Clockwise: Atiku, Wike, Ayu, Secondus
By John Ola Mafo
Nyesom Ezenwo Wike needs no further introduction neither in 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, when evil forces operating in the guise of Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, threatened to pull down the PDP house! The various episodes of the Ali Modu Sheriff against Senator Ahmed Makarfi remains indelible in the history of the trials of democracy in Nigeria!
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, it must be noted at this juncture, that 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 measures to ensure that the major opposition party in the country did not die. From the unknown card carrying members in Zungeru in Niger State, Ipetumodu in Osun, Dogon-Daji in Sokoto, Zing in Taraba, Brass in Bayelsa and Agbani in Enugu, all party members contributed in cash and kind to ensure the survival of PDP! Even the media world, religious leaders and the judiciary played their respective role to save the main opposition party from the sword of damocles and Nigeria from a one-party state.
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 Nyesom Wike and his loyalists are at dagger 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 bed fellows, while courting and inviting opposition elements to commission projects that he conceived and executed under the PDP umbrella and agenda!
The answer to the above can be found in the nature of life and the unpredictable realities of existential phenomenon! This will serve as a great lesson to Wike and others in the journey of life. It is instructive to note that the most brilliant student in the class may not be the leader of the class and may not even come first all the time, because of the unpredictable variables of examinations like party primaries! The biggest contributor does not always enjoy the biggest rewards. Even in the Bible when people gathered to give offerings, the prize of the best and biggest offering went to the widow, who contributed just two mites (Mark 12: 41- 44, Luke 21: 1-4).
In Nature generally, when someone invests goodness without attaching conditions, people note it with more gratitude and the doer enjoys unlimited goodwill which often translates to favours from God and men at the appointed time!
In the Yoruba cultural view, the concept of a helper with a price tag in mind is tantamount to the character of the infamous Shylock in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. And if at all a reward is to be expected, given the nature of some politicians, who cannot do anything for free, it should not be by fire by force! According to the Quran, 39: 10, “only those who are patient shall receive their rewards in full, without reckoning.”
From the foregoing analyses, it can be argued and rightly so, that Nyesom Ezenwo Wike is the architect of whatever issues he is having with PDP today. It all started from 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. As far back as 2016, when the National Convention was scheduled to hold in Port Harcourt, names of illustrious Yoruba sons like Olusegun Mimiko, Jimmy Agbaje, etc were already on the front burner before the Ali Modu Sheriff crisis truncated the process.
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 table 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 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 new leadership.
Again, as it were in previous times, the focus was on the South West, in Southern Nigeria, 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 after dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s, the Wike camp had endorsed a one time National Secretary of the party and former Governor of Osun State, Col. Olagunsoye Oyinlola (rtd) 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!
With the above development, it did not take political pundits long to realise that the moves by Wike were geared towards personal ambition, though at the surface he claimed to be protecting the interest of the South. 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. According to a famous proverb, a bird in hand is better than two in the bush, thus the South should have pocketed the Chairmanship, while pursuing the Presidential ticket, just as the North did.
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 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 (rtd) 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 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. While some of these issues beg for clarifications, what is clear is that, when it comes to political gentleman agreement, if any, it takes a lot for such to be implemented. All that should have been considered by the camp of the Southern leaders, whose interest Wike is representing before throwing away certainty for uncertainty, which can be likened to a case of Maradona, dribbling himself!
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. On 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 month to the General Election?
All said and done, Governor Nyesom Ezenwo Wike should consider his political future and the fate of his candidates in Rivers State before rocking the PDP boat any further because the comfort of the tree is the comfort of the bird.
Furthermore, His Excellency, the Governor of Rivers State should realise that he cannot afford to throw away the baby with the bath water, just as it should be known to all political players that he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day!
He should equally remember that our great party, the PDP, had given him the platform to rise from that unknown young man from Rumueprikom in Obio-Akpor Local Government, to a position of national, if not international preeminence! The Governor should recall that for him to become his local government chairman, some persons were bypassed. When he served as Chief of Staff, others were overlooked. His choice as Minister of State was at the expense of others, just as the elevation to the status of full minister came at a cost to others. To become Governor, Nyesom also beat off other competitors to emerge, twice! We all should learn to accept defeat in a contest or selection process and wait for a better deal in the future. PDP is a productive platform that should be protected and preserved for others coming behind us.
Finally, it is on record that Wike fought a good fight at the primary. He earlier promised to support whoever emerges, if not him. He should endeavour to keep his word notwithstanding any temptations or provocation! Whatever happens he remains a force to be reckoned with in PDP, with a big role to play in the affairs of the nation post 2023! He cannot afford to jump ship or abandon the rescue mission which the leadership of the party had promised Nigerians.
It is time to pause and rethink. A stitch in time saves nine!
- Mafo, a former PDP Governorship Candidate in Ondo State and ex-Commissioner for Information in the Olusegun Agagu administration, writes from Akure.
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