By Kolawole Anthony
Nigeria has quite terrible and horrible leaders. One of them is Gov. Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, the Governor of Rivers state. Wike’s soul is gravely tormented and he unswervingly finds himself in a state of perpetual restlessness.
Gov. Wike is anguished or tortured by the spirits and blood of the innocent. The blood of those he spilled in his fiendish quest for political power has been his greatest misery in life. His soul is the permanent tent of the devil. It is under him; Rivers state earned the ignoble epaulet of “Rivers of blood.”
Therefore, if Wike does not find imaginary enemies to attack, he directs his irritabilities at everyone in sight. Gov. Wike is a lawyer by training; but there are no records which shows he became famous as law practitioner by winning celebrated cases. Its doubtful whether Wike still remembers court procedures anymore as a lawyer.
Its ironic that Wike has negatively mutated into political and executive brigandage or thuggery. He is the patron of hooliganism in Nigeria’s recent political history. Sometimes, when Gov. Wike speaks, its difficult to differentiate between a garage tout or what the Youbas call an “agbero” and a leader of a state.
He is infamous for it. Of course, what sanity does anybody expects from someone whose convictions about leadership is to murder every opponent on his path? Wanton killings, assassinations’, mysterious disappearance of opponents and barefaced executive brigandage defines the leadership of Rivers people by Wike.
If anyone is convinced that Gov. Wike is not possessed; he needs to approach a Pentecostal pastor for spiritual cleansing. Wike is a character who speaks without a full prehensile of his utterances. He acts without prior rumination; he flows with tide and dangles aimlessly like a street boy.
If anyone understands that lawyer Wike does not know, it is unlawful for an executive leader to resort to self-help, he deserves empathy. How else can anyone explain that in a democracy, Wike ordered the demolition of a hotel because the owner violated Covid-19 executive directives? But that’s what happens, when “madmen” dubiously amble themselves into positions of leadership and authority.
Gov. Wike is boosted by invisible and demonic spirits beyond his control. And they are too many. In his 2019 bid for reelection alone, Gov. Wike allegedly killed no fewer than 35 persons in his state. It has been his story sad tales in life.
He allegedly killed to secure the PDP governorship ticket in 2015 and also, murdered massively to get into Rivers state Government House the same year. Therefore, those who know him intricately are rather empathetic to him each time he vibrates like a lunatic undergoing psychiatric rehabilitation. No one with such magnitude of innocent blood on his hands would find peace with his soul.
The Governor in his characteristic manner defiled the sanctity and solemnity of the 2021-Armed Forces Remembrance Day. In Port Harcourt at the wreath-laying ceremony, Gov. Wike revived and also, practiced his meaningless parroting talents. He asked the Service Chiefs to resign in order to pave the path for “fresh ideas and strategy” in tackling the country’s resurgent internal insecurity threats.
He dreamily assumed the toga of a military and security expert. Therefore, Wike felt empowered enough to advise the Federal Government of Nigeria to change its strategy in combating internal insecurities in the country. Wike was particular that the current set of Service Chiefs have been unable to diminish the fires of Boko Haram insurgency and armed banditry among other security challenges, despite years of full military engagements.
But why would anybody devote his precious time on faulting Wike over his assertions? It’s doubtful whether Wike understands what is a military strategy. This is a lawyer who has never won any celebrated case in his life, but has the guts to advise military professionals and experts on how to combat terrorism and banditry.
Gov. Wike symbolizes the hypocritic and devious clan of leaders in Nigeria today. Wike served as Minister under the Jonathan Presidency for the years of that administration. Boko Haram and armed bandits became notorious and untamable under the administration he served.
It was the time Boko Haram annexed 21 LGAs in the Northeast. It was an era nearly 25,000 Nigerians were hostages of insurgents in different secret camps in the Northeast. It was a time Wike operated in Abuja with a lot of phobia because like some Nigerians coined; “the fear of Boko Haram was the beginning of wisdom.”
Yet, Gov. Wike as a member of FEC never advised the President to change his strategy in fighting Boko Haram. But the same person mouths now, when there is a positively changed narrative in combating acts of insecurities in Nigeria. So, he became an accidental military expert. But if wishes were horses, beggars would ride and Wike’s wish that the Service Chiefs should resign is not actionable by his command. Meaningless busybody!
Nigerians do not need to consult a soothsayer to know their enemies or instigators of insecurities anymore. And some time last year, when Governors Yahaya Bello and Aminu Bello Masari asserted separately that some politicians are behind the resurgent insecurities in the country, most Nigerians failed to grasp their prophetic insights. But Wike’s utterances today are an indisputable indication of his complicity. He is privy to it.
Like many other detractors of President Muhammadu Buhari, the Rivers Governor is angered that in spite of the clandestine efforts to undermine the Buhari Presidency through organized and sponsored insecurities, the President has always broken the hurdles. The camp of opposers is baffled.
And Wike knows that the current Service Chiefs are the reason, the plots of the opposition elements to discredit the administration of Buhari is permanently met with a bulwark. The latest trick now is to cleverly goad Mr. President to sack them in order to create a window for the opposition use insecurities in feasting on Nigeria. But Buhari is smarter than all of them.
So, it was baffling that Wike desecrated the graves of the unknown soldier and those still in service. The occasion was not designed for such partisan campaigns, with the Service Chiefs as nectars. It was a ceremony and a day set aside to remember and celebrate our fallen heroes and heroines as well as those still in active service. He mocked these gallant officers and soldiers on a day, all Nigerians were celebrating their exploits and sacrifices for the nation.
A senseless Wike did not know the occasion was not designed for such partisan campaigns. Surprisingly, he turned his weird leadership activism on the Service Chiefs and the arena into a platform for the anti-Service Chiefs campaigners.
Anyway, those expecting Gov. Wike to see the Service Chiefs as friends and partners in nation-building have misfired. It’s impossible to contemplate it. Wike is a violent, bloody and loquacious election rigger. Certainly, he cannot be a friend of the Military and especially, a repositioned Nigerian Army which blocked most of his rigging tracks in the 2019 governorship elections. He succeeded, but not as easy as he envisaged.
Gov. Wike attempted to bribe everyone or group involved in the conduct and monitoring of the elections; he attempted to bribe soldiers deployed to Rivers on election duty to compromise the ballot; he attempted to bribe consulate officials of the British High Commission in Nigeria to fabricate the report of election observers. Wike is a desperately devious political fly.
Indeed, If wishes were to be horses, it is Gov. Wike who would have been sacked ab initio by President Buhari. But Mr. President is a kind leader. He allowed Wike to twice escape with an obviously stolen mandate. That’s why today, Wike, a low-class lawyer feels, he is competent to offer professional military advice to Mr. President in combating acts of insecurities.
Wike regales in the mere appellation and protocol as “chief security officer” of his state. But it does not translate into his expertise knowledge on security matters. When Mr. President is seeking for advisers on political thuggery, executive brigandage and ethnic militias, Wike would emerge as an unopposed candidate. He has no rival in today’s Nigeria.
Gov. Wike is under the misleading delusion that Nigerians are not aware of his sole sponsorship of the campaign of calumny against the Nigerian military, particularly in the South. It is his tent the street activist Deji Adeyanju frequents on a monthly basis to renew his venoms (Dollars) in nourishment.
Wike is free to keep playing the fools game with himself. But the issue of Service Chiefs is clearly outside his purview. Wike should be patient enough to wait until his rigs his way to political leadership as President of Nigeria to thereafter, depend on street counsels for the appointment or sack of his Service Chiefs. President Buhari cannot be outsmarted with such infantile antics.
Kolawole PhD is a University teacher and wrote this piece from Keffi, Nasarawa State.
