Rivers State Governor Nyesom Ezinwa Wike needs no further introduction, neither in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) circle nor within and possibly beyond the national circumference! He rose through the ranks as a follower to become a leader and ultimately a leader of leaders.
Given the murky and turbulent waters of Nigerian politics, he stood like a colossus in defence of PDP especially during the struggle for the soul of the party in 2016. In the course of the said struggle and other related challenges over the years, since PDP lost power at the centre, Governor Wike emerged as a great pillar of the party, spending and being spent, investing both material and non-material resources.
However, Governor Wike was not the only one contributing to the survival of PDP during the trying period. Others, too numerous to recount, were contributing in no small measure to ensure that the major opposition party in the country did not die.
Given the foregoing narrative of heroism and sacrifices towards the survival of PDP in which Governor Wike’s name rings like a bell, how did things get to this situation of no love lost between Governor Wike and the national leadership of the party? How come that today Wike and his loyalists are at daggers drawn with the rest of the party at a critical stage when all hands should be on the deck for the rescue mission facing the party?
To the extent that the strong man of the party now moves around, within and outside the country, in the company of strange bedfellows, while courting and inviting opposition elements to inaugurate projects that he conceived and executed under the PDP umbrella and agenda!
It can be argued, and rightly so, that Wike is the architect of whatever issues he is having with PDP today. It all started in 2017 when it was time for PDP to elect its national officers in the National Convention. The popular view was for the National Chairman to come from the South West geopolitical zone.
After the Supreme Court judgement, which recognised the Ahmed Makarfi leadership of the party, new processes started de novo, leading to the National Convention of December 2017. Again, the South West was set to produce the National Chairman, with about 12 aspirants from the zone, including prominent names like Chief Olabode Ibiyinka George, Prof. Tunde Adeniran and others on the starting block. Somehow, the high and mighty Wike, against all expectations, turned the tables against the South West in favour of Uche Secondus from his home state of Rivers in the South South.
Whatever might have been the sins of Secondus, one would have expected the powers that be to allow him to complete his four-year tenure in peace with just a few months to go, but the executive governor of Rivers would have none of it! All efforts, all interventions and entreaties for Secondus to be left to complete the remaining few months of his tenure fell on deaf ears! And Secondus departed ignominiously, thus the stage was set for a new National Convention to elect a new leadership.
Again, the focus was on the South West to produce the National Chairman. Prominent sons of the zone were on the queue. As a matter of fact, all preparations were in top gear and the news was everywhere that the Wike camp had endorsed a one-time National Secretary of the party and former Governor of Osun State, Col. Olagunsoye Oyinlola (retd) for National Chairman.
In a move typical of the style of Maradona, the biggest dribbler and schemer of all times, a style already associated with some contemporary military and political leaders, our beloved Wike made a dramatic U-turn, to champion the move that changed the zoning of the party offices, thereby favouring the North with the position of National Chairman!
If Governor Wike and his associates had paused to consider the pros and cons, if they had consulted widely before conceding the chairmanship to the North, we would not have been in this rather embarrassing situation in which we have found ourselves now.
As at the time of throwing the chairmanship away, the issue of where the presidential candidate would come from was far from settled and the balance was already tilting in favour of an open contest. It could only be a product of wishful thinking and error of calculation for anyone to assume that serious-minded politicians like Atiku, Saraki and Tambuwal would drop their presidential ambition just because the party chairmanship was gratuitously thrown to the North, forgetting that Ahmadu Ali from the North was National Chairman from 2005 to 2008, meaning that Umaru Musa Yar’ Adua contested the PDP Presidential Primary, won the Presidency and served in office for about a year, with Col. Ali (retd) as National Chairman. In a related development, Vincent Ogbulafor, who took over from Ali, worked with Goodluck Jonathan as Acting President and up till the early period of his Presidency in 2010. Both are from the South.
Besides, it was, as we used to say in the university days of this writer, visible to the blind, audible to the deaf and tangible to the paralytic, that Atiku Abubakar was by a long pole the favourite aspirant to clinch the presidential ticket of the party, hence to all intents and purposes, the move to hurriedly change the zoning arrangements to throw the chairmanship at the North was both a reckless gamble and a cheap political blackmail!
Otherwise, how on earth would anybody imagine that a man like Atiku, who had been pursuing Nigeria’s presidency since 1992 would suddenly fizzle out of a race that could be his last shot at the plum job for any reason other than death or physical incapacitation (God forbid)?
Knowing that he was keenly interested in the presidential ticket, Wike’s best bet would have been to back a chairmanship candidate from the South, who would have even been useful to him towards the primary; and if he had won, he could then ask the fellow to resign, provided it would be that easy!
Speaking in practical terms, there are certain offices from which it’s not easy to ask any politician to resign except there was a clear-cut agreement to that effect. Apart from hearsay, nobody among those who should know better has shown any evidence that Prof. Ayu personally subscribed to an arrangement whereby he will resign from office, if a northerner should emerge as presidential candidate or president. And if there was any such undertaking, the next question is if the resignation will become due at the point of emergence of a northerner as candidate or after election as president.
Besides, those asking the National Chairman to resign for a southerner to take-over, should realise that if that happens, the office of the National Secretary cannot remain in the South. In the long run, for a proper balance to be achieved, there would be a lot of swapping, which may end up creating more problems than the one being tackled. Do we really need such distractions in an election year, with less than six months to the General Election?
Governor Wike should remember that the PDP had given him the platform to rise from that unknown young man from Rumueprikom in Obio-Akpor Local Government Area, to a position of national, if not international preeminence! We all should learn to accept defeat in a contest or selection process and wait for a better deal in the future.
