There is no doubt that the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Nyesom Wike, is the most talked-about politician in Nigeria today, even more than the President, Bola Tinubu. The minister may be doing a good job in Abuja, his place of primary assignment as a minister, but that is not why his name has remained on the lips of every politically conscious Nigerian. The name given to the minister by his parents at birth may be the undoing of the former Rivers governor.
The minister has been shouting hoarse to all who care to listen that he is not Igbo, but the name Nyesom, which he bears, is a typical Igbo name, meaning (Give Only Me). The minister’s political odyssey reveals a striking negative character trait that conforms with his name, Nyesom, and which connotes selfishness in its worst form. And this may explain why the minister’s relationship with his benefactors does not last. That innate negative trait would always stick out like a sore thumb and besmear
the relationship at some point.
He was literally brought up by the current Ohanaeze Ndigbo National President, Senator John Azuta Mbata, but today, Mbata is one of Wike’s worst enemies. Anyone who watched a recent online video where the Ohanaeze president excoriated the minister over his role in the political crisis in the state and Wike’s brash response would know that they are now like two parallel lines.
Former Governor of Rivers State, Peter Odili, was the one who gave the minister a head start in politics by making him the chairmanship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the Obio/Akpor Local Government election and ensured that he won. But today, Odili has become like a foot rag for Wike.
Then Wike’s contemporary in the then-influential Ikwerre Youth Movement (IYM), Chibuike Amaechi, took him along when he became governor, first appointing him as his chief of staff, a position where Governor Amaechi allowed Wike unprecedented latitude and freedom to operate.
Amaechi further nominated him as a minister under the Goodluck Jonathan administration. But as it is common with leopards that can never change their skin color, Wike paid Amaechi with conspiracy by plotting to upstage him and take over the structure of the PDP in the state with the backing of federal might. That federal might was represented by the Jonathan family when the Otuoke-born former Bayelsa State governor became Nigeria’s president.
At present, Wike does not have a salutary report about the Jonathans. Anybody who appears to stand in the way of the minister for whatever good reasons when the minister makes up his mind on something, no matter how unreasonable, becomes a threat that must be dealt with. The same trajectory is replicated in his sojourn in the PDP, using the influence of Rivers State’s huge resources then as governor to manipulate the party, calling the shot of who becomes what until the bubble burst recently, with his shameful expulsion from the party.
Today, the deteriorating political situation in Rivers is rooted in Wike’s inveterate selfish inclinations and nothing more. How can a sane mind with all the wealth already acquired and still acquiring, be insisting on being paid the humongous amount of money we are hearing from the people’s commonwealth just for facilitating someone’s ascent to power, which in itself is not uncommon?
Some analysts are blaming Governor Fubara for failing to keep to the agreement he allegedly had with Wike. But the pertinent question is, when did agreement with Wike translate to agreement with the entire Rivers people who elected the governor and to whom he owes responsibility for the provision of social amenities to make their lives better? Or should we now believe that by servicing Wike’s greed, Governor Fubara would have succeeded in taking care of the needs of Rivers people?
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Put differently, even if there was agreement for whatever reason, what makes it sacrosanct if it was only tailored towards servicing the greed of one man to the detriment of the majority? It sounds farcical that the FCT minister is claiming to be the political numero uno in Rivers State when people like Peter Odili, Chief Rufus Ada George, Chief Benneth Birabi, etc, had been on the political turf when Wike was nowhere on the political radar of the state.
The minister has taken his quest for relevance to another preposterous dimension in his current local government tour, christened: “Thank you visit,” where he floated a non-existent political party called Rainbow Coalition Party (RCP).
How could a minister be openly claiming that there are no political parties in Rivers State, except the unregistered and unrecognized RCP, because he is claiming that he has collapsed all political parties in the state into the Renewed Hope Agenda to support the re-election of President Bola Tinubu in 2027? Phew! The reality on the ground loudly speaks otherwise.
If in the unabashed display of his incurable greed, he has succeeded in annexing the two dominant political parties in the state, APC and PDP, does it imply that the Labor Party, and Action People’s Party, which even swept a recent local government election in the state, among others, no longer exist?
The minister also said that if Governor Fubara secures a second term ticket, he (Wike) would be buried politically. I suggest that the minister had better hire labor to start early to prepare the grave because since he is the only person that would be dead politically and the rest of Rivers people would be hale, hearty and enjoying the dividends of democracy under the suzerainty of Fubara’s administration, an antidote would have been found to the ‘Nyesom syndrome’, the stubborn viral disease that has held tightly on the jugulars of pleasure loving Rivers people.
