By Suleiman TAJUDEEN
Anyone who watched FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike’s media parley on Tuesday, April 2 will not fail to see how unsettled the former governor of Rivers State was when speaking about his state. Developments in the state since he handed over power to Governor Siminalayi Fubara are making him anxious and he now appears to suffer what medical psychologists call “Adrenaline anxiety”.
This is a condition you suffer as a result of anxious thoughts or stress, and you’re left with a feeling of irritability. Someone in that condition can become irrational and feel danger when there’s none—like a wild cat caged!
Wike displayed these symptoms during his televised interview with select broadcasters on Tuesday. He hyperventilated and appeared to sweat while his hands trembled slightly. He was clearly an agitated man, desperate to make some sense and curry public favour as he did when he similarly took on the former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, in the countdown to the 2023 presidential election.
But this time, he’s picking the wrong fights and the wrong targets. He’s fighting to impeach Governor Fubara of River State, a man he did everything to put in the Rivers State Government House. He is also fighting ex-Governor Peter Odili—the self-respecting, self-effacing political patriarch of Rivers State.
Wike has decided to fight himself by fighting to unseat Governor Fubara. Which normal person will fight himself? How do you win a fight against yourself? Wike is dancing naked at the village square and everyone is watching in consternation and concern. Wike is losing it!
Wike has declared Dr Odili an enemy because he tried to broker peace between him and Gov Fubara to save Rivers from exploding. Dr Odili did what an elder statesman should do by choosing to disagree with Wike that Gov Fubara should be impeached. For trying to bring two friends to an amicable settlement, Wike declared Dr Odili his enemy.
Peter Odili, former Governor of Rivers State
“As it is today, politically, we don’t have a good relationship. We don’t work together, there are some political differences.
“For me, we have finished with this stage. It does not mean that in the next stage, you will be in the same camp. No, he took a decision. I took a decision,” Wike revealed when asked about his relationship with Odili.
It’s obvious that he’s unhappy that Dr Odili is not backing his ill-conceived impeachment plot against Gov Fubara, and he showed it by publicly disclaiming Dr Odili on live television. He had nothing else to hold against a man who had lived a quiet and dignified life away from the limelight since his tenure as governor of Rivers State ended in 2007.
Wike is a political protege of Dr Odili and had hitherto maintained a father-son relationship with the revered statesman. During President Bola Tinubu’s visit to commission projects in Rivers State on May 3, 2023, Wike admitted the role of Dr Odili in his political rise while giving a speech as the host. While looking in the direction of Dr Odili, Wike said “Whatever we are today is by the grace of God and this man.”
But this is the same man he has now chosen to antagonise and berate for being a peacemaker. Wike suffers the infantile belief that anyone who doesn’t support his position on issues has betrayed him! His concept of betrayal is as twisted as his mind. Everyone who disagreed with him was a traitor in his rule book.
But no one has betrayed associates more than Wike. His first victim was Rotimi Amaechi, who was then Governor of Rivers State. Wike had served as his chief of staff in his first term. Amaechi nominated him for ministerial appointment in the Goodluck Jonathan government where he served first as Minister of State, Education before becoming the senior minister of the ministry.
But when Amaechi fell out with President Jonathan, Wike quickly switched camp because of his ambition to succeed Amaechi as governor of Rivers State- in contravention of an earlier agreement that the governorship would go to another zone.
Then in 2019, Atiku Abubakar became the next victim. He worked against him during the PDP presidential convention in Portharcourt in 2019. He then allegedly worked against the PDP at the general election. Wike also betrayed Uche Secondus, his fellow Rivers man and former PDP national chairman he helped install. He worked to ensure his removal when he couldn’t use him to further his agenda.
Wike almost single-handedly installed Iyorchia Ayu as Secondus’ replacement in 2021 when the former Senate President was elected national chairman of the PDP. But he was also the one who spearheaded a virulent campaign to bring down Ayu because of his ambition to run for president. Ayu was forced to step down from the position.
Wike openly campaigned against his party, the PDP, during the 2024 presidential election. He worked against his party and shamelessly claimed he was still a member of the party. What do you call the leader of a party in his state who openly supports another party in an election? Is that not the worst form of betrayal? Wike is a licensed traitor who doesn’t want to smell betrayal around him. It gives him seizures and makes him extremely fidgety!
What is Dr Odili’s offence? Of course, Wike told his interviewers that there was nothing. He said they just had some differences. But a former Commissioner for Water Resources in Rivers State, David Briggs, in a video posted on Facebook, said Wike is angry because Mr Odili refused to support the impeachment plot against Governor Fubara by Pro-Wike lawmakers.
Wike-vs-Fubara
He alleged that “Mr Wike planned to destabilise Rivers State by planning an impeachment of the present governor of the state and Felix Obuah (a former PDP chairperson in Rivers) to go and recruit Mr Odili to be part of that plan.
“Mr Obuah went to Mr Odili’s house in an attempt to recruit him to be part of it, but Mr Odili rejected it and said ‘You just came to tell me to be part of you, (and) not to mediate if there is any misunderstanding between the present governor and Mr Wike. Please, I will not be part of it. Rather, let me call Mr Wike’.
Dr Odili, according to Briggs, called Wike and begged him not to impeach Gov Fubara that he (Mr Wike) brought him. He said the FCT minister promised Dr Odili that he would see him by the weekend in Port Harcourt but he never did.
If Wike could so easily ignore an elder’s plea for peace, does it not show he is the problem? The FCT minister is acting like a man desperate for something, and anyone he perceives as standing in his way is an enemy. Wike is paranoid about the corridor of power. If he’s not helped, he will soon harm himself.
– Suleiman writes from Abuja
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