Rivers: How Orbih fought for Wike against Amaechi

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By Emmanuel Aziken

Chief Dan Osi Orbih built much of his political reputation fighting Adams Oshiomhole in Edo State, but one of his most consequential interventions occurred across the state boundary in Rivers.

It was an intervention that became part of the political rupture between Nyesom Wike and Rotimi Amaechi and helped change the balance of power in Rivers politics and consequentially pushed the former into his present trajectory as one of Nigeria’s most enduring political leaders.

At the centre of the drama was a disputed PDP congress, two rival claimants to the state chairmanship and an affidavit by Orbih that proved damaging to the Amaechi camp.

The story began with the March 17, 2012 Rivers State PDP congress.

Amaechi was governor and undisputed leader of the PDP establishment in Rivers. Chief Godspower Ake, his political ally, emerged chairman from the congress at the Alfred Diete-Spiff Civic Centre, Port Harcourt.

The PDP panel sent to conduct that congress was headed by Orbih, then Edo State PDP chairman.

Nobody could have imagined that Orbih’s account of what happened would later become crucial in the battle for control of the Rivers PDP.

When Wike and Amaechi became Enemies

Wike had once been one of Amaechi’s closest political associates. He served as the governor’s Chief of Staff before President Goodluck Jonathan appointed him Minister of State for Education.

He had also been instrumental in Amaechi’s political battles surrounding the Rivers governorship in 2007.

By 2013, however, the relationship had spectacularly collapsed. Amaechi was increasingly at odds with the Jonathan presidency, while his leadership of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum became another source of political tension.

Wike emerged as perhaps his most formidable opponent at home.

But Amaechi controlled the PDP machinery in Rivers. He had Government House, most local government chairmen and an overwhelming majority of PDP legislators behind him.

For Wike to seriously confront his former boss, control of the party structure was crucial.

That was where the controversy surrounding the 2012 congress became decisive.

Enter Felix Obuah and Orbih

Felix Obuah and Walter Opuene went to court claiming that they, rather than Ake and his secretary, had been validly elected chairman and secretary at the March 17 congress.

The case came before Justice Ishaq Bello of an Abuja High Court.

And among the evidence central to the dispute was the position of Dan Orbih, the man who had headed the panel that conducted the congress.

Orbih deposed to an affidavit disputing the result being presented by Ake.

The court upheld Orbih’s deposition that the result Ake was parading did not emanate from the congress conducted by him. Orbih’s evidence supported the result presented by Obuah.

It was politically explosive.

The Amaechi camp vigorously challenged Orbih’s account, insisting that there was video evidence showing him conducting the congress at which Ake emerged. The faction also maintained that the process had been observed by officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission.

The Amaechi camp, however, did not take due diligence in concretising the records of the congress believing that the authority of the governor was enough to validate their case.

The Ake faction subsequently complained that the court did not admit video evidence it said supported its version of events.

Amaechi’s then Commissioner for Information, Ibim Semenitari, publicly expressed the camp’s bewilderment that Orbih, whom they regarded as having conducted the congress that produced Ake, could take a contrary position.

But Orbih had put his account before the court under oath.

And the consequences would be enormous.

The day Amaechi lost PDP structure

On April 15, 2013, Justice Bello delivered the judgment that dramatically altered Rivers politics.

The court sacked the Godspower Ake-led executive loyal to Amaechi and recognised the executive headed by Felix Obuah, who was aligned with Wike.

Orbih’s deposition concerning the disputed congress results featured prominently in the case.

The PDP national leadership acted swiftly.

The following day, April 16, the party’s National Working Committee inaugurated the 27-member Obuah executive in Abuja, giving it national recognition and effectively transferring the recognised Rivers PDP machinery away from the sitting governor’s faction.

It was an extraordinary political reversal.

Amaechi remained governor. He controlled Government House and enjoyed overwhelming support among PDP legislators in the Rivers House of Assembly.

Indeed, 25 of the 32 PDP legislators rejected the Obuah leadership and declared their support for Ake.

The state’s 23 local government chairmen were also reported to have rejected the new executive.

But the political reality had changed.

Amaechi had lost control of the officially recognised structure of his own party.

Wike now had the platform from which to wage political war against his former boss.

Wike moves in

There was little doubt about the political loyalties of the competing factions. Contemporary reports routinely described Ake’s executive as pro-Amaechi and Obuah’s as pro-Wike.

The conflict quickly intensified.

The Obuah-led PDP moved against politicians loyal to Amaechi, while the governor’s allies in the House of Assembly struck at the leadership of Obio/Akpor Local Government Area, Wike’s political base.

Five Rivers lawmakers emerged firmly on Wike’s side against the overwhelming pro-Amaechi majority.

The confrontation eventually fed into the notorious Rivers House of Assembly crisis that attracted national attention.

Wike himself celebrated the change in the PDP structure. At an event involving the new executive in May 2013, he declared that political power had returned to its “original owners.”

Amaechi’s isolation within the PDP deepened.

On May 27, 2013, the party’s national leadership suspended him it was an unprecedented action and even more, he was chairman of the Nigerian Governor’s Forum, NGF. Months later, Amaechi joined other rebel PDP governors in defecting to the newly formed All Progressives Congress

Wike stayed behind.

And crucially, his allies controlled the PDP machinery.

The Orbih Factor

Orbih’s place in the episode is significant, but it should not be exaggerated.

He did not single-handedly wrest the Rivers PDP from Amaechi. The struggle involved Wike, Obuah, the PDP national leadership, politicians opposed to Amaechi and a bitterly contested judicial process.

The wider conflict was also unfolding against the background of Amaechi’s deteriorating relationship with the Jonathan administration, prompting allegations from his supporters that federal political forces were determined to weaken him.

But Orbih cannot be written out of the story.

He chaired the panel that conducted the disputed congress.

When the fight moved to the courtroom, his sworn account of what his own panel had done became consequential evidence.

The court accepted that evidence in reaching a judgment that displaced the Amaechi-backed executive and recognised the faction aligned with Wike.

The political consequences went far beyond deciding who occupied the Rivers PDP chairman’s office.

Amaechi lost the recognised PDP structure.

Wike acquired the political platform from which he could organise against the governor.

Amaechi subsequently left the party.

And two years later, Wike used the PDP platform to contest the 2015 Rivers governorship election, winning the election and succeeding the man whose political lieutenant he had once been.

For Orbih, who died on August 31, 2026, the Rivers episode remains a fascinating chapter in a political career more commonly associated with Edo State.

He would later become politically close to Wike in the PDP’s national struggles, particularly during the internal battles that followed the 2022 presidential primary. But their political paths had intersected dramatically long before then.

In 2013, Amaechi possessed almost everything normally required to control a ruling party in his state: the governorship, lawmakers, local government chairmen and an established political machinery.

et he lost the recognised PDP structure.

Wike emerged from the upheaval with the party platform that would ultimately carry him into Government House.

And in the legal and political manoeuvring that produced that extraordinary reversal was an Edo politician named Dan Osi Orbih, whose evidence concerning a congress he had personally supervised helped tilt one of the defining political battles in modern Rivers history.

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