By Ovunda Amadi
Not a few reveres Ezebunwo Nyesom Wike’s political exploits. Thus far, he has succeeded in converting most of his political travails into stepping stones to higher grounds. His admirers applaud Wike’s his political sagacity, ruthlessness and dare devil approach to the high heavens. Yet many detest Wike’s politics as tainted with greed, violence and extremism.
To become governor, an ambition, majority of Rivers people condemned as morally bankrupt and against the run of play, Wike, in 2015 plunged Rivers State into a bloodbath of unprecedented magnitude. Scores met their untimely death, while many others were maimed and injured for Wike to succeed Amaechi, his kinsman. It was of no consequence that Amaechi, his Ikwerre brother was just rounding up his eight year rule in a state with nineteen ethnic nationalities and three senatorial districts.
The erudite and intrepid constitutional lawyer, Prof. Itse Sagay was unequivocal on Wike’e manner of ascendancy to the Rivers Government House. In his words, “Everyone knows that people like Wike climbed in to the governorship seat over dead bodies and over bloods of human beings…” That was the coming of Ezebunwo Nyesom Wike, who had previously served as local government chairman, chief of staff and minister of the federal republic.
By the time Wike emerged as governor, Rivers State had had to shed her splendid accolades for the ignoble Rivers of blood. And for the next eight years, Wike held sway. Wike administered the state like his fiefdom. Recourse to due process and the laws of the land only applied where it suited Wike’s greed and ego. Fear and intimidation were adopted as state policy. And before long, every segment of the Rivers society including politicians, civil rights activists, civil servants, clergies, traditional rulers, businessmen, artisans, and even cultists were subjugated. The fear of Wike then became the beginning of wisdom in Rivers politics. Elders, such as the ignoble twenty-one that went his Abuja residence, last Wednesday, to grovel before the Lord of the Manor, were either blackmailed or enticed with filthy lucre to sanction Wike’s reign of terror. Human Rights’ activist, the late Barr. Ken Atsuete was savagely murdered the night after he appeared on a radio programme to point out government’s high-handedness and unjust manipulation of the justice system.
Whereas the suspected killers of Ken Asuete are yet to be brought to book, his gruesome murder on August 29, 2016 signposted how the government intended to run with the opposition. None was willing to stick out his neck under such atmosphere of terror. And the backlash was a state enveloped with peace of the graveyard. Wike held sway, while the people whispered their discontent only in their closet. Democratic tenets such as checks and balances immediately took flight, paving the way for Wike’s regimented democratic governance. Afraid for their lives, neither political opponents nor the elite class dared to face up to Wike’s arbitrary use of power and the plundering of the people’s commonwealth.
Wike’s brutally afforded him the liberty to ply the powers of the governor just the way it suited his ego and appetite. And he did wield power in a manner no one could ever contemplate. Even after the elections, Wike continued to hound the opposition. He literally made them an endangered species. He was barely one year in office when he ‘conquered’ all. Having fortified his regime, Wike began to dole out state funds in every direction that pleaded his cause. And the judiciary topped the list in this regard. It also didn’t take long before Wike’s unholy courtship with the Rivers State Judiciary began to bear fruits. As friend of the judiciary, and with the state Assembly at his beck and call, Wike successfully pocketed the three arms of government. And by the time his first four years as governor expired Wike had become a demigod in the state.
Although his second coming was turbulent, it wasn’t as bloody as his first. And he had barely settled in for a second term in office, before positioning himself to take the presidency.
He was not oblivious the cost implication of such tall ambition. He knew where the money would come from-the state treasury. He has to have an unfettered access to the state till. And he could only achieve such inordinacy by instilling fear and terror in the people he ruled over. To a great extent, his strategy paid off. Bugged down by hunger and privation, the people began to crawl back to the man who had usurped everything. They began to kowtow to the man who had the key to the state vault. The man who has so impoverished them. Suddenly, the peace that eluded the state since Wike marched over her in 2015 returned in full measure.
Notorious cult kingpins, and alleged government hit men, such Igwe Ejima Dibia aka Don Wannie and Honest Digbara aka Bobosky who must foment crisis to remain relevant were systematical eliminated. After all their continued presence around the corridors of power could only put a stain on Wike’s march to the centre.
It would appear Wike mistook that the people’s gravitation towards him as the keeper of their commonwealth for political “structure”. The reason he so arrogantly and shamelessly talks about his “structure” as justification for instigating needless political crisis in the state, barely six months after leaving office. He refers to the PDP structure as some bunch of inanimate, about to be stolen from his political warehouse. Even as he contemplates jumping ship, Wike still sees the Rivers PDP as his bargaining chip; hardly seeing the party and party faithful.
He has suddenly forgotten the party’s norm that the governors lead in their respective states. He forgets that Sir Dr. Peter Odili could very well lay claim to a structure that has evolved since 1998. Even Barr. Celestine Omehia presided over the structure before he was ousted by a Supreme Court judgement. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi equally inherited the structure as governor and leader of the party from 2007-2013. He only relinquished the structure when Wike, aided by the Jonathans, dislodged Amaechi as the PDP leader in the state. Amaechi only narrowly escaped with his governorship. Incidentally, like the proverbial tortoise, Wike was at the heart of that show of shame. Recall that the ‘hallowed’ chamber of the state Assembly wasn’t spared in Wike’s embarrassing attempt to forcefully removed Amaechi from office. So far, Wike has attempted the removal of two democratically governors in Rivers State.
All former governors, except Nyesom Wike have left office passing on the PDP structure to the next leader. But Wike’s greed wouldn’t let the hangover pass. As the executive governor of the state, Sir Siminalaye Fubara is unarguably the leader, and head of the PDP structure in Rivers State. Sadly, Wike has refused to come to terms with this reality, no thanks to his unbridled greed. It is regrettable that even as he has left office, Wike is still yoked to a warped sense of entitlement.
For a decade now, the only interludes of peace experienced in Rivers State had been the moments Wike ruled unchallenged.
In 2019, I stumbled on a book with the title: The Rivers Season of Insanity. After reading the book, I was of the impression that the author was somewhat uncouth in his choice of title. But with the mutiny of October 30, the latest arson in the Assembly chamber, and the tear gassing of a sitting governor, all at the behest of Ezebunwo Nyesom Wike, I’m inclined to vindicate the author and his title. It would appear the incumbent governor, Sir Siminalaye Fubara is poised to change the narrative, and the establishment is rattled into frenzy.
Of course, I have argued that Wike deserves a pantheon in Fubara’s government. And my argument isn’t farfetched. He was the greatest human factor in the making of a Fubara governor. Albeit, he did for Fubara what Marshall Harry did for Dr. Peter Odil; what Odili did for Amaechi; What Patience Jonathan did for him (Wike). From all indications, Fubara has treated Wike like a god since he assumed office. But reducing the man in the driver’s seat to a mere puppet is greed taken too far, and the people have sworn to resist any such tendency.