His loyalists and fans call him Don OJ Maroni, but his name is Ojukaye Flag-Amachree, a blue-blood from the Amachree dynasty in the Ancient Kalabari kingdom of Rivers State.
At the moment, called OJ for short by his fans and admirers, Ojukaye is the Chairman, All Progressives Congress, APC, in Rivers State.
A 6-footer in the mould of an American point guard in a famed basket ball team, Ojukaye’s tremendous frame is enough to instil fear in a potential foe. Much more, underneath that 6-pack frame is a heart larger than the intimidating height, devoted to one assignment – to sack the current governor of Rivers State, Governor Nyesom Wike. Wike had never been Ojukaye’s ally, notably since December 2013, when Ojukaye joined Right The Honourable Chibuke Rotimi Amaechi, then Governor of Rivers State, to ditch the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, for APC.
Wike, on his part, no doubt, harbours this secret appetite to harness Ojukaye’s political muscles to his(Wike) advantage even as he has not hidden his disdain of him, and that he showed much in 2016 when he masterminded Ojukaye’s persecution and prosecution over what many believed was a phantom charge. Not even the state could pull a conviction of the murder charge it slammed on him. Ojukaye was to spend the next eight months in prison, for which greater part was in solitary confinement and sundry humiliation. However, he was granted bail by the Court of Appeal ending the 8 months of incarceration. While his incarceration lasted, subterranean contacts were made by Wike to woo Ojukaye to exchange his reprieve with a change in political allegiance. He was arrested at about 5pm on 19th April, 2016 and charged to court the next say, 20th April, 2018 at about 8.00am. In an interview he granted a group of journalists in November 2016 after his release, Ojukaye narrated how the state worked to change his allegiance from Amaechi to Wike. But Ojukaye endured all the torture, rejected the offers and waited for his day of freedom. Ojukaye had recounted his unexpected journey to prison from April 20 until November 25, 2016.
“What played out on April 19 was a planned and pre-meditated arrangement to arrest and detain me, because I went there to bail someone around 11 a.m. and after spending about three hours with the Deputy Commissioner of Police and other policemen, I was told that the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, said I should be detained and I asked them why I should be detained. They said they would furnish me with some of the allegations.
“Unfortunately for them, they could not lay hand on any concrete allegation. The first allegation they brought against me was a diesel dispute that my company and one other company had. I have forgotten the other company’s name. The case is still in court. I told them it was purely a civil matter and in court. I insisted I would not want to comment on it. They noticed that it could not really give them what they wanted and I was granted bail on that.
“They brought in another allegation, which is a problem between my compound in the village and a neighbouring compound. I told them that I am not the head of my family and that Chief Amachree Flag-Amachree is the head of my family, who is in the best position to answer some of the questions they were asking me and I was granted bail on that.
“They brought in another allegation, saying that I was threatening Tubotamuno Dick on Facebook. Tubotamuno Dick came too. By the time we started discussing, it was very clear that I was not threatening him. I was also granted bail on that.
“They then brought a murder allegation around 5 p.m. I told them that since I had been coming there always, if we could continue the following morning, because I was tired, but they said no and that we must discuss it. Unfortunately, I did not give them my statement. I only told them verbally, because I was tired. I told them that the incident happened while I was a local government chairman and on the particular day, I was in my house, with policemen and operatives of the Joint Task Force (JTF), Department of State Services (DSS), other security personnel and my family members with me and I was asked to leave.
“While I was going around 7 p.m., I was called back and I was detained. The following morning, April 20, 2016, I was charged to court and I found myself at the Port Harcourt Prisons.
Despite having another charge filed against him while in prison detention, Ojukaye’s main worry was for his life. “I knew that one day, I would definitely have my freedom. I was only scared with the level of desperation from the Rivers state government. So that they would not look for a way to eliminate me. I knew I was innocent, but I made sure that I checked what I ate, the people around me and I hardly mixed up with the inmates, in such a way that I would just expose myself. My greatest worry was just my life, not that I would not come out of the prison.
Ojukaye must have read the visage of his traducers very well and understood every contour. “The essence of the allegations and the detention was to get me to bow to Governor Wike and defect to the PDP, because for the first three months, while I was still in detention, they made all efforts to make sure that I defected to the PDP and assured me that they would withdraw all the charges against me and at the same time make some offers. I told some of them, but I cannot start calling their names, that the essence of my whole political life, is not just because of what I will gain or any personal benefit, but based on principle.”
The emergence of Ojukaye as chairman of APC in Rivers State on Monday, May 21, came with a lot of tales, intrigues and power-push by certain ‘musketeers’ in the party. The Neighbourhood has identified three of them. His inauguration in Abuja on Monday June 4 did not come with less drama.
Until the wee hours of the Congresses the pendulum never swayed Ojukaye’s side. However, on the eve of the State Congress, some deft political moves initiated by the ‘musketeers’ threw up an irresistible offer that was Ojukaye. No doubt, his emergence as Rivers State APC chairman has ignited a fresh flame of hope in the party’s faithful, particularly within the youth cadre.
Today, Ojukaye is the man on whose shoulder lays the mission to topple an incumbent governor, one rumoured to be tactical, ‘deadly’ and with no space to take an enemy prisoner, and with a large war chest. Can Ojukaye achieve that? If he does, he would only be stepping into the shoes of his political leader, Amaechi who, in 2015 led the “commonsense revolution” that drove then President Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan out of Nigeria’s coveted Presidency back to his Otuoke village in Bayelsa State. Ojukaye’s travails may not yet be as much as that of Amaechi who suffered state persecution under Jonathan, with Wike as front, yet the circumstances as Nigeria approaches another line of elections bear similarity.
But Ojukaye is not a greenhorn in political battles. A two-time executive chairman and 2-time chairman of caretaker committee, Asari-Toru local government, Ojukaye led the umbrella Buguma youth body, Buguma Youth Council, BYC, as Chairman in the peak of communal crises at about 2004/2005. He restored peace and united the community, even in the midst of the crises, a feat that motivated the people to compel him to run for the council’s chairman’s office when the curtain for election into the third tier of government was drawn open. Ojukaye solved conflicts in the community.
Would Wike have his way, there is no doubt the he would stop Ojukaye’s emergence as APC State Chairman. But it is too late for him to do anything as the die is cast. As the 2019 governorship election draws closer, Wike is sure to face his foe, but not with Ojukaye as his governorship opponent. Rather, Ojukaye will lead the party that will seek to dethrone him and send him packing to his native Rumueprikom.
Ojukaye, as far back as 2016, had shown where his allegiance was, and what his mission in partisan politics is.
“As a young man, I feel that getting into politics is to make a difference. I feel strongly that with the Minister of Transportation, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, as my leader, by God’s grace, my dreams will be achieved. It is not just about money or what I want to gain. That is why I stood my ground. For almost eight months, I refused to bow to them,” he told journalists in 2016 after his release.
To put his house(Rivers APC) in order against what will be a tough fight in 2019, Ojukaye has sent an invitation to aggrieved members of the party, notably, Senator Magnus Abe, to join hands in building the party. In a terse message he sent to The Neighbourhood soon after his inauguration in Abuja on Monday, Ojukaye said it would be better if those aggrieved members abandoned their grievances.
Although APC will yet choose a governorship candidate for the 2019 poll, who, of course, would not be Ojukaye, one fact is that he, as party chairman, will lead the onslaught to flush Wike out of the Brick House(Rivers State Government House). And would APC achieve that under Don OJ Maroni, then, it would add a new phrase to its political thesaurus, “Like Amaechi, like OJ”. And no doubt, that would be a sweet payback for Ojukaye.
Comments