By
Odimegwu Onwumere
Barrister
Ezebunwo Nyesom Wike is the Minister of State for Education. He seems to have circuitously
ditched this appointment. His combatant attitude in the smeared politics of
Rivers State, buttresses this fact. His incessant appearance in the media, but
in warring features, no longer portrays him as a diplomat, but as a dirty
politician who casts the die and goes for the kill. Diplomats are known to
diplomacy in any of their dealings, but Wike is farfetched from this reality.
He rather prefers to open his mouth and talk riotously and beat his chest and
boasts of playing politics.
Reading
the Saturday July 6, 2013, edition of The Sun, where Barr. Wike opened his
mouth and talked like the ‘small boy’ that he repeatedly said that Governor
Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers State was addressing him as, reminds one that not
all grown people are adults. It could be a thing like this that moved Amaechi
to be calling him the alleged ‘small boy’. It is not a venomous attack when a
man who is well respected opens his mouth and talks like an inexperienced kid.
Anyway, it is only in politics that stupidity is not regarded as a shortcoming.
If not, the pointless political battle which Wike has brought upon Rivers State
ought not to have occurred.
As
a Minister of State for Education, is it part of delivering the dividends of
democracy for Wike to fight his state governor? What is this scenario creating
in the international community? Would the international community see Nigeria
as a country where there are gentlemen representatives or gangsters’? It is
unbecoming of a man of that status to make majority of his matters in the
on-going political imbroglio in the state a press matter; although, as a
lawyer, he knows better. Just chatting.
Persons
of class do not open their fangs of debris in interview; they tell the world
through issuance of press releases and wait to give a valedictory lecture about
all the ‘truths’ and ‘lies’ against them while in a public office. Professor
Niyi (Osundare) gave one of such world-acclaimed valedictory lectures about the
does and don’t, bickering and brickbats, image and margin he experienced in the
University of Ibadan when he was leaving the school for the New Orleans in the
United States. Authorities do not rise against authorities when work is in
progress. It is not gentlemanly.
Wike
never gainsaid that it was not politics that brought Amaechi and him together.
That was in 1998 or 1999, under former Governor Peter Odili, who ruled Rivers
State. But between 1999 and 2002, Wike said that he was the chairman of
Obio/Akpor LGA. The Minister didn’t just become the LGA’s chair. He became
chairman by the help of Amaechi when the administration of that time wanted to
shortchange him for someone else for the plumb job at the Obio/Akpor LGA.
Amaechi was Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly then. Are the records
not there?
It
is unflattering of Wike to say that people easily forget ‘yesterday’ and that
people also are good in paying ‘bad’ for ‘good’ because of selfishness. And,
you wonder if he was the one who forgot how Amaechi helped him to become
Chairman of Obio/Akpor or someone somewhere. Yes, people forget easily. It is,
however, the duty of Wike to check his conscience very well about his
relationship with Amaechi before presenting the world with these irrational
political abracadabras in his home state. It could be on this premise that
whoever he was saying that branded him a betrayer was bent on using that word.
It is either Wike faces his Ministerial job or resign and become an activist,
in lieu of saying that he was fighting Amaechi because he is always on the side
of ‘justice’ and rule of law in the leadership tussle of PDP in the state.
How
did Amaechi want to own the party? Even in the political crises that have been
tormenting the state, has Wike not ascribed Amaechi as the leader of the party
in the state? Did Wike not say that Amaechi represents change you can see? And
this is the popular opinion of people in the state.
Okay.
Let’s assume that Wike has now become the leader. Is a leader expected to be a
servant or a warrior? If people begin to brand Wike in these crises, no one is
sure how many names he would get out of the ‘betrayer’ that he said someone was
addressing him as. He might have fought Amaechi’s battle for the governorship
position in the state in 2007, but did that not translate to paying back to
Amaechi what he did for Wike for the later’s emergence as the Obio/Akpor LGA
chairman which was a springboard for whatever fame Wike thinks he has today.
When we say that we are standing on the side of the ‘truth’, let’s not forget
to dine, drink and tell the truth.
In
earnest, there was no presentation of details in that interview. What Wike did
was to tell a fraction of the story to attract people’s sympathy. Why? It was
not wrong that Wike stood on truth, according to him, when Amaechi actually had
the mandate. But this is not only the fact that Wike have to tell the world
about his once harmonious relationship with Amaechi. The governor also helped
him to become the Obio/Akpor LGA chairman.
One
problem with some persons is that they like saying things to attract self-pity.
If not, what was the meaning in the statement by Wike about a particular
incident he said that took place in London where security operatives tracked and
wanted to pick up two of his persons that worked with him for Amaechi. He also
said that during that period he stood by Amaechi and never gave away his
secrets. So, is this the time to give away secrets? Hooey!
Let
us not delve into many self-indulgent comments by Wike, but the truth is that
he wants the Rivers State which he said that he laboured for to retrogress to
the era when hoodlums took over the state and were calling the shots in an
excuse of militancy.
Wike
had claimed in the interview that there were five assassination attempts on his
life in the cause of supporting Amaechi for governorship in 2007 and that he
lost his driver in one of those attempts. The question now is who were those
behind the assassination attempts on Wike? Could it be those who were fighting
on the side of Omehia? Or, could it be their master, Odili? Or, could it be
that Wike plotted his assassination? Or, better still, could it be that Wike
fabricated the story? Otherwise, how can Wike explain his new found romance
with Odili and Omehia? Has Wike gone back to his vomit?
Does
Wike also want Amaechi to be attacked in the cause of being a governor? So, old
friends are no longer gold? Amazing. Saying that Amaechi wanted to be Tinubu in
Rivers State, could it be why Wike has been fighting hard to wrestle that
position since he said that as “a minister, the governor cannot accord me
little courtesy because he is chairman of governors’ forum, he is everything”.
Let us not believe that envy is at play.
Wike
has been a proponent of Ikwerre North and Ikwerre South political divide. He
has been pushing that Gov. Amaechi is from Ikwerre North and it will be the
turn of his Ikwerre South after Gov. Amaechi’s tenure of office. Is it not why
Wike is fighting Amaechi so that he will take over, but using the presidency as
a cover? Is Wike not thinking that all the residents of Rivers State are
optimally stupid and that he can fool everybody? We can see that Wike is not
fighting for the public, but for himself. So, Wike can be seen as a fake
apostle of ‘justice’ and ‘truth’.
Governor
Amaechi might not be hundred percent good. But he was elected and, the minister
was appointed. So, you can see where the problem lies: Lack of loyalty. Any
appointee who challenges the authorities of his or her employer would be seen
as a ‘small boy or girl’. You cannot say because you helped the owner of a
company to erect the structure, therefore you are equal with the owner when the
company becomes functional. Yea, friendship cannot be forgotten, but in an
instituted organization where there is hierarchy, there is also protocol.
Amaechi
might not be one hundred percent transparent in the business of governance, but
we can see the type of transparency that is in Wike’s dictionary, which are
Wars. Let us remind Wike that one does not need to play role for a leader to be
appointed for a job. He was asking for the role played by persons that Amaechi
appointed into his cabinet during 2007 elections. Can we now know and see who
is actually selfish? No. In a transparent government, people are appointed into
positions because of good recommendations they have garnered.
It was obvious that it’s not only Wike who
fought for Amaechi, but he is the only one complaining deficiently today. Why?
Was he telling us that he was the only one who was not fully compensated and
others were really compensated? Can we now differentiate between greed and
politics? Wike says that Amaechi sits as a lord of the manor and you wonder
what who dethrones this Lord becomes. If Wike says that Amaechi wants to remain
in Rivers State as the lord, then he is fighting to remove Amaechi so that he
becomes the lord. Are Rivers people calculating?
People
should not allow themselves to be manipulated by insatiability. Wike said that
the faction of the executive of the party in the state came to receive Mr.
President on Friday, June 28 at the Port Harcourt airport, while in his
jaundiced thinking the governor was in Lagos with his APC friends for Fashola’s
birthday. Must Wike blackmail Amaechi to the president anytime he wants to make
a statement? What a cheap way of currying favour!
Contrary
to the claim by Wike that he made Amaechi governor in 2007, persons like OCJ
Okocha who just celebrated his 60th birthday have rebuffed that. Was there
anytime that Amaechi nominated Wike as Minister to go and fight Mr. President?
This was the question that Wike had asked, perhaps, to draw the president’s
sympathy and hide under him to ‘deal’ with Amaechi. Let us now ask Wike: Did
Gov. Amaechi nominate him as a federal minister to fight Rivers State and her
government? What is Wike doing about the Rivers State oil wells that have been
ceded with impunity to Bayelsa and Akwa Ibom States? As a federal minister, is
Wike not supposed to talk about it? Is it not in this type of matter that a
true apostle of justice and truth would speak up?
We
are seriously waiting for Wike to tell us the ‘truth’ about the government he
once served as its Chief of Staff. His ‘truth’ should not be his tales that,
“In Rivers State, when bottle breaks, they wouldn’t say it was bottle; they
would say it was dynamite. When they see dynamite, they will say that they saw
missile, and all must be aligned to Wike…” Is it not myopic when a man like
Wike feels that he is the only person in Rivers State who knows the difference
between the sound of a bottle, dynamite and missile? (Pride at work). It means
that Wike is calling all of us liars. This is very unfortunate
Odimegwu Onwumere, a contributing
Correspondent to Pilot Group, contributed this piece from Port Harcourt. Tel:
+2348032552855. Email: apoet_25@yahoo.com
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