By Bolaji O. Akinyemi.
Pride they say goes before destruction. Pride is a difficult trait to recognise particularly by those who are proud! Many who are proud are living at the mercy of time for an inevitable destruction that must happen; this of course includes me! May mercy preserve me and you till the day our eyes would be opened to see the seeds of destruction in us, no matter how small and where they are harboured!
To rid oneself of pride is to accept the humble pie of humility. It is never an easy route but grace can make it easier for a Carmel to pass through the eye of the needle while rich ones proudly stroll in comfort and opulence to hell!
“Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad”, goes the saying. I am yet to see the manifestation of madness that is worse than pride! Like a mad man, the proud lives in the realm of puffy spiritual clout and status far above the understanding of those around them. Of course, they are deaf to words and immuned to counsel until what should happen happens! Who is more proud than the other between the duo, only time can reveal!
Politics has been generous to Wike since 1999 when he came on the stage as the Chairman of Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State. He was re-elected into the same office in 2003 and completed his 2nd term in 2007!
A very well deserved appointment came his way, having stood with His Exellency Rotimi Amaechi during his political travails. Wike became the Chief of Staff to the Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, a position he held from 2007 to 2011. From here he was nominated by his Principal for the position of a Minister. Perhaps this was Amaechi’s greatest political mistake!
Wike was appointed the minister of State for Education in 2011, a position he held till 2014, though he later served as the substantive Minister in the same ministry. He returned to Rivers State to contest election into the office of the Executive Governor of the state on the platform of PDP, an election he won in 2015!
His working relationship with the Jonathans deepened while he served as the minister of education but when Amaechi decamped to APC and would bring the PDP house in Rivers State down, Wike knew when to re-define political loyalty and re-align political allegiance. The fallout between Amaechi and Jonathan was the opportunity which Wike grabbed with both hands!
The 2023 game rewarded him with the position of the Minister of Federal Capital Territory!
His Exellency Nyesome Wike is not just a political juggernaut; he is an icon in politics by all standards! His rise in the terrain of politics in Rivers State attests to this, from where he took the national landscape by storm!
The idol in him saw to the humiliation of PDP and the rise of APC in the last general election. If Obi’s exit from PDP saw to the death of PDP, the game of Wike buried the party for APC!
Prior to the election, the refusal of PDP to zone presidency to the South was the issue. On this, Wike had the support of some governors from the region and other regions; so when he failed to clinch the ticket, he upped his game, stayed in the party, held his alliance to governors and members of the party who were sympathetic to his course till the damage was done to Atiku Abubakar’s ambition!
Mr Project, had enough for foes, friends and fans to come to Rivers State to Commission! From President Obasanjo, Buhari, Oshiomhole, etc all made it to Rivers State to commission one project or the other. His approach to the 2023 game was loud but subtle. Hardly could anyone tell where Wike was ending. We thought his joker was Peter Obi, among the endless of dignitaries that honoured his invitation to commission a project in Rivers State while Wike held sway. Wike was so sublime that Peter Obi was grateful to him for inviting him to commission Nkpolu-Oroworukwo bridge in a community that was traditionally an Igbo, it was a good way to measure the influence of Peter Obi in the state. The crowd was an attestation to Obi’s growing political clout as Wike had issues controlling the crowd who were chanting Obi, Obi, Obi. A platform for strategic communication and Wike didn’t miss it, he referred to Obi as colleague of traders who came out in several thousands to welcome him. He reassured the crowd in the presence of Obi that he had no plan to dislodge the Igbo and that the bridge project was the reason he was misunderstood. He didn’t forget to tell Obi he was invited to witness his good work so that he can tell his party to forget about Rivers State Governorship election 2023, without making any commitment to Peter Obi who attended the occasion in company of his Vice Presidential Candidate, Dr Yusuf Datti. His bait to the Labour party crowd was effective when he sympathized with Obi on why he has to leave PDP, but he promised to stay back in PDP to see what he saw to! Afterwards, speculations of his support for Obi rent the air among the Obidients across the country. Wike’s leg on the ball right or left was not known until the election day!
When he dropped the ACE, Bola Ahmed Tinubu was his candidate! He worked for him within and outside the book to ensure victory in Rivers State!
Soon after the election, it was the turn of incoming President to come over to Rivers State to commission a project. Tinubu and Wike both threw the public into frenzy with Wike’s request and Tinubu’s refusal. Wike’s appointment put paid to public impression of a disagreement between the duo!
Wike was the best at the game, playing on the side of Amaechi to outsmart Peter Odili. His hard tackle ended not just the game for Celestine Omehia but his entire political career! Erazing his record and achievements Wike further targeted. Wike was not just a Governor, he could easily pass for Monarch with power and influence, marching what was witnessed under ancestral homeland empires! But Wike was a Governor whose terms and tenure were fixated by the constitution. After 8 years in office he must leave power. Our Wike left Office though without leaving Power and the complication of that has engulfed the state in crisis!
The silence and side taking of Abuja on the Rivers crisis is understandable. Those whose portraits are up in less than a year of coming to power for a four year term are already on the road for the 2027 race! Wike of course is not just a necessary evil in the Rivers game. He is a needed one for 2027 in Rivers State!
Goals setting is the way of mortals who should be in gratitude of grace for the day; mortals who are like petals that may not see tomorrow are often found of planning appointments for the day after tomorrow. Inevitably playing God. Wike did, with Sim Fubara, his anointed son in PDP for an election many believed was won by the Labour Party!
All institutions involved in the election were not just at the call and beckon of Wike, They were at his altar. All indeed of financial oxygen were breathing. Wike is generous to a fault and this worked well for him!
Wike was very powerful! There was no end to his influence in sight so soon. Or so we thought like mere mortals!
According to Daniel 4:17, But there is a God! I will choose the EasyEnglish version of the verse; “The angels who watch human people have said this. And this is what they have chosen. So now everyone will know that God rules in the kingdoms of men. He can give kingdoms to anyone that he wants to. And he can cause men who are not important to become kings.”
On whose side the God who rules in the Kingdom of men is; will determine in whose favour the swinging pendulum will hang at the end of the day.
Has Fubara been silent without any move? no! Though Wike has been loud but Fubara has been deft. The grasses in Rivers State have been the ones suffering in the fight of the Elephant and the its calf!
Structure control is at the heart of this battle while Wike’s legs are in and out. Out in APC and in, in PDP, leaving Fubara to grasp for political oxygen in hope of 2027! Fubara shows his master’s skills when he reached out to His Exellency Alex Chioma Otti to come over to commission a project in Rivers State. Two things stuck out for me in this move. First, is the performance of LP “without structures” in the last election and the results it produced! Second, is the super performance of the Action Governor that its not just Abians but Nigerians have seen in Otti’s handling of Abia State!
Fubara didn’t just stop at that, he went further. Obviously attempts at loosening Wike’s grip on the state are daily progressing.
A recent dramatic turn of events has shown Governor Fubara’s assertion of his authority over the state, dismantling Wike’s political stronghold in the process in Rivers State. In the Executive arm this has consumed commissioners and appointees who in the bid to prove their loyalty to Wike had resigned granting Fubara the opportunity to have them replaced by Fubara’s loyalists! This, for me is a flawed political move. Politics is local. If Wike had to remain in PDP to damage it from within. Remaining with Fubara would have meant danger from within. The exit for Fubara to fill is minus for the Wike side. Though Wike is in a position to fix them up, that would be in the FCT and the battle is local!
The Legislature is not spared. 25 House of Assembly members who defected are now “homeless politicians,” as someone put it. They are at the mercy of the Judiciary seeking its intervention!
The Judiciary to which homeless house of assembly members are looking have seen Wike’s ally in the system demoted, forcing resignation, paving the way for Fubara’s appointment of his loyalist. If Rivers State was a Yoruba state, I would have requested Fubara to invite King Wasiu Ayinde Marshall, KWAM1, to come and commission the foundation laying of the demolished House of Assembly, singing the song from one of his best sellers titled; CONSOLIDATION!
A stormy tide of power is blowing in Rivers State. Which will it uproot? The established Araba tree or the tender Igi Nla? only God who rules over the affairs of men can tell!
The antics and counter are permitted, propaganda is part of the game. Media war is welcome. After all said and done, the God who supervises the destruction of the proud is the same God who gives grace to the humble. “Eni Olorun ba gba fun in the game of power at the end of the day is the champion!
Dr. Bolaji O. Akinyemi is an Apostle and Nation Builder. He’s also President Voice of His Word Ministries and Convener Apostolic Round Table. BoT Chairman, Project Victory Call Initiative, AKA PVC Naija. He is a strategic Communicator and the C.E.O, Masterbuilder Communications.
Email:bolajiakinyemi66@gmail.com
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