing temperaments and dispositions. The fundamental character of CPC derived from its founder, Buhari who had projected himself as focused on Fulani, Northern and Islamic interests, but was more aligned with the mosques and streets, rather than palaces and financiers! Buhari and CPC were bound to be less flexible, more self-righteous and dogmatic and less politically pragmatic than their buccaneering cousins in the ANPP, traits that cost the party several states and legislative seats and Buhari his presidential aspirations once again in 2011. The inclusion in APC of factions of APGA and DPP around ex-Governor Chris Ngige and Senator Annie Okonkwo from the South-East and late Senator Pius Ewherido from Delta provide additional geographical leverage into the group. It is not certain what the merger of all these disparate elements into the APC would produce-the party could re-create a social democratic grouping with progressive credentials or less cheerfully a form of sectarian-populist fascism could emerge. Beyond analytical composition, the APC is likely to be more formidable electorally than its forbears and has a window of opportunity to position itself as qualitatively different from the PDP by focusing on policy and integrity, and putting its best foot forward. It is not evident that APC will do this, as it concentrates on attracting defectors from the PDP and risks pushing unviable options to the electorate. Labour Party and APGA govern Ondo and Anambra respectively and both are de facto allied with PDP. In other states, Labour provides a platform for itinerant politicians, including those whose record cannot be reconciled with labour interests, while APGA is essentially a “Biafran” grouping based on late Ojukwu’s goodwill. DPP and Accord are relevant only in Delta and Oyo respectively. I have spoken earlier of PDM as a faction within PDP led by Atiku and Anenih. The PDM recently registered by INEC is Atiku’s “briefcase” party waiting to be populated by defectors from PDP. PDM’s strength has never been grassroots politics, but rather out-manouvering other factions within a larger body (the old SDP and current PDP). The PDM’s other strengths have been finance and propaganda!!! The group eventually over-did itself and was smashed by Obasanjo as Atiku schemed to consign Obasanjo to a single term in office, illustrating its main weakness-believing its own propaganda! It is yet unclear if targeted PDP defectors will not opt eventually to stay in PDP or other parties and whether aspirations of potential defectors may not clash with Atiku’s. Nigeria is yet to attain a political party system, properly so called. Our political parties are based on personal aspirations and expediency, base considerations and primordial allegiances. Though ACN’s governance record supersedes others, no party has focused substantially on policy platforms and virtually all have weak organizational structures designed to maintain control by party leaders and governors. The glue holding them together is the lure of office, power and money and it is not evident that this is about to change!

Jonathan and the PDP

President Goodluck Jonathan assumed Nigeria’s presidency without winning any election on his own account or merit. He was selected by Diepriye Alamieyesegha as his running mate for Bayelsa governorship in 1999; became substantive governor after his boss was impeached on ex-President Obasanjo’s orders; was selected as running mate to late Umaru Yar’adua in 2007 for the presidency, also by Obasanjo; and became President upon Yar’adua’s death in 2010. These do not mean Jonathan’s political skills had never been tested. He must have conducted himself such as to earn nomination as Deputy Governor and Presidential running mate. There must be a reason for his not going down with Alamieyesegha during the money laundering and impeachment saga. The major test of his political maturity on the national stage was his calm navigation of the multiple minefields in his way during the dangerous days of the Yar’adua vacuum, when things could easily have gone awry, for him and nation! On the other hand, it could all have been “time and chance”!!! Jonathan went on to two remarkable victories of a substantive nature-winning PDP presidential primaries in spite of strong regional opposition crystallized in the so-called “Northern Political Leaders Forum” under Alhaji Adamu Ciroma, which selected a consensus Northern opponent to Jonathan (Alhaji Abubakar Atiku) among three other leading aspirants (General Ibrahim Babangida, General Aliyu Gusau and Dr Bukola Saraki). Jonathan then built an unprecedented South-East, South-South, North-Central and South-West alliance and scored sufficient incursion into the unfriendly North-East and North-West to score the required 25 per cent votes in many states therein. No other Nigerian leader had been brought into power with a similar voting pattern-the Igbos voting the same platform with the Southern minorities; the Yorubas and Igbos voting for the same presidential candidate; the Northern middle-belt being excised from mainstream Hausa-Fulani voting direction; and a sufficient split within Northern states to win a few, while several others gave him 25% or more of their votes. It illustrates the naivety of Jonathan’s political strategy, and the limitations and lack of strategic foresight of his kitchen cabinet, that this coalition was virtually dismantled by Jonathan’s team themselves as they sought to monopolise the spoils of office! The South-West was excluded from the victory, probably even before Jonathan was sworn in, while the Middle Belt has consistently wondered what benefits they have attained by voting for the president. For a long time in fact, Jonathan sought, in vain it now seems, to appease precisely those segments of the electorate whose votes he had failed to secure or more accurately the political elite therefrom. Since then Jonathan has recorded a string of political losses-the defeat of his candidate for House of Representatives Speaker by a coalition of internal and external opponents foisting a hostile lower chamber on his administration; he endured a “Boko Haram” insurgency which embarrassed him locally and internationally while he appeared weak and indecisive as he pondered how to respond until the belated emergency declaration; he somehow managed to alienate both Obasanjo, who by-and-large made him Governor and President, and Bola Tinubu (who he actually put in the dock, right after the presidential victory) whose complicity eased his victory in the presidential election through a massive South-West voter endorsement. The consequence is that Jonathan’s 2015 aspiration has limited though not irreparable roots in the South-West. Soon the broad quadrangular coalition that elected Jonathan had been shrunk into a narrow South-South/South-East alliance pre-occupied with spoils of office forgetting that another election was imminent, sooner than later! Indeed I have heard non-Ijaw, South-South elements dispute their presence in the ruling coalition, rather describing it as an Ijaw/Igbo coalition!!! The presidency has since suffered additional embarrassment from the loss of the NGF elections by its preferred candidate to his regional nemesis, Rotimi Amaechi, and the humiliating walk-out of the so-called “new” PDP at the mini-convention on August 31, 2013. The new PDP phenomenon illustrates certain trends and realities of our polity-the domination of politics by regional, ethnic and religious considerations, and increasing desperation by some Northern groups to retrieve political power; the subsistence of hegemonic desires by contending factions of the Nigerian power elite, in this case North and South-South/South-East; the faulty design of our political party system, especially the PDP, which are merely vehicles for attaining wealth and power rather than political parties in the classical sense; the perception of Jonathan as naïve and inexperienced and the exploitation of his “simplicity” by others who believe they are more deserving of the presidency, oftentimes simply by virtue of their higher capacity for intrigue and mischief(!); and the failure of the PDP as Nigeria’s ruling party since 1999, to elevate the quality of our democracy and governance. The new PDP walk-out however masks another reality favourable to Jonathan-that mini-convention marked the effective take-over of the party by Jonathan! Yet the president’s failing has not been mostly one of policy-which may in fact be on the right path in some respects illustrated by power privatization, agricultural reform, improvements in transport and aviation infrastructure, fiscal consolidation and monetary stability, the Sovereign Wealth Fund, foreign policy successes in Mali, Guinea Bissau, China and elsewhere even though significant failings remain in the oil sector, and with corruption, poverty and unemployment. Jonathan’s undoing has been politics and strategy! He has been wrong-footed in every major political battle since he became president, and one must now wonder at the quality and commitment of his strategic advisers. Today most of the “principalities and powers” of Nigerian politics-Obasanjo, IBB, Buhari, Abubakar Atiku, Bola Tinubu, Aliyu Gusau and many influential governors appear ranged against him while his corner is dominated by Edwin Clark, Ahmed Gulak, Mike Oghiadomhe, Asari Dokubo and others who cannot offer broad assistance! To be fair, Northern opposition to Jonathan has often appeared unreasonable and implacable, and it may be noted that even Obasanjo was faced with a similar phenomenon. As the opposition to Jonathan is finally unveiled, he will face his greatest test in the run-up to 2015. Can he construct or re-construct a winning coalition? Can he re-unite the PDP or at least retain sufficient arsenal therein to prevail? Can he attract many of the “territorial powers” back into his camp or alternatively secure a pact with the voters above the heads of the “chieftains”? Will federal power and resources prove decisive? Will he avoid an unedifying exit from power, in 2015 or if his enemies have their way, even earlier? Will the country itself be embroiled in the aftermath and could we suffer a national meltdown or conflagration?

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

A New Power Sector

I have been writing on power sector reform since this column commenced. I was researching and teaching on the subject even earlier than that! It’s been clear to me for decades that optimizing Nigeria’s economic potential was not going to happen until the country did something about our shocking deficit in electricity generation and distribution and I have long understood that the government monopoly, National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) which became Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) was never going to be the vehicle for redressing that embarrassing power shortfall. Like its other inefficient and failed peers (NITEL, Nigeria Airways, Nigerian National Supply Company (NNSC), Nigerian National Shipping Company (NNSL), Ajaokuta Steel etc., the company’s incentives were in no way aligned towards innovation, efficiency, service delivery or sustainability. Like the country itself, these organizations were debilitated by corruption, ethnicity, and nepotism and were structurally unable to accomplish any meaningful outcomes. It was clear that our “deliverance” in power would not come from incremental improvement in NEPA, but through structural change. I was therefore excited when I heard of a new power sector policy at the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) which aimed to create a structurally different power sector in which NEPA would be unbundled into its generation, distribution and transmission components; a new regulatory infrastructure would be created; the issues of pricing would be addressed; and the generation and distribution entities would be privatized, while the transmission monopoly would be concessioned to private sector managers. I celebrated this new approach, which was formulated as far back as 2001 thinking that our salvation from self-inflicted darkness was at hand, but then I was naïve about Nigeria! This 2001 policy which was encapsulated into draft legislation, the Electric Power Sector Reform Bill of 2001and sent to the National Assembly same year was held up in parliament till 2005 when it was apparently reluctantly passed. It was amazing that a nation could treat a law to redress probably its most important socio-economic malaise in this manner, but then haven’t we always underrated the corrupt bureaucrats and regional politicians who have combined to undermine our prospects as a nation? You would think again that when the Electric Power Sector Reform Act (EPSRA) was eventually passed in 2005 that we finally were free! Instead President Obasanjo whose administration championed the reform, by this time had other priorities-a constitutional amendment to facilitate a third term for the two-time, second term president was now the regime’s top policy objective and the transformation of the power sector did not receive the required attention. More curiously the government’s power policy actually then moved in the opposite direction to that suggested in the new law with the government investing in a rash of power projects under the so-called National Integrated Power Projects (NIPP)!!! Such was the confusion that it was only after the failure of “third-term” that Obasanjo returned to the EPSRA and the matter was not concluded until Umaru Yar’adua took over as President. Yar’adua, with wrong-headed advice from Rilwanu Lukman discountenanced EPSRA and reverted to a failed policy prescription based on government control of the power sector, achieving nothing until his unfortunate demise. To his credit, President Jonathan recognized the imperative of radical action on power and enunciated a power sector road map in April 2010 based on EPSRA. That road map appears finally to have reached a point of no return on August 21, 2013 with substantive conclusion of the privatization of most of the unbundled PHCN entities. In specific terms, the government has successfully concessioned the transmission company to Manitoba Hydro of Canada against many odds; it has essentially concluded the sale of 9 distribution companies with outstanding payment issues with one (Enugu), while Kaduna Disco privatization is ongoing; 5 generating firms’ sale have also been completed, with some payment outstanding in respect of only one (Sapele) while Afam transaction is also pending. The government has received over $2.7billion in sales proceeds so far, with additional payments still expected. The process of selling off 80% of government stake in the NIPPs has already been started by BPE and the Niger Delta Power Holding Co Plc with positive market sentiments. By and large, Jonathan and his aides have accomplished the transformation of our power sector from one controlled by government into a private sector dominated industry. There are heroes in this affair! Mr Atedo Peterside, accomplished banker and Chair of the National Council on Privatisation’s (NCP) Technical Committee stands out. Professor Barth Nnaji who served variously as Special Adviser and later Minister of Power also does. No one would remember the contributions of the quiet but effective Ms Bolanle Onagoruwa who was unfortunately removed as BPE Director-General while the process was ongoing. But it is not yet uhuru! The BPE appears to be mismanaging the fallout of Interstate Electricity’s default in payment for Enugu and eroding the credibility of an otherwise sound exercise; regulation, consumer protection and competition issues must now take the front burner; the NIPP privatisation must be successfully completed; the transmission “limiting factor” must be carefully managed, with transmission decentralization and captive generation considered whenever possible; we must now stimulate huge private sector investment in new generation capacity across the country; and the management of the highly technical electricity market must be insulated from political and other interference.

Power, Propaganda and Reconciliation

I was inclined, for personal reasons, not to comment on the “crises” in Rivers State. I however concluded recently that because nothing I have read so far encompasses my take on the matter, there is an over-riding public interest in placing my perspective on record. I may have touched tangentially on the issue in two recent articles-“The NGF Crisis” and “Egypt or Nigeria”-but I have until now refrained from presenting a comprehensive narrative. In “The NGF Crisis”, I noted that Governor Amaechi won the governors’ election by 19 votes to 16. However it was predictable that the elections would be very close and the Forum would be factionalised in its aftermath. I placed the affair as a proxy battle between Northern and opposition power groups opposed to Jonathan and the presidency, and argued that both Amaechi (who was fighting against local sentiments), and Jonathan, apart from NGF’s policy and technical work which was bound to suffer, were strategic losers in the affair. My conclusion was that the best interest of both sides was probably best served by reconciliation. In “Egypt or Nigeria”, I cautioned against attempts to project a coup or revolution in Nigeria based on developments in Rivers State. The elements at play in the Rivers palaver are in my view quite base-incumbency versus ambition; a power struggle by displaced regional powers to reclaim hegemony from a yet un-stabilised new power, deploying an ally in the new power’s home base to exact maximum damage; the fury of an offended and insulted federal power unleashed on a provincial power who is desperate for survival; and a battle in which the contenders deploy asymmetric weapons-national power versus media propaganda! I did not think there were any fundamental principles in dispute or any overarching values in contention. Instead it was a contest driven essentially by power and politics! I think the roots of the issue stretch far longer than most analysts have suggested! When late President Yar’adua was in power, he had a group of friendly governors led by former Kwara Governor, now Senator Buki Saraki, that included Yar’adua in-law Isa Yuguda of Bauchi, Amaechi and now displaced ex-Governor Timipre Silva of the then Vice-President Jonathan’s Bayelsa State. We remember that during the Yar’adua power vacuum, when the sick President lay ill in Saudi Arabia, these Governors under the Saraki-led NGF were perceived to be disinclined to a Jonathan take-over, and then PDP Party Chairman, Ogbulafor who was allied to the group, lost his position once Jonathan took power. This crisis of confidence also denied Silva a second term in Bayelsa State. It may also be that Amaechi preferred his re-election to happen along with the rest of the 2011 general elections rather than after Jonathan had won the presidency and consolidated power by encouraging a lawsuit which cut short his tenure. While a temporary truce was reached in 2011 because most of the Governors did not wish to endanger their second term prospects, once the 2011 elections were over, a subtle battle resumed, this time with 2015 as the object. Amaechi had now inherited the NGF leadership while some former allies, including Gabriel Suswan of Benue, Ibrahim Shema of Katsina and Yuguda had defected to Jonathan’s camp! I believe the truce was broken through a series of developments-Amaechi’s support for Silva during the Bayelsa PDP primaries; the presidency’s perception that Amaechi was using the NGF against it; the conflicts between Amaechi and Dame Patience Jonathan over Okrika waterfront and sundry matters; and elements of Rivers State domestic politics along the Ikwerre-Ijaw/Kalabari fault lines. There probably was an escalation with deployment of federal power over appointments, contracts, infrastructure, oil wells and security against Amaechi and ipso facto Rivers State and Amaechi’s opposition to the State of Emergency declaration in the North-East was probably the final straw! All these were brought to a head with the NGF elections and the humiliation of the presidency whose party candidate was defeated by Amaechi’s North-West coalition. At this stage, no one has yet committed any constitutional infraction as up to this point, matters were yet in the realm of politics and deployment of power and administrative discretion. Even the embarrassment over the disputed NGF elections could still be tolerated since the NGF was not a constitutional creation but a voluntary association of Governors. The fracas on the floor of the Rivers State House of Assembly was however a different matter! It was a constitutional sacrilege for five legislators to attempt to impeach a speaker against the will of twenty-seven others. The fight in the legislature was a shame and the widely published thuggery by Chidi Lloyd was a disgrace and a crime. A massive propaganda war was then unleashed probably at significant cost to the treasury of the state and focus on its governance. Having said all, I return to my initial conclusion-that the optimal strategy for both Jonathan and Amaechi would appear in my opinion to be dialogue and reconciliation. That does not mean they must agree on political direction-Amaechi could choose to leave the PDP or could otherwise declare an intent to challenge Jonathan for the party ticket either as candidate or running-mate, but both parties have to put the state, nation and constitution above their ambitions. Amaechi would also have to somehow persuade Rivers State and the South-South region to his chosen path.