Peace is the complete absence of strife. It happens when all sides have accepted the given conditions as negotiated by mediators. In territorial dispute for instance, peace arises from a consensus by the contending sides that the given cartographic and cultural space is enough to accommodate but not to assimilate either of the contending parties. In business disputes, the parties will agree on gains and losses. This had been the general understanding until bookmakers came with dimensions that complicate the issue. They have differentiated between real or enduring peace and grave-yard peace. 

I know for sure that when people die, they are usually told to rest in peace. Even known merchants of violence are also told to rest in peace when they die. When the notorious killer and armed robber, Lawrence Anini, was executed on March 29, 1987, he was told to rest in peace. I guess, back then, some people would have told Adolf Hitler, the man who troubled the entire world for six solid years; between 1939 and 1945, to rest in peace too.

It is the same way that some current trouble makers in Nigeria would be told to rest in peace at their symbolic or absolute expiration. There is, therefore, peace in the graveyard. It is peace that is occasioned by cessation of life. In wishing it, there is no discrimination. It is wished equally, most times, for peacemakers and troublemakers alike who have died. Surprisingly, there is also graveyard peace among the living. It happens when peace is decreed instead of being developed. One of such brand of peace has just been decreed in Rivers State.

The place has not been too peaceful since March 18 when President Bola Ahmed Tinubu alleged a breakdown of law and order and on the basis of which he had declared a state of emergency upon it. For effect, the President had sacked the democratically elected Governor, Similaye Fubar,  and members of the State House of Assembly and appointed a sole administrator, Ibok-Ette Ibas, to hold the forte. The administrator is a retiree. He retired from the Navy as Vice Admiral and Chief of Naval Staff. He is from Cross River State. This is why some people said, when the whole thing happened, that President Tinubu had replaced democratic government with military government in Rivers State. They added that he was using Rivers State to test-run a diarchy to push the nation in a direction that is neither envisaged in the constitutions nor captured in established democratic conventions. Senator Seriake Dickson, who represents Bayelsa West in the Senate, said so.

Hopefully, there will be peace in Rivers State after peace was decreed upon it last week. It would not be the first thing to happen by decree in the state. The emergency rule, which decoupled the state from democracy was by decree, too. Whichever way it is reasoned, the 1999 Constitution remains a federal constitution. If nothing, the document, as we have it today, governs a place called the Federal Republic of Nigeria. It does not govern the Kingdom of Nigeria. In legal reasoning, this is a conclusive piece of evidence. Federalism means governmental powers and functions in Nigeria are not consolidated entirely in the centre.  They flow through the 36 states and their local councils, which equate the federating units. No part of that constitution says that one democratically elected operator at one level or tier of government can, by mere words of mouth, nullify the democratic mandate of an operator at another level of government.

The governmental power structure under federalism is not hierarchical. It is not a monarchy in a pre-revolution France where, whoever Louis that was in power, was the law. No level of government in a federal structure plays a subordinate role to the other. It is the same thing among the arms of government, namely the legislature, executive, and judiciary. Functions, powers, and scopes of the different tiers as well as the arms of government are well defined in the constitution. It is from the constitution that all powers flow. Federalism, therefore, is not free farming or fishing where a man or woman covers as much field as his strength and greed can permit. In true federalism, every field is covered by the different legislative lists, which create the distinctions in functions as well as the specific areas where functions overlap.

I do not intend to push for the study of Constitutional Law as a national requirement for all citizens. But from the way things are going, it would be most profitable for every Nigerian who can read and write to have a copy of the 1999 Constitution as an indispensable companion. BAT has been too indeterminate. He wakes up as a democrat and goes to bed as an autocrat. That is very dangerous. He is beginning to define the constitution as if the only copy of the document that exists in the country is safely in his custody. This is changing the character of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and making it look like the Republic of Malawi under President Kamazu Banda.

 The story was that the only copy of that country’s constitution was locked up in Kamazu Banda’s office cabinet for safe keeping. If a citizen came around fuming and making loud claims on what the Malawian constitution said and didn’t say, President Banda had a very simple way of settling the matter. He would reach for the only copy of the constitution in his custody and go through with exaggerated concentration and mannerisms that fit the moment. Done, he would tell the claimer that none of his outlandish claims was captured in the constitution of Malawi. He would gently put back the constitution from where he had taken it, and the matter was closed.

The Federal of Nigeria is not Kamazu Banda’s Republic. Here, governmental power is not planned to flow from one source like River Niger. The President or even the central government is not a headmaster with a cane in hand to beat others into line. He does his own thing and others do their own too. But since we have slept too long to allow all powers to move to a base in Abuja, I am of the view that whatever that is on the table regarding the Rivers State matter should be considered good to work with. Peace is peace. Whether it is graveyard, backyard, courtyard, or vineyard peace that has been offered by Tinubu and Wike, it should be taken.

 Even in situations where half bread does not appear better than none, the bread can still be eaten to manage hunger in the short run. The alternative is to starve and die or fight to finish. In combat sports, the capabilities and capacities of the combatants are usually measured and balanced before a competition is staged. Fighting till the end in a duel where the combatants do not stand on equal martial footing is foolishness. And I know Fubara is not foolish. When he came out of the peace meeting with a strange anointing and started singing the praises of his tormentor-in-chief, Nyesome Wike, I knew what happened. Wise men retire when danger outweighs prospects. For now, the man has retreated, to, perhaps, fight another day. 

But come to think of it. Similaye does not quite rhyme with Samson, the Nazarite. And so, those who wanted him to tear to pieces the Lion of Bourdillon and the Tiger of Obi Akpor with his bare hands were not being fair to him. They were not wishing him well. They wanted him to commit suicide so that they could tell him to rest in peace in the grave. Suicide is an extreme expression of despondency. I don’t think it ever got to that point with Fubara. Besides, the fight is not his. Therefore, the shame of capitulation is not his as well. He is just a young and inexperienced fighter who thought he could be supported by benevolent social forces to pull down strongholds. Instead, he was betrayed and left stranded. There was an institutional conspiracy involving the judiciary, the legislature, the presidency, and security agencies to humiliate him in celebration of evil.

 Seriously, what was Sim supposed to do in the circumstances he found himself? Tear through these lethal barricades on a horse back, singing a war song and raising a clenched fist in defiance, like a knight in a shining armour? Heroism is not foolishness, and there is higher honour in the choice to stay alive and fight again than deliberate self liquidation. The embattled Governor has just been guided back to the reality that he requires a new kind of anointing to kill lions and tigers with his bare hands.

Details of the peace deal have not been officially advertised. Those close to the process say it is a set of instructions to Fubara on what to do to stay safe. The summary is that Fubara should be cool with just being a ceremonial governor for the remaining time of his four-year tenure and thereafter go home and have a deserved rest. He cannot aspire to renew his mandate. It has been agreed that the young man cannot be trusted with executive powers any longer. He is to be stripped of all powers, maybe, including the power to hire and fire his commissioners and the power to show interest in the affairs of the local government areas in the state. In effect, he is only permitted to answer the name, ‘Governor’ and not ‘Executive Governor’ of Rivers State whenever he returns to Government House Port Harcourt. He has got nothing to execute henceforth. 

Fine deal. It is for us to be reminded that this is happening in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic. The subversion of the constitution for programmed outcomes has become a fundamental duty of the Presidency and the legislature. The judiciary is threatening to come fully on board with them, and it shall be a complete and formidable team. We are in the Fourth Republic because the First, Second, and Third had failed. Fubara couldn’t have overreached himself. He did the most he could to point at a direction. That his path was criss-crossed by confusing paths that led nowhere had little to do with him. I repeat, the fight is not his. It is not even a fight for Rivers State alone. It is a fight to save democracy in Nigeria and to that extent, a national fight.

There are loud victory songs in some quarters in the Garden City. This is another way of telling whether the peace offered is real peace or graveyard peace. The celebration is lopsided. The battle has been won and lost. In the ensuing staccato, however, the underlying big lesson appears lost. This is the fact that if Dr. Peter Odili, who has a pedigree, had taken good time to prepare a better leadership recruitment process in Rivers State before leaving Government House, Port Harcourt, in 2007, this affliction would not have arisen. Competence is an objective parameter. Loyalty is not. Where loyalty comes before competence in the choice of who to lead, destination ceases to be a fixed point. It becomes a changing target that changes with the mood of a visionless leader. This is the state of leadership in Nigeria where the blind are better placed on the leadership succession ladder because they are more loyal than they are competent.

NIGERIAN TRIBUNE