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Before answering this million-dollar question, let me profusely apologise to my readers for my inability to feature on these pages for about three weeks now. It is for reasons far beyond my control. To the glory of God, I am now back and fully energised to serve you fresh perspectives and especially behind-the-scenes happenings in the polity.
Now, there is the belief among a large section of Nigerians that by his actions (and inactions) Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State has achieved the reverse in his avowed determination to stop an Atiku Abubakar presidency.
This column is going to examine the reasons being advanced and see whether they are cogent enough to give Atiku the needed edge in tomorrow’s presidential election.
The first issue being raised is that Wike is playing God. And in both our holy books, the Bible and the Qur’an, God brings down any mortal that contests power with Him because He does not share His kingdom with anyone.
When it all started after the PDP primary election May last year, Atiku visited the Rivers governor to pacify him, during which he also extended a hand of fellowship to Wike.
Sadly, the Rivers governor only made a show of accepting the outcome. From then onwards, Wike’s actions made a lot of people to start seeing him as nothing but a sore loser driven by an over-bloated ego.
At the venue of that primary election in Abuja, while addressing delegates, Wike openly promised to support whoever won the election. Obviously, he made that promise thinking he was going to be the winner. This could be discerned from the fact that no sooner had he lost than he started throwing venom at the Atiku camp, claiming rather falsely that the election was rigged in Atiku’s favour.
Yet, this was an election that was beamed live on national television. And INEC officials, as well as the media, were all there to physically witness it. In any case, if Wike had any objection as to the process, including Governor Aminu Tambuwal’s withdrawal from the race for Atiku, he ought to have announced it right at the venue. But he did not.
The Rivers governor then started throwing tantrums, throwing caution to the wind, especially after Atiku overlooked him to select Delta State Governor Ifeanyi Okowa as his preferred running mate.
By the time Wike’s desperation to bring down Atiku became all too clear, many leaders in the PDP and indeed millions of Nigerians were alarmed. This was a person who was a nobody before 1999, when PDP was birthed by Atiku and 18 others. Practically everything Wike has become in this life was courtesy of the PDP that he is now busy working hard to destroy. So many politicians have lost elections in our national history, but none of them had shown so much bitterness as Wike.
His mantra that he is working to ensure justice and fair play, in the interest of southern Nigeria, turns out to be nothing but a farce, a smokescreen to unleash his childish tantrums on the whole nation.
Take this for an example. If Wike were really interested in fairness to the South, why is he supporting Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, whose running mate is a Muslim, in what has now become a Muslim-Muslim ticket?
This is a man who declared Rivers a Christian state when he was seeking a second term of office. but he now wants the same Christians in his state to forget about that declaration to vote for a man whose choice of deputy somewhat disemfranchises them.
Before settling for Tinubu, Wike had shown open support for Peter Obi of the Labour Party. While there may be little or nothing wrong in that, since Obi is not a member of his party, the fact is someone talking about equity could not do that because, worse than the case of PDP, Labour Party presidential candidate and party chairman are all Christians and from the South. Its campaign chief is also a Christian from the South.
There is also the clear issue of Wike’s clear determination to humiliate Atiku Abubakar. The PDP candidate had done everything Wike had asked him to do, things that he had control over, except the desire to get the APC national chairman to leave his post.
In his desperation to settle the rift and convince Wike to support him, Atiku had followed Wike to London, where he pacified the governor in a meeting of his G-5, but Wike later insisted there would be no deal with Atiku until Ayu resigned from office. The message that was very clear was that the presidency could only be won by Atiku if Wike supported him.
In turn, Atiku keeps explaining that Ayu’s resignation is not within his control, as Ayu is not his child that he can command. Even when the chairman of the Board of Trustees of the PDP resigned to pave a way for a southerner, Wike was not impressed. He insisted it must be Ayu or nothing.
A high-level meeting involving both sides was then proposed. On Atiku’s side was a serving governor, Wike’s own colleague, that is, Governor Fintiri of Adamawa State, whose virtues Wike extolled to the high heavens when he went to Yola in 2021 to launch some important projects executed by the governor.
The meeting was set for Abuja but at the last minute, in a clear show of disrespect, Wike changed the venue to Port Harcourt. Undaunted, Fintiri and members of the delegation raised by Atiku went to Port Harcourt as Wike wanted.
At the meeting they had, the gentlemen did everything to lacify the Rivers governor. But Wike arrogantly turned all of it down, insisting his condition for Ayu to resign must first be obeyed. He thus showed himself as a politician who could not make adjustments in the interest of peace.
While, in the beginning, a lot of Nigerians, especially those who had an axe to grind with Atiku were fully supportive of Wike, the Rivers governor started losing support base on each occasion he displayed arrogance and intransigence.
Nigerians are always sympathetic to the victim. In this fight, it is all clear that the victim is Atiku.
The last straw that broke the camel’s back was Wike’s withdrawal of permit granted Atiku Abubakar to campaign at a venue in Port Harcourt. Wike showed tremendous disrespect for the intellect of Nigerians when he stated that the chief reason for the withdrawal of his approval for the PDP presidential rally was that “intelligence reports” had pointed the PDP was going to share the rally with the APC in Rivers State. Imagine how preposterous this allegstion could be.
Wike went ahead to deny PDP the venue with neither the government of the day nor even INEC, the electoral umpire, warning that he does not possess such powers.
And just when the Atiku camp in Rivers had gone far in preparing another venue for their rally, the same Wike turned back to say they could not do so at the new venue, that they could only use the venue he approved.
This was after Senator Abiye Sekibo was attacked and shot when he went to inspect the planned venue, and the man might have been killed in cold blood if he was not driving in a bulletproof vehicle.
Earlier, this week, a radio station in Port Harcourt belonging to a member of the House of Reps, whose support for Atiku is well known, was attacked, just because they were airing programmes sympathetic to Atiku. Properties belonging to PDP leaders were also razed, with countless vehicles burnt down. Your guess is as good as mine as to who is behind all these.
But Nigerians are not fools. They are discerning enough to know that this man was pushing beyond the powers allowed him by law, and was truly openly playing God.
Sadly for Wike, his actions started drawing more sympathisers to the side of Atiku, to the level where the PDP presidential candidate has now been projected to win the election in Wike’s Rivers State.
Governor Samuel Ortom, a strong ally of Wike, was on record to have expressed shock that Wike could support Tinubu when what the G-5 reportedly agreed was Peter Obi. Now, at least two of the five governors that subordinated themselves to Wike are back with strong support for Atiku. They all realised they were being taken for a ride.
When it all started and Wike was insisting that it was the turn of the south to produce the next president, Atiku categorically said the only region in the south that has not produced an executive president is the southeast, and that he was ready to step down his ambition for the PDP ticket provided Wike would also renounce his ambition and support an Igbo man to become PDP’s flagbearer.
But it is on record that Wike refused. Rather, he was alleged to have frustrated Peter Obi to leave the PDP and become a presidential frontrunner under the Labour Party. Yet, Wike keeps talking about justice and equity while doing exactly the opposite, even in his own Rivers State, that he has allegedly been ruling with an iron hand.
It always backfires when one insists on winning every argument. And it is said that a good general knows how to pick his battles. Many now see Governor Wike as a bad student of history, as his actions have ended up achieving exactly the opposite, that is, helping Atiku Abubakar win tomorrow’s presidential election.
The Rivers Governor will be shocked with the result that will come out, as his enemy, from all credible projections, is poised to become Nigeria’s next president.
Wike’s cries for Rivers people not to support the person that he alleged is going to kill him is simply an expensive joke taken too far. It also shows the governor, thought to be a toughie, as a weakling, who is afraid of his own shadow.
As the spokesman of the Atiku campaign in Rivers has said, the people of the state have made lots of sacrifice for Wike, and it amounts to a play on their collective intelligence to direct them to support a candidate they are totally opposed to.
What is going to be Governor Wike’s next line of action? Some have suggested he should run and leave the country if Atiku becomes president. But I doubt if he needs to do that.
Atiku is a man of justice who ks averse to vendetta. He will be too busy to take revenge on a governor who truly does everything to needlessly entangle him and destroy the party that made him what he is today.
It will be up to the people of Rivers to determine what to do with their outgoing governor when he loses immunity and becomes an ordinary citizen, in a matter of days from now.
But Atiku Abubakar, as president, will have none of that. All of Wike’s actions will be left to karma to deal with, and of course, the harsh judgment of posterity. It is all a matter of time.
