Watch out! Wike is coming

By Admin

September 26, 2020

By Uche Ugboajah

Governor Nyesom Wike

I first heard of the name, Ezenwo Nyesom Wike, sometime in 1999. Then, he was the

dashing chairman of Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State. He had

contested the local government election as the candidate of the Peoples Democratic

Party (PDP) and had to reclaim his mandate through the court. A staunch believer in

the rule of law and the efficacy of the judicial process, Wike has a rich history of

engagements in this critical arena that under-girds society and anchors democracy.

And he is a consummate lawyer to boot. Beyond the realm of law, it is noteworthy

that Wike has remained faithful to the PDP, since its formation. Unlike many fair

weather politicians in the country, he has not been swayed by the vicissitudes of

partisan politics and its changing fortunes to leave the PDP. This uncommon trait

speaks to consistency, principle and loyalty to his political party.

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Wike drew deeply on his grassroots mobilization skills when together with some

friends they audaciously confronted the PDP apparatchiks in Abuja, in the matter of

choosing their party gubernatorial candidate in their state – Rivers. For them, the

important matter of who takes over from the amiable Peter Odili as governor of

Rivers State, was a local matter that must be decided by Rivers PDP members, not by

the commanding heights of the party in Abuja.

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Thus they stood their ground and ensured their candidate, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi,

then speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly won the primaries. This

infuriated the former president and leader of the PDP, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo.

President Obasanjo was to unilaterally annul the candidature of Amaechi, declaring

his nomination as PDP candidate, as “having a k-leg”.

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But Wike, the nimble director of the campaigns for Rotimi Amaechi, and his group

soldiered on, even after a fine gentleman, Celestine Omehia, was anointed as the PDP

candidate for the election. Omehia won the election for the PDP but Wike and his

group continued the battle again in the courts, a familiar terrain for him as a lawyer

and democrat.

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According to reports, while the legal battle over who was the authentic candidate of

the PDP in that 2007 election raged, Amaechi was out in Ghana for security reasons

while Wike, the ‘field commander’, took charge of the home front not minding all the

attendant risks, including threats to his own life. Such is the bravery, commitment and

selflessness of Nyesom Wike!

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Wham, the Supreme Court declared Rotimi Amaechi as the rightful candidate of the

PDP in the 2007 gubernatorial election and ordered that he be sworn in immediately

as governor. Wike was subsequently appointed Chief of Staff. In his first term as

governor, the fact which his enemies cannot even try to controvert is that Amaechi

posted a superlative performance.

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Yet not a few would argue that the stability and the galvanization of interests, which

Wike provided on the political fronts contributed immensely to that performance.

Wike was to be appointed minister by President Goodluck Jonathan later.

analysts believed that appointment was a strategic plan by Amaechi to try and curtail

the growing popularity of his former chief of staff at home by pushing him off to

Abuja, since all politics as they say, is local.

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If that was Amaechi’s thinking, from hindsight, it was a monumentally flawed

stratagem. Thus from Abuja, Wike launched out and even became more relevant in

the local politics of Rivers State. To cut a long story short, Wike ended up as the

governor who took over from Amaechi in spite of the latter’s best efforts to torpedo it.

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Interestingly, it is as governor of Rivers State that Wike has made his best mark so

far. He has become a myriad of things to different people. For some, especially those

at the federal government perch and people sympathetic to them, Nyesom Wike is just

a rabble-rouser, a showboating individual or at best a power-drunk governor. Yet no

matter how they despise him or how they struggle to diminish him, the people in

Abuja know deeply inside them that Wike is no pushover.

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If they were to be honest, on a few occasions they had collided with the Wike force,

like the proverbial tortoise, Abuja would readily admit that two strong men squared

off on that ground. If there was one PDP state the ruling All Progressives Congress

(APC) had decided to capture by any means, just before the 2019 general election, it

was Rivers State. Their desperation to capture Rivers State was just not because of the

oil wealth, but even more so, to tame the allegedly recalcitrant Wike.

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Oh, how they would have loved to see Wike beg them! But the hugely popular Wike

fought like a lion and literally shamed his traducers. When the history of the Buhari

government will be chronicled, the conduct of security agencies on the order of the

government in the 2019 Rivers election perhaps will remain unrivalled in the chapter

on abuse of power. Yet as in all good stories, good overcame evil and as in

democracy, the majority won.

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More importantly, to his people Wike is not just a mere governor. He is their own

governor they made with their own hands. And the man is going about doing justice

to the confidence his people repose in him. While his haters are busy accusing him of

mere braggadocio, Wike is busy transforming his state. He is confronting headlong

the problem of insecurity, as a result of cult wars, which he inherited by cooperating

with security agencies and whatever they would need to tackle the menace.

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Another governor may not have supported and assisted the police and the military the

way Wike does because of their very obvious hostility towards him during the

election. Yet for the Rivers State governor, the protection of lives and the property of

his people is preeminent. On the side of infrastructure, Wike is awarding and

executing contracts for road constructions everywhere in his state.

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For instance, on one occasion, he told a construction firm, “We have awarded you this

contract and paid you in full to deliver this road in two years’ time. We paid you in

this raining season, so we don’t want to hear that you cannot deliver because of the

rains”. Such is his bluntness in pushing for performance. As he is constructing roads,

he is rebuilding and equipping schools, hospitals and providing first class housing for

judges and other categories of public servants in the state.

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During the heat of the Covid-19 lockdown, Wike denied himself a lot to physically

lead the enforcement of the laws made by the state assembly and even went into an

altercation with the federal government in the bid to protect his people. Although he

has been criticized in certain quarters, without Wike’s hands-on enforcement of the

Covid-19 protocols, there could have been a disaster of cataclysmic proportion in his

state seeing the carefree attitude of our people.

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For those interested in a robust inter-governmental relations, Wike is gradually selling

himself as the rallying point for true federalism. Unlike many of his colleagues Wike

fully understands that he represents an important tier of government and not

answerable to Abuja. For this reason, he is clearly not one of the state governors

afraid of speaking up for their people when the federal government bares its

authoritarian fangs.

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As the governor poignantly put it in his remarks at Eric Osagie’s book presentation in

Abuja, “I am not one of those governors who run around in Abuja. I don’t like to stay

in Abuja. Once am through with my assignments I quickly return to Port Harcourt.

That’s where those who voted for me are”. This independent disposition in pursuing

the interest of his people who elected him has often put him in direct conflict with

officials of the government at the centre.

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As a result, Wike is gradually becoming the symbol of resistance against an

overbearing federal government in the Buhari era just as Ambrose Alli was in the

Second Republic. Can you imagine that nearly after a month that the lives of young

Igbo youths identified as IPOB members were wasted by security operatives in

Enugu, no Southeast governor, not even Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, under whose nose this

senseless blood-letting took place, has uttered any word. Wike will certainly not keep

quiet!

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Finally for the PDP, Nyesom Wike appears to be its single most important asset now.

While some of his colleague-governors are PDP by the day and APC at night just to

be in the good book of President Buhari, Wike has remained unabashedly PDP at all

times. He strongly believes that the political platform is still strong enough to win

elections and that explains why he is doing everything possible to keep that party

alive.

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From the massive loss in 2015, Wike has helped PDP to claw back at least three more

states – Zamfara, Benue and Edo and suddenly PDP is becoming more attractive and

formidable again. In the just concluded Edo election, Wike’s influence and hard-work

added to other important factors to deliver the state to the PDP and remove the very

last vestiges of APC in the South-south region. That is huge political victory for those

who understand. “It was in this house, the campaign council met to work out the key

strategies that led us to victory. You mobilized people across the country. You moved

to Benin, went through the humiliation and attacks. You supported us and we won. It

will be a sin against God if we do not come to say thank you. Even if the victory we

are celebrating is from God. He has used people like you to make it happen”, a

grateful Governor Obaseki told his host, Governor Nyesom Wike a few days ago in

Port Harcourt.

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Yes, sometimes Wike can appear to be brash and intimidating. Yet he has fought for

this party with everything in him. And as 2023 beckons, PDP must do well to listen to

Nyesom Wike when he expresses his opinion. He sure knows what he is talking

about.

* Ugboajah, a political scientist, wrote from ucheugboajah@gmail.com

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Watch out! Wike is coming

Watch out! Wike is coming