Tag: Bride

By Mideno Bayagbon

(mideno@thenewsguru.ng)

Love him or hate him, by some smart political engineering, Nyesom Wike, Governor of oil rich Rivers state, is now the must-go-to bride of current Nigerian politics. Through sheer bravado, tough talking and a seeming careful positioning, and by assuming possibility of causing humongous political damage, his shrine has become the must-visit place of political worship. The camps of Atiku Abubakar, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and Peter Obi, all now want his support for their presidential ambitions.

Those who called him an irrelevant paper weight, a toothless bulldog, a thug of uncommon proportions are all scampering into silence. Or they are being warned by their principals to sheathe their swords, and leave Nyesom Wike alone. Nobody, in the current struggle to emerge the political king of the 2023 presidential elections, is unmindful of the possibilities in a Nyesom Wike support. His state warehouses three million electoral votes, he is a “generous giver” who is not stingy about doling out stupendous amount of  his state’s funds for any cause he believes in. And he has the support of almost half of the PDP governors.

That is not even mentioning some heavy weight PDP juggernauts who believe the Atiku camp has behaved badly towards the caustic-mouthed Governor. Most members have not forgotten too that it was the Rivers State Governor, who, in the last seven years, spearheaded the opposition to the ruling party, breathing down their necks and showcasing the incompetence of the Buhari government. It was he, too, who provided most of the funding for the party in those dry arid years of learning to be an opposition party after 16 years in the saddle as ruling party. All these have coalesced into making him not just the beautiful bride in the PDP but the potential, must steal, bride to the two other leading candidates in the All Progressives Congress and the Labour Party.

He is having the political time of his life, snapping victory from the gruesome teeth of defeat. And he is doing it with so much style and braggadocio; the kind of panache only the politically astute can muster. His political enemies  are seething with impotent anger. He is the bull in the china shop of the PDP. Everyone is carefully courtesying and getting out of his way or desperately angling to have him on their side. Those who thought it was the political end for him when he was defeated at the Peoples Democratic  Party, PDP, through the cunning and subterfuge of the Atiku Abubakar team, are now having a rethink. Acknowledging his damage causing potential is the beginning of wisdom in the Atiku faction of the PDP.

For political watchers, Wike has carried on, faithfully, the tradition of positioning Rivers State, and whoever occupies the Government House in Port Harcourt as a political centre which the nation and indeed power mongers cannot ignore. First it was Peter “Dey Pay” Odili. But for some last minute mischief and gang-ups, he would have succeeded Olusegun Obasanjo as President. He was such a gigantic force in the party then. He outspent everyone only to be kicked in the groin.

Then came in, the one his supporters call the Lion of Ubima, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, rechristened the Dan Amana Daura under the Buhari government. Like Peter Odili, like Nyesom Wike, high powered betrayals and political mischief denied him the ticket of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the last presidential primaries. He came second to eventual winner, Bola Ahmed Tinubu. And now the Tinubu camp is ignoring him and are in a steaming dalliance with his successor, Wike.

In the last 23 years, Governors of Rivers State have had the uncanny ability to hold strong levers of power, to focus attention on themselves and their state. Hence it is a truism: ignore Rivers State Governor and Rivers State at your own peril in the current political calculations.

Atiku Abubakar and his team opened the floodgate. Through a faux pax, he enhanced the image of Wike in the public eye. As the Presidential Candidate of the PDP, who constitutionally can choose whoever he likes as his deputy, he chose to ask his party to organise a screening committee, composed of serving governors and political heavyweights in the party, to choose a vice presidential candidate for him. They overwhelmingly picked Governor Wike. Atiku Abubakar thought otherwise, jettisoned their report and picked Delta state Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa.

That was not all, the PDP candidate in a moment of impolitics, at a time he should have kept his mouth shut or try to conciliate, toe the part of peace, chose to add insult to the injured ambition of the Rivers State Governor. Recall, Wike before then had, with one side of the mouth, boasted he cannot be vice president to anyone. On the other, curiously, he lobbied heavily to be Abubakar’s deputy after his own ambition to be the flag bearer fell through.To Abubakar, Wike does not possess the qualities he seeks in a vice presidential candidate. He is too loud, too uncouth and too scatterbrained to be the choice. This is my summation of what Abubakar voiced out as the reason he ignored the committee’s recommendation and choose to go with a malleable Delta State Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa.

Abubakar’s henchmen: former Governors Babangida Aliyu and Sule Lamido brought a level of unpardonable arrogance to their reprimand of Wike’s anger at his slight. One would assume they think Abubakar has already won; or can win with or without the support of Wike and his governor friends. That much the party Chairman, Iyorchia Azu voiced two days back. The kind of arrogance we see around the handlers of the disastrous Muhammadu Buhari is their adopted stance. Not a few party members have squirmed at their intemperate postures. The fear is, should Atiku Abubakar emerge winner of the presidential race next year, the total stranglehold on power witnessed in the current regime is set to repeat itself. The South which has been so badly treated by Buhari and his cohorts are in for another spell in the dark trenches. The impression being given by his close northern associates is that it will be a continuation of the north-centric damn-the-South position.

That said, pundits think Wike’s day in the sun are numbered. That the night of his reign cometh. Unbeknownst to some, Wike they claim, is actually in a very hard place. Whatever side he chooses to perch on, post 2023 elections, one of a few things can happen to him for some simple reasons. Should he remain in PDP, having rammed through the conditionalities he set before Abubakar, he will at first be humoured and tolerated. But he will end up a pariah, consigned to irrelevance. That is, if Atiku Abubakar emerges President.

If on the other hand, he goes with Ahmed Tinubu, he will also be humoured and tolerated. Nevertheless, he would have scored a further goal against his former principal, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi. Knowing Wike’s ego and love for power, he will definitely ask to be made leader of the APC in Rivers State, and indeed the South South region. Amaechi who is already being sidelined by the Tinubu camp will have no choice than to move to another party or retire prematurely from politics.

Nevertheless, several road blocks await the Rivers State strongman. One of these is that he will, eventually, end up a peripheral political player. First, PDP might expel him and he may end up moving frontally into APC. But those in his camp who want to contest elections cannot change party affiliation midstream. So they will remain in PDP. After the elections, and with Wike out of government house, his camp would likely split if Atiku Abubakar or Peter Obi emerges President. Then truly his woes will begin.

That is why, how he, and his team, are able to negotiate their demands in their meeting with Atiku Abubakar  and his core  hard-stance team  will play a major.role in his political life after now. The beautiful bride with time has to pick one of her suitors.

As I have always maintained in this column, South South leaders, when they delve into national politics, never learn until it is too late. They misjudge their importance and the loyalty of people from the rest of the country, especially the power bloc in the north, who dump them at critical junctions.  They suddenly find themselves as small fishes in the ocean of national politics, without a base or political support. Will the case of the beautiful bride, Wike, be different?