By Felix Oboagwina
While campaigning for a second term as Governor of Rivers State in December 2018, Nyesom Wike got poisoned through stuff he ate in the secretariat of his People’s Democratic Party (PDP) at the capital, Port Harcourt. The anonymous hit-man meant to kill. Handlers flew the PDP strongman abroad to a hospital in Beirut, Lebanon, where crucial tests revealed the poison had impaired liver, kidney and intestine. Only a miracle saved him. The man who had won his first tenure in 2014 returned to the campaign trail, trounced his foes in the 2019 election and secured his second term.
That that attempt on his life took place right there in his own stronghold, Port Harcourt, capital of the state that he bestrode like a Colossus, speaks to the desperate determination of his enemies to eliminate the Ikwerre tribesman. Wike continues to be a man many love to hate and hate to love. The queue of adversaries eager to see him six feet under stretches far beyond Port Harcourt to Abuja, and mushrooms nationwide.
Till date, I haven’t met the man himself in the flesh. The only opportunity came when we travelled to Port Harcourt in what should have been the crowning as PDP National Chairman of Jimi Agbaje, my boss and two-time PDP Governorship Candidate for Lagos State (I served as Agbaje’s Director of Media and Publicity). PDP having conceded the chairmanship to the Yoruba South-West, Wike, its formidably strong presence and financier, was rumoured to be rooting (alongside Northern party leaders) for Agbaje. With other aides and supporters, I accompanied Agbaje on that journey.
However, Wike and his group became irritated by Yoruba PDP chieftains’ lack of consensus. Some legal issues also popped up over court injunctions or whatnot. Instead of electing the National Chairman that May 2016, they dissolved the National Executive and chose for PDP an Interim Caretaker Committee headed by Katsina State’s former Governor Ahmed Makarfi. Had Agbaje won, the victory reception would have opened doors for me to ogle the Niger-Delta giant. But Agbaje didn’t win. So I never got to meet Wike.
However, he bankrolled the entire Port Harcourt affair. One thing struck most people on that journey to the botched National Convention. Wike passionately loved and served PDP with all his might, all his heart and all his soul; and he would spare nothing to see its sustenance, success and progress.
Unlike the likes of Atiku Abubakar, Bukola Saraki, Kalu Orjih Kalu, Olusegun Obasanjo, Rotimi Amaechi, Nasir El-Rufai and others too numerous to mention, Wike has never left PDP nor tasted another party.
Today, even after he assisted the rival All Progressives Congress, APC’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu into power at the Federal level, this lawyer and husband of a Judge of the Rivers State High Court remains a foremost and unwavering PDP figure. And that cannot but be so.
To PDP, Wike owes much. Under the party, Wike won two terms as Chairman of Obio Akpor Local Government Area (1999 to 2007) before being appointed Governor Rotimi Amaechi’s Chief of Staff (2007 to 2011). Under Goodluck Jonathan, the lawyer became Minister of State for Education (2011 to 2014). Wike was Acting Minister of Education (September 2013 to April 2014) when he left the Ministry to contest and become Rivers Governor.
Widely acknowledged as a performing Governor, Wike also became the voice of the opposition. He dragged the Federal Government to court over VAT proceedings. Even that did not stop APC’s President Muhammadu Buhari garlanding him with a merit award for turning Rivers State into a virtual construction site, a feat that earned him the sobriquet “Mr. Projects.”
Cut Wike with a knife and it is PDP that will ooze out of his vein. Actually, that explains why Tinubu cannot toy with him. Because, of everyone within the Tinubu cabinet, Wike might just be the only one capable of singing Jagaban’s theme song with the truest meaning.
“On your mandate we shall stand.”
Did you see that video that went viral of Wike, on a visit to the Abuja residence of Tinubu’s Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, singing BAT’s theme song audaciously playfully? Wike kept adding the name “Jagaban” to the song.
“On your mandate we shall stand! Jagaban!”
Wike stands not on APC’s mandate, but on Tinubu’s mandate. And for him it is personal.
Some of us warned PDP acquaintances about it in the build-up to the 2023 elections.
“Go and beg Wike!” I, for one, repeatedly counselled PDP chieftains. “Tell Atiku to go to Port Harcourt and negotiate with Wike. Ask Wike what he wants and give it to him.”
Unfortunately, like Atiku Abubakar, they all said “to hell with Wike.” If truth be told, Atiku mismanaged Wike at the 2023 polls. The ex-VP perhaps missed the boat to Aso Rock through the singular error of mismanaging Wike. Thanks to dollar power and other factors, Atiku floored Wike and all-comers at the PDP primaries (371 votes to Wike’s 237). But to call a spade a spade, after Buhari spent eight years (2015 to 2023), the North had no business with presidential power by 2023. But Atiku went into that election for his personal ambition rather than national reasons.
The former Customs officer turned Businessman cum Politician has chased the presidency since 1993 –six times actually: 1993, 2007, 2011, 2015, 2019 and 2023. In this republic, he has jumped in and out and in of PDP to satisfy his quest. All attempts hit the rocks.
For Atiku, the son of Abubakar, eyes remain on the ball, and he has no scruple achieving it via any platform. Having been neutralised in PDP by his estranged boss, President Olusegun Obasanjo, who propped up the sickly Umar Yar’Adua, Atiku jumped out of the party and landed in the Action Congress as the rival party’s Presidential Candidate for the 2007 elections. He jumped back into PDP during the 2011 presidential election and lost to incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan. In 2014, he joined APC but lost the 2015 presidential primaries to Muhammadu Buhari. Atiku returned to PDP and won its ticket for the 2019 and 2023 presidential elections, both of which he lost to Buhari.
Let’s see how Atiku mismanaged Wike in 2023 and ended up shooting himself in the foot. Having won the PDP primaries, the ex-VP put together a team of party chieftains to select his Running Mate. The Buhari years had made APC an anathema to the critical mass of Nigerians with his debilitating economic policies and an insecurity driven by the Retired-General’s abhorrent Pan-Fulani irredentism. Nigerians approached the presidential election with a tenacious determination to vomit APC and Buhari. For alternatives, they had a choice between the “structureless” but popular Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) and well-structured Atiku of PDP.
The committee Atiku appointed rated Wike highest. Atiku tore the committee’s recommendation to shreds, snubbed Wike and singularly handpicked Delta State’s Governor Ifeanyi Okowa. Plainly, beyond Delta State, Okowa had zero value to offer a presidential ticket.
To worsen matters, internal insurrection broke out in PDP. Wike succeeded in rallying four other governors behind him and they formed the G5. Other PDP giants and ex-governors backed Wike in that implosion. Could something still be salvaged? The G5 put “their” card on the table. Agreed that the North had taken the presidential ticket, the zone should concede the seat of National Chairman to the South in the name of equity, balancing and inclusiveness. So the PDP constitution stipulated. Unfortunately, Atiku and the National Chairman Iyorchia Ayu (a Northerner like Atiku) refused to yield.
To my PDP acquaintances, I counselled once more: “Tell Atiku to sacrifice Ayu. Wike is not just the one tabling this request but five governors. Can Atiku toy with five governors? Where will the votes come from should Atiku lose five governors?”
His supporters shut me up: “To hell with Wike and five governors. Atiku has a support base beyond PDP.”
The presidential election held and the inevitable happened. Atiku kissed the dust in those five states. Plus the shenanigans carried out by the electoral commission, Atiku’s failure was an accident waiting to happen. And happen it did. Significantly, Wike (by hook and by crook) delivered Rivers State to Tinubu.
To his peril, Atiku gambled with Wike and lost. People hardly learn from others’ mistakes. Currently, Rivers State’s Governor Siminalayi Fubara has engaged Wike in battle. Wike’s war tactics co-opts allies. He never fights alone. Against Atiku, Wike had four governors to boot. Against Fubara, he has 27 of Rivers’ 31 legislators (one of the 32 died and his seat remains vacant). Perfectly in control of the 27 Rivers lawmakers, Wike instructed them to reverse their initial resolve to dump PDP for APC in the eye of the Fubara storm. To any discerning person, that move in Rivers’ political chess game signalled Wike having no intention to abandon PDP in the long term.
Today, Wike rates as the bull in the PDP china shop. From the emigration by PDP chieftains to SDP, APC and other “safe havens,” these politicians from the leading opposition party show they will no longer stomach Wike’s rough play in-house. As they cannot beat him, they opt to join other parties. Atiku appears set to join that exit train into his pet project of a brewing “coalition.”
However, Wike doesn’t appear like wanting to collapse the china shop irreparably. He has invested too much to bring down the house he has invested so much to sustain. Except they fight and fall apart (which is unlikely), Wike will work for Tinubu’s 2027 re-election –but without joining APC. And he will not be the President’s mole in PDP either. Like the Ancient Mariner who goes down with the doomed ship, Wike will remain in the party when everyone else absconds. He will be the last man standing in PDP.
Make no mistake. Millions of Wikes abound in PDP –diehards, believers, devotees, fanatics, who believe in the brand and would not trade it for the whole world. This is the only party surviving from the original three registered for the Fourth Republic in 1998. Like true believers, these PDP loyalists await PDP’s reincarnation and second coming to Federal power.
To make that dream happen, PDP need this Wike. Wike found the antidote for the poison that his enemies fed him that fateful day of December 2018. If the PDP will heal from the poisons that have made it comatose since 2015, the party needs to look to Wike for the antidote.
OBOAGWINA IS AN AUTHOR, JOURNALIST AND PUBLISHER, REACHABLE VIA: foboagwina@gmail.com
