Political Issues
Wike And The Antics Of A Political Godfather -By Gozie Irogboli
Wike’s rashness and lack of tact was also exemplified when upon assuming office as the FCT Minister, he began by issuing threat of demolition of peoples’ structures to the residents of the nation’s capital city. I felt pity for him when he made his inaugural speech to the FCT residents. Without doubt, Wike’s threat to FCT residents presents him in bad light as one who is insensitive or one that knows nothing about leadership and governance. He obviously knows little about his schedule and mandate as the Minister of the Federal Republic.
In the build-up to the 2023 General Election, I wrote a number of essays about Nyesom Wike’s pugnacious attitude toward his party, the PDP. Wike was forward and flippant acting like the proverbial nwanza bird who after a heavy meal challenged his chi to a wrestling combat. I had made it clear that Wike’s concern was for his selfish political future and not about the interest of the Southern Nigeria as he had fraudulently claimed. The unfolding events since the coming to power of the current regime have confirmed my position. While he was showboating and grandstanding with his disgruntled group that style itself as the “integrity group”, he was having clandestine meeting with Tinubu the APC presidential candidate. And in his home state, he was perfecting his puppeteer strategy—the Tinubu model—in order to hold on to power by proxy.
And now the bubble is burst and the big gist is that there is an expose on Wike following the fall-out with Sim Fubara his anointed successor. It is revealed that there is nothing honorable about the swashbuckling man from Obio-Okpor after all. The bone of contention is that the tough-talking erstwhile governor of River State wants to transmogrify into a godfather in order to maintain his iron grip on the oil-rich state, thereby sparking a bitter altercation between him as his anointed successor who apparently is fed up with his status as nominal governor of the state. It is alleged that Nyesom Wike has been the de facto governor, collecting the 25% of the state allocation, approving major contracts and making the key political appointment in the state while Sim Fubara remains just the figure.
Admittedly, we may not have the means to establish the veracity of the claims from the Fubara’s camp but suffice it to say that Wike’s utterances and claim that he purchased nomination forms for all the elected office holders in River State and his insistence that: “agreement is agreement” makes him criminally culpable.
Thus, the Wike-Fubara imbroglio has clearly exhibited Wike, the self-styled Mr. Project as a tyrant, a belligerent and a corrupt selfish politician. What Wike and his ilk in leadership position do is showboating and gas-lighting using the press to announce non-existent and boondoggle projects while they indulge in wholesale malversation of public funds. We have seen that play out in Lagos in the last twenty-four years. What Wike did in the last years of his administration in River State was sheer exhibitionism and deception. He would construct 50 or 100 meters flyover and then invite one politician from another state to come and commission it and then give the event a wide publicity to create the impression of a performing governor. Wike’s average annual budget while at the helm of affairs in River State was N500billion and that means his total budget was in the neighborhood of N4trillion and yet River State ranks as one of the most backward states South of Nigeria going by the major development indices. And despite the huge federal allocation to the state and the internally generated revenue River State remained the worst heavily indebted state after Lagos. Wike left a humongous debt of over N300billion to his successor. So, it is not out of place to say that Wike’s much touted projects are insignificant when compared to the revenue inflows into the state’s coffers during the period.
From all indications, it is self-evident that Nyesom Wike wants establish himself as the Jagaban of River State. But he was blinded by greed and lust for power to know that River State is not Lagos State. The Jagaban-godfather model cannot work in egalitarian societies just like it failed in Igbo land. In 2003, with the tacit approval of Obasanjo some political renegades in Anambra State wanted to institute the godfather politics in state but failed because the then governor Dr. Chris Ngige rebelled and fought on the side of the people. He was abducted on the orders from above. It was the intervention of Atiku that saved him. Rochas Okorocha attempted creating his own dynasty in Imo but failed. It was the Nigerian moribund legal system that foisted Uzodinma on Imo State after the people rejected “godfatherism” leadership. Tinubu has succeeded in maintaining his hegemony over Lagos because he came from an area that practice hero-worshipping; where ethnic politics has made the people develop servile mentality. Secondly, he works with yes-men and toadies that have no pedigree; men that cannot survive outside the corridors of power—the so-called people that he made.
Wike’s rashness and lack of tact was also exemplified when upon assuming office as the FCT Minister, he began by issuing threat of demolition of peoples’ structures to the residents of the nation’s capital city. I felt pity for him when he made his inaugural speech to the FCT residents. Without doubt, Wike’s threat to FCT residents presents him in bad light as one who is insensitive or one that knows nothing about leadership and governance. He obviously knows little about his schedule and mandate as the Minister of the Federal Republic. He apparently did not know the major challenges facing the FCT residents and did not care to know. Many concerned Nigerians had asked: is demolition of the so-called illegal structures a priority for the people of FCT that are beset with innumerable problems ranging from insecurity, poor rural infrastructure, lack efficient transport system, poor health care facilities, poor and inadequate social and educational amenities…? Some attributed his thoughtless pronouncement to be an indication that he probably came to pursue personal vendetta as alleged in some quarters and to indulge in primitive accumulation and land grabbing—the unwholesome practice of demolishing structures termed illegal and acquiring them later by proxy or reallocating them to cronies and toadies.
Some have attributed his ranting and showboating act as a clear indication that he has nothing to offer. Those who assume public office come with an intention to serve, to make a difference and to leave a legacy. Public officers are expected at all times to do that which is for the common good. And this involves discovering needs and making plans to meet them. Wike’s mindset is vengeful, belligerent and cantankerous. Coming with threats of demolition rather than finding solutions to the various problems confronting the FCT residents, smacks of unpreparedness and lack of creativity.
People like Wike and his ilk who have no decorum concerning public office are known to abuse office. They seem not to know why they are in public office. They personalize public office and use it for personal aggrandizement, personal vendetta and primitive accumulation. They are selfish, egocentric and vindictive. While he held sway as governor in Rivers he used state power to terrorize those with dissenting views and different political affiliations. As a public officer, Wike’s level of authoritarianism and harum-scarum is unbearable. He destroyed Dokpesi’s investments in Rivers because of politics. Dokpesi’s stroke and death a few weeks after the election could be traced to Wike’s rascality. Wike who have never run any known business destroyed Dokpesi’s because he did not know what it takes to build a business empire.
Clearly, the problem with “professional politicians” like Wike that have no corporate orientation or pedigree; that have not have prior experience or achievement in private or public service before venturing into the murky waters of partisan politics is that they have no standards. They have little sense of responsibility or achievement; their primary concerns being to stay at the corridors of power at all costs knowing that they have other business to fall back on outside the corridors of power, having developed exotic taste that can only be funded by public funds.
Gozie Irogboli
I must state like Sim Fubara’s courage. And I enjoin him not to back down or be cajoled into a truce. The attempt by the powers from above to “broker peace” is an attempt to institute illegality. An agreement is an agreement if it is legal, ethical and constitutionally acceptable. Whatever agreement he entered with Wike before his election was personal and illegal and has nothing to do with the Rivers people. If Fubara wants to settle Wike, he is free to do so but from his salaries, not from the River State allocation.
On a final note, I must state unequivocally just as I have always done that Wike’s brand of politics is negative and self-destructive. With people with Wike’s mindset in the saddle, Nigerian democracy will never grow. The PDP should expel him from the party for he is mole in the party, an enemy within whose sole mandate is to destabilize the party and make the country a one-party state. But, when the dust is settled his political career and future will be enfeebled by his antics and bulimic tendencies.
Gozie Irogboli,
An economist, a novelist and a public policy analyst
