Follow Us on Google
Media war seems to have been unleashed on Governor Nyesom Wike in his tiff with his party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). They have begun to tag him a sour loser, given that he came next to the winner of the party’s presidential primary. Wike was a fierce contestant and was believed to be coasting home to victory, until his political ally, Aminu Tambuwal, the Governor of Sokoto State, a fellow contestant in the primary, pulled the rug from under his feet with a last-minute withdrawal and a directive to his supporters to vote for Atiku Abubakar. The former Vice-President clinched the ticket on May 28, 2022, leaving Wike bewildered. His critics believe that Wike has grieved too much, that he should look beyond the loss and move on.
Wike has a strong following. Some governors in the party have lined behind him, and there is no inkling that they would betray him, contrary to the vital ingredient betrayal has been made of in politics in Nigerian. Those who plaster the mud of ‘bad loser’ on Wike seem not to have a handle of the issues or deliberately look the other way to give a dog a bad name leading to the slaughter slab. Wike may be pained about the loss, in spite of the resources and energy he put into the contest, but his grouse goes deeper than losing the primary. If anyone can claim to have held the PDP from extinction, Wike fits the bill. Those now calling the shots in the party had turned their backs and joined the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) when the going was tough. But for Nyesom Wike and Ayo Fayose, who stood up for the party, the ruling party had made a routine of blaming all woes in the nation on the PDP. Femi Fani-Kayode also stood up for the party, until he capitulated in a turnaround that has since become the hallmark of Nigerian politics, where people chase power without principles. The ruling party seems to have consigned Fani-Kayode to the backwaters.
Wike may also have stood in the opposition in resentment of sitting under his political rival, Rotimi Amaechi, who would have been his leader in Rivers State APC. For whatever reason, Wike remained faithful to the PDP and even picked the bills to keep the party afloat. He even attracted new members. Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State revealed that Wike brought him back from the APC and supported the state when herdsmen and gunmen turned Benue into a killing field.
Wike has been steadfast to the party that gave him the platform to grow from local government chairman to governor with chief of staff and ministerial positions in the mix. He stood with the party when Atiku, Tambuwal, Bukola Saraki, Iyorchia Ayu, Dino Melaye and others who now weild power in the PDP took a flight to the ruling party, and returned to their comfort zone where they are in the commanding heights. Wike is pissed that yesterday’s men have become today’s powerbrokers.
Wike’s grouse is fundamentally premised on equity. All governors from the South across party lines rooted for President Muhammadu Buhari to hand over to a President from the southern part. That was the impetus that drove Wike to come into the race. The PDP constitution reckons with North-South divide at the level of presidency. But the Atiku camp threw up the technical but selfish point that the pendency of Buhari’s presidency does not deter Atiku, his kinsman, because they come from different parties, as though the President presides over the party, not Nigeria. That logic slaps the face of people from the South. The scheme became real when Ayu, a known Atiku loyalist, emerged chairman of the PDP and worked from the answer to the question in setting up a zoning committee that was manipulated into making the presidency an all-comers game, a contradiction of the party’s constitution. The decision for the presidency to go South strikes at the heart of Wike’s grouse. In 2019, the party went North and restricted the presidential primary to candidates from that zone. Atiku and his supporters have not allowed the flipside of that coin to drop. Tambuwal, whom Wike rooted for in 2019, became his undoing in favour of his kinsman.
Wike fights for equity in insisting that the party chairman, who presided over the travesty at the presidential primary, must step down, more for equity between North and South than to assuage him. The top echelon of the party seems skewed towards the North. The committee set up to recommend a running mate for Atiku rooted for Wike, perhaps on account of his strong showing at the primary. Atiku, in exercise of his power to chose a running mate, jettisoned Wike and went for Ifeanyi Okowa. Wike was further infuriated, given that Atiku had mooted the idea to him, and persuaded him to come on board when offered, only to throw the bombshell of choosing another person, pulling the rug from under Wike’s feet a second time. You don’t beat a child and seek to cover his mouth to prevent expression of the emotion of crying in response to pain. Wike has gone for broke, and it would seem that the party’s top shots want to ignore him. They seem to hold that he has no choice than return to the party, he would rather sulk than pull down the house he built. Some of his traducers think the party can win the election without him. If they push him to pull out and stand with Peter Obi, that would be the perfect payback for the political indignities he has suffered. It would assuage his insistence that power must revert to the South. Peter Obi has become the man to beat in this election. Wike could join him and seal the deal.
The only plausible option for the party is for Ayu to step down. That action would pacify equity, not Wike. Adams Oshiomhole, erstwhile chairman of the APC, once stated tat Atiku was not destined to be Nigeria’s President. Perhaps the events now playing out give credence to that submission.
