By Abiodun Israel
Certainly, many Nigerians believe Rivers State govornor, Barrister Nyesom Wike ought not to be the executive governor of the state. No debasing lexicon can sufficiently define Wike’s roguery and thuggery instincts.
As a lawyer, Wike knows the limit of freedom of speech and what to say on any matter that would offend the law. But for the simple reason of foibles to conquer his beastly character, Wike overlooks his executive status and frequently parrots profane things like a woman under perpetual heat.
The long overdue Rivers state legislative re-run elections have just been concluded. And for the 13 legislative seats in contention, comprising state and national assembly slots, the APC cornered 7 seats, while Wike’s party, the opposition PDP snatched six seats.
And this reality has so much infuriated Wike to the extent of losing his months of “refrigerated” calmness. That the PDP failed to clinch all the seats in contention in the re-run ballot has badly bruised Wike’s ego and he feels, what his party could not get at the polls, it is his sacred duty to make it up through sacrilegious utterances.
And as usual, Wike has unleashed his baseless invectives on President Muhammedu Buhari, desperately seeking to not only drag the President’s untainted reputation into the legislative race, but to also rubbish the essence of his government. To prescribe a psychiatric test for Governor Wike would amount to underestimating a serious matter because he is already an automatic landlord of the burning furnaces of hell fire.
Nursing wounds of electoral rejection by Rivers people and conquest by APC, Wike sights a bleak political future badly pierced by his brazen misconducts. Coated in immunity, the governor believes in his narrowed knowledge that might is power or lawlessness is strength and shouting loudest is wisdom.
Thus, he declared in the aftermath of the Rivers re-run election that; “You saw the kind of invasion we witnessed on December 10 by security agencies and the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC). It is clear that with what we saw in Rivers, if the President declares he wants to run in 2019, then we should expect a Tsunami, anybody that does not want it should go away. There will be fighter jets. The only thing that was not deployed to the state on December 10 was fighter jet. We may see that, in 2019, if the President says he wants to contest the presidential election.”
Indeed, Nigeria deserves pity and the country has to be so pitied because men like Wike and his Ekiti state friend and Colleague, Governor Ayo Fayose have found themselves into positions of power and they thus, brand themselves leaders of the people. They are this lucky because the system is cursed and skewed!
The last Rivers state re-run is the second rescheduled legislative elections that eventually held. The first suffered senseless violence because Wike turned a civic exercise into war, by arming mobilized thugs and cultists to ensure PDP’s victory. They killed maimed and prosecuted all manner of arson on voters, and security agents. His agents kidnapped INEC officials and seized the ballot before the blast of the whistle from the electoral umpire.
If the world was amazed that Idi Amin of Uganda spilled the blood of his country men and women to hold unto the clutches of power, the Wike of Rivers has dwarfed his records. The once affectionate and inviting epitaph of the oil rich Rivers state has changed from the “Garden City” to “Rivers of blood,” since Wike forced himself unto power.
Contented at his innate weakness of not checkmating his dubious quest for power, Wike envisions the 2019 general elections, which he now targets desperately in re-election, sees a bleak political future. So, it’s enough reason to bark and squirm based on his self-inflicted pain at the rest of humanity.
He predicts the next general elections in these words; “It will be like war. ‘If you don’t agree, we bomb you’. If you can bring 28,000 policemen, three helicopters, 20 gunboats and then train special military all for legislative rerun elections in Rivers, then I have my fear for 2019. You cannot believe it that that Divisional Police Officers, DPOs, were all transferred on the eve of the December 10 elections.”
But the same number of security agents have been deployed to states conducting isolated elections in Nigeria. Rivers state instance is therefore not unique. Wike is free to ask his trusted friend, Ekiti state’s Governor, Ayo Fayose whom they share several affinities and identities.
Erroneously though, Wike deludes himself with the notion that as the Chief Security Officer of the state, it is also his responsibility to redeploy officers of the police or other security agencies. It will only amuse you to understand, Wike is a lawyer, but with such perverse thinking; someone who does not know the limits of his power, but a corrupt system, unfortunately, throws him up to lead a state.
Accepted, political violence has been a part of the electoral process in Nigeria. Even those who believe in it, like Wike, changed their dispositions, when they became governors of states. At least, they pretended to have called for disarmament. Imo state, Governor Rochas Okorocha and the Benue state Governor, Samuel Ortom have displayed these pretensions. But Wike would not be such nice. Rather, he has regrouped the armed thugs and cultists, which his predecessor and Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi demobilized.
So, the Rivers re-run legislative election turned violent for the second time, because Wike unleashed his “boys” to attack anyone against the interest of his party-PDP. A senior police officer, Deputy Superintendent of Police, DSP Mohammed Alkali and his driver were murdered in cold blood by Wike’s armed thugs and cultists in Ogba-Egbema-Ndoni Local government area of the state on the day of the rescheduled re-run elections.
DSP Alkali and his driver were beheaded and their mutilated bodies thrown into the river like chaff. The community is Wike’s backyard, which is notorious for murdering security agents, including soldiers since he became governor.
An arrested suspect identified as Chukwuemela Ekikeme, alias “Prince Okoroma,” who led a nine-member gang that murdered DSP Alkali has not only confessed to the crime, but explained that they were prompted to act because they felt the security agents were against their party.
It is only in Nigeria that the likes of Wike exhibit this level of insanity. Elsewhere, he would have been caged or struggling to quell masses revolt against him. In spite of everything, Wike want Nigerians to believe that what is not fair to his violent instincts is not fair to the morality of others.
But while screaming and shouting the inanities, Wike has conveniently forgotten about his satanic move to compromise the same re-election by allegedly bribing INEC officials to rig the results on his behalf. Although Wike has denied knowledge of the audio which has gone viral, but no one expects him to accept anyway.
Before any expert forensic analysis of the audio tape, the morphology of the spoken words sounds every inch the voice of “Emperor Wike.” The audio tape said, when an INEC official allegedly complained on phone of intimidation from executing the governor’s assignment of rigging the ballot in another location, Wike lost his cool and threatened to kill whoever would not deliver after collecting his money. Or alternatively, failure to return the money collected.
Wike retorted sharply; “Ikwerre did it, they couldn’t even do anything… They should return what they gave them or I will kill them”, Wike threatened the Plateau state deployed INEC officials for the elections.
Wike can go ahead and curse the gods who decreed his birth among humans, instead of his rightful place in the animal kingdom. But he must not transfer his frustrations and pending electoral doom on Buhari.
President Buhari’s sophistry and decency does not know of the existence of a loathsome character called Wike in Nigeria. The grandstanding, with fingers stained with blood are enough to make Wike insane. But having declared himself the Governor-General of touts and hooligans, he must not forget that Buhari has never been his mate and he would never be one. Let him lick his wounds and wait for 2019, when his people would again reject him more resoundingly at the polls.
Thereafter, he would not only be a prisoner of his own conscience and the vacated throne of blood, but also walk himself freely into prison. After all, Nigerians have not forgotten how he allegedly cornered about N75 billion idle funds in TETFund’s account, as supervising minister of education under former President Goodluck Jonathan, which he deployed to bloodily rig himself into power. The day of reckoning is near. It is just the difference between his immunity and its removal.
Abiodun writes from Ibadan, Oyo State.
