June 10, (THEWILL) – The 2023 General Election has come and gone and a new government has taken over. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is now in charge. Everyone is re-aligning. Some have accepted their fate and moved on. Others are defecting to where the honey pot is and many others are properly positioning themselves where their interests will be nurtured. But one of the few persons who have remained unstable in all of this, neither here nor there, is self-styled Lion of the South- South, the immediate past governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike.
Wike’s instability, which began shortly after he lost out in the presidential primary of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has reached a frenzied height. He now openly fraternises with the ruling All Progressives Congress and its leader without decorum, a gross and flagrant violation of political party ethics.
He however maintains that he is a staunch member of the PDP and has no plans to dump the party. His supporters however argue that his choosing to remain in the PDP while openly associating with the APC, is strategic and for some good reasons.
Whatever those reasons are, it is obvious that Wike’s instability is not unconnected to fears that he might just lose out in the grand scheme of things. In the last few weeks, his actions have been nothing short of a man who appears desperate.
Gone is the fearless, powerful and untouchable mien he exhibited and in its place is a man who wants to save face to avoid being a laughing stock especially after the shenanigans he displayed before the general elections with his fellow G-5 governors. Or how else does one explain why he has turned the presidential villa into his second home, going endlessly to pay unsolicited homage to Tinubu, at least once before the inauguration of the new government and thrice after the inauguration, with no other politician, even the ones within the ruling party breaking that record? The reason is obvious.
Unlike the story being bandied around by Wike’s supporters that he had an unwritten agreement with Tinubu that he will be rewarded with a powerful ministerial position if he delivers Rivers State to the APC in the general elections, THEWILL gathered that there was really no such promise made. Hence the reason for regularly showing up to meet with Tinubu to lobby for a position in his government and get a soft landing. If he thought getting what he wants from Tinubu would be easy, he was dead wrong, not after how Tinubu cut him to size when he went on Wike’s invitation to commission the Rumuokwuta/Rumuola flyover in Port Harcourt.
Wike in his usual characteristic manner had thrown Tinubu a jibe expecting an equal response. But Tinubu had reiterated his position as Wike’s president and would therefore not stoop low to respond to his banter. Instead, he said he would appoint Lagos State governor, Babajide Sanwo Olu who is his (Wike’s) contemporary to respond to the banter on his behalf.
Also, Wike figures that lobbying to get a seat at the ‘table’ will buy him and the governor of Rivers State, Siminalayi Fubara, his handpicked candidate, some form of immunity from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.
It would be recalled that prior to the general election, Fubara who was the Rivers State Accountant-General, was among other government officials, declared wanted by the EFCC over N435 billion fraud linked to the state government account. First, he went into hiding and after the elections, on the day he received his Certificate of Return, he narrowly escaped being arrested by officials of the anti-graft agency at the Port Harcourt International Airport. His supporters who were on ground to welcome him, resisted his arrest and subsequently took him away. Today he is governor.
While Fubara may have escaped prosecution for now because of his immunity cloak, Wike, who has been stripped of his immunity armour following the end of his tenure, remains vulnerable. Already, the anti graft agency has begun to invite public officials to account for missing money. Former Ekiti State governor, Kayode Fayemi and Pauline Tallen, former Minister of Women Affairs, have been invited. Former Zamfara State governor, Bello Matawalle is already in a running battle with the commission’s chairman over embezzlement and counter claim of bribery. Who knows who will be next. To avoid that embarrassment, Wike who seems boxed to a corner is desperately in need of an out.
