Nigeria Governors Forum & The Plot to Remove Amaechi – By Odimegwu Onwumere

Posted by admin Articles, Columnists, NNP Columnists, Rivers, State News Saturday, February 23rd, 2013

By Odimegwu Onwumere / Rivers, Nigeria / Feb. 23, 2013 –
Dr. Dennis O’Grady tells us in “Bottom Line – Personal” that
change has a bad reputation in our society. But it isn’t all bad —
not by any means. In fact, change is necessary in life — to keep
us moving… to keep us growing… to keep us interested….
Imagine life without change. It would be static… boring… dull.
And Max Planck tells us in “The Philosophy of Physics” (1936)
that an important scientific innovation rarely makes its way
rapidly winning over and converting its opponents; it rarely
happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its
opponents gradually die out and that the growing generation is
familiarized with the idea from the beginning.

With the news that Governor Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers who is
also the Chairman of Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) was able
to thwart a coup that was plotted against him by persons from
certain quarters in the NGF, is an indication that Amaechi should
look beyond the mere foiled coup and watch that there are
people who do not want to make their threats open to remove
him as the NGF’s chairman, but are silently on revenge mission
for only reasons best known to them.

It could be recalled that in September last year, when the NGF
said that it was about to find a lasting solution to the country’s
security challenges and unanimously agreed on what to do, the
suggestion gradually widened as the Northern governors
opposed to the decentralisation of the Nigerian Police Force.
We learnt then that in a communiqué reportedly signed by the
Northern governors on this issue of state police exposed the
height of betrayal of persons to the position of the Amaechi as
the chair of the NGF. The NGF sang with discordant voices at
that stage, with the authentic refusal of the Northern Governors
for the creation of state police.

I contributed a piece on that issue and warned that Amaechi
should read the handwriting on the wall in the NGF’s house and
know that it would be very hard to reduce the pains and
inflammation the state “Nigeria” is causing us, because some
people hardly would agree on what Dr. Dennis O’Grady had told
us in “Bottom Line – Personal” that change has a bad reputation
in our society. But it isn’t all bad — not by any means. In fact,
change is necessary in life — to keep us moving… to keep us
growing… to keep us interested…. Imagine life without change. It
would be static… boring… dull.

Nigeria is one, but different Nigerians. I told him that he is the
chair of the NGF does not mean that he is loved by all in the
NGF. I said that how else would we not agree on this if the
Northern governors had the effrontery to thwart a decision the
NGF agreed upon and perhaps was nailed by the NGF’s chair,
which was always the norm in every meeting. I asked if the
renegades would not be expunged from the meeting. But
Amaechi in his charismatic self told the world after, that the NGF
was intact – there were no qualms to quake about the
discordant voices.

As we have also read in the news that Amaechi was seeking for
a second term in the NGF’s fold, it is a good development owing
to his fundamental rights. But the idea to scheme him out by
some forces believed to be outside the NGF’s fold, hinging their
point that NGF does not allow a chairman to run for a second
term in office, is the ugliest side of the group’s politics, instead
they would tell us that there were people who are not happy with
the height Amaechi has attained in the politics of the country.

In leadership, you do not expect the leader to be championing
the cause of others other than those he or she was elected to
head or spearhead. In my estimation, I think Amaechi has done
well in this area. Initially, the NGF was not all this known, except
as Amaechi becomes its Chair. He has shown how a servant-
leader can credibly perform. Amaechi became a servant first in
the NGF, which compelled the anti-Amaechi to first see him as
its leader and later want him booted out. Why?

Amaechi has shown in the NGF what was written in the Christian
Bible, precisely in the book of Matthew 20:25-26: Jesus called
them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the
Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise
authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to
become great among you must be your servant. But those
seeking for Amaechi’s removal remind me of what was contained
in the book of Philippians 2:3-5: Do nothing out of selfish
ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better
than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own
interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should
be the same…

If Amaechi had become a stooge of the presidency in his
position, Nigerians would have condemned him. Now, he is not
against the presidency, but working with the dictates of the NGF,
detractors are at his jugular, as if there had been any personal
agenda of his other than that of the NGF in adding voice to the
dictates of the Executive. I can’t remember anywhere that
Amaechi is leading in the NGF by hitting people’s head; rather,
he has been coalescing his counterparts around a shared vision.

It is time the anti-Amaechi forces in and outside the NGF should
beware. You can’t weaken truth by killing the truth-bearer. It is
grateful that some members in the NGF saw the reason Amaechi
should continue and eschewed those forces that wanted to
impose a chairman on the Forum. It is however noteworthy of
Amaechi who had shown in the NGF what Richard Petty and
John Cacioppo instruct in the book, “Attitudes & Persuasion”
that the nature and structure of belief systems is important from
the perspective of an informational theorist because beliefs are
thought to provide the cognitive foundation of an attitude. In
order to change an attitude, then, it is presumably necessary to
modify the information on which that attitude rests. It is generally
necessary, therefore, to change a person’s beliefs, eliminate old
beliefs or introduce new beliefs.

Amaechi has brought about transformation and reformation in
the Nigeria Governors Forum, and this could be why those who
suffer from the Old Order and Beliefs do not want him. However,
Dr. Dennis O’Grady had told us in “Bottom Line – Personal” that
change has a bad reputation in our society. But it isn’t all bad —
not by any means. In fact, change is necessary in life — to keep
us moving … to keep us growing … to keep us interested….
Imagine life without change. It would be static… boring… dull.

Odimegwu Onwumere, is the Coordinator, Concerned Non-Indigenes In
Rivers Statewp_posts