DAKUKU PETERSIDE, ANOTHER WASTING ONE - By Oraye St. Franklyn

In politics, how people of promise manage to destroy themselves and waste their vantage opportunities is something that will continue to elicit discussions for years to come as it always has done. The name Dakuku Peterside is not unknown in the politics of Rivers State. He is the defeated candidate of the All Progressives Congress at the 2015 General Elections in which he ran for the Governorship of Rivers State.

Although thoroughly browbeaten at the Governorship contest, the young politician unlike a sportsman hasn't taken his defeat fairly. Since his loss, observers have seen Dakuku metamorphose into a bitter and sad man rapidly aging with rage, just like his sponsor and mentor, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, the immediate past governor of Rivers State.

Dakuku, who is the proprietor of Development and Leadership Institute (DLI), which operated from the same 12 Isiokpo Street that is now rocked in an INEC Result Sheets printing scandal, ought reasonably to know that based on his Christian and leadership posturing, society would expect him to know that politics is not do-or-die as he now makes it look. Unfortunately, with the lure for lucre and the challenge on character, the inconvenience of propriety  takes a back seat when push comes to shove for those without enduring maturity and rooted convictions. And it is true, a man's character is not what he professes but what he becomes under the intensity of heat. Dakuku, after all said and done, has lost all the finesse he adorned in the lead up to the last General Elections; and this sadly accounts for why a greater percentage of Rivers people are peeved by his saltless, divisive, aggressive and unnecessarily vicious rhetoric which contrast his appealing mien. So sad.

Dakuku says the Governor of Rivers State has done nothing but patch roads in Rivers State. As laughable as that it, it is worrying to confirm that the former clergyman, as he so claimed, has finally lost his salt. What the Rivers State Government under the leadership of His Excellency, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, CON, Dakuku's Governor has done and continues to do is out in the open for all to see. The failings of the Amaechi led government, as acknowledged by the Economic Advisory Council set up by the same government, are properly documented. Yet, Dakuku Peterside is proud to condemn the gains recorded so far and commend those failings that pitched that government against the people in spite of the humongous revenue it raked in from the oil boom at the time.

Dakuku Peterside is not the first to lose an election in Rivers State, yet he is going down in history as the one to demonstrate the worst form of remonstration in the history of Rivers State politics, after his mentor, Mr. Amaechi. Ebenezar Isokariari, Prince Tonye Princewill, Nimi Walson-Jack, Charles Harry, Biobele Odesola and many others, to name a few have all ran for and lost their bids, rightly or wrongly, to govern Rivers State. Yet, the heavens didn't fall. If anything, they are contributing to the development of the State and nation in their own ways. It therefore smacks of demonic induction for Dakuku Peterside and his co-travellers like Sody Peterside and Atonyesia Dimieari-Peterside to wish that the State be grounded on account of Dakuku's electoral misadventure and successful loss. What could be more selfish?

Let me please emphasise. I do not begrudge  Dakuku or challenge his right to free speech as to say what he pleases and how so. Not at all. His bias is his right. His myopia is his right. His hate is his right. But the decision of who becomes elected into whatever office is beyond his to solely determine. Just like his fate was popularly determined in the last election, that decision will remain the exclusive preserve of the majority collection of Rivers people.

I do believe that what Dakuku owes himself is truth and comportment like his leader, by my ranking, Dr. Dawari Ibiateli George, in order to avoid going down the same slope as his mentor Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, whom he has every reason to be far better than.