Wike goes for broke

Nyesom Wike
Nyesom Wike

Rivers State governor Nyesom Wike, 57, gave indication even before he became governor that he was a mercurial politician, charismatic in a nondescript way, and sensitive, spunky and gregarious. In his first term, how was it that the country mischaracterised the essential Wike, defining him strictly only in terms of his bickering with his predecessor, Rotimi Amaechi, and dismissing him as a gadfly? He was in fact well into his second term in office before this ‘vintage wine’ from Rumuepirikom, Obio-Akpor, and son of Reverend Nlemanya Wike came into his own. During the Covid-19 lockdown, he was flamboyant, combative and hysterical. He threatened the federal government, elbowed oil companies, and enacted one of the most dramatic policing of lockdowns Nigeria had experienced. In the end, however, he relented, but not before the genie had left the bottle and Mr Wike had come firmly into the national consciousness as a bold and impudent politician, surprisingly blessed with the gift of the gab.

Since May when the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) oligarchs plotted the victory of former vice president Atiku Abubakar to become the party’s standard-bearer for the 2023 presidential election, Mr Wike has weekly and sometimes daily waxed eloquent about the treachery he alleged was committed against him by the said oligarchs. Firstly, he said the party chairman Iyorchia Ayu was the arrowhead of a plot by retired military generals and other woolly-minded politicians to deny him victory and give it to the undeserving and politically nomadic Alhaji Atiku. Money changed hands, he alleged, and presidential aspirants were coerced to step down for one another until the contest invariably became a two-horse race which he lost by a proud and decent margin. Since that ‘chicanery’ came to fruition, Mr Wike had not ceased to cry foul. Every step he took and every demand he made had been effectively countered by the oligarchs. He was made to lose face, and lose sleep. He saw his enemies in his dreams, and imagines them at his bedside, their scary faces contorted, threatening and menacing.

Aah, but Mr Wike is no pushover himself. Not only has he lashed out verbally at his enemies, and flung his figurative fists at them wildly, he has exposed their secrets and made them blanch with horror at all the dirty secrets he has unveiled. They would not let him sleep; nor would he let them. Indeed, the last few weeks have been tumultuous, with Mr Wike lunging at his enemies and his enemies stonewalling in bitter riposte. The more he expressed his horror and disgust at how badly they had misused him to sustain the party and forced him to hold the short end of the stick, the less accommodating and amenable they became. He was denied the running mate position, and the chairman who hails from the North continues to sit pretty in office. Everything Alhaji Atiku had promised him – three things he claimed – has remained unfulfilled. Every time his enemies in the PDP took one unfavourable step against him, he lashed out at them twice with more venom. Ultimately, Mr Wike said, everyone should know that Alhaji Atiku would be an unreliable president should he be elected; he could not be trusted to keep his word.

Mr Wike is, however, backed by a group of governors with the same trenchancy as Alhaji Atiku vacillates in the midst of his cavorting supporters and oligarchs. The standard-bearer and his trusting oligarchs tenaciously hold on to the party, and are moving dangerously close to completely ostracising the Rivers governor, insisting that he is too volatile and uncooperative to be managed or associated with. Mr Wike is incensed that, in addition, the party leaders are wooing his main backers away from him. A few of his backers will stand with him through thick and thin, but he cannot be sure that they will all remain faithful to the friendship he has cultivated with them and nourished with all he has got. More, some of his vacillating backers will look at him warily, wondering whether he would not come at them hammers and tongs with the same verbal pirouettes with which he has skewered Alhaji Atiku and the party, and the same infelicitous songs and dances upon which cadence and rhythm he has continued to excoriate them. How can they forget that just as he had exposed his enemies, laying their innermost secrets inelegantly in the open, he would not do the same thing to them? And God save the reputation of anyone who has benefited from his largess.

In his press conference last Friday, Mr Wike expertly deployed his effervescent and coruscating wit to devastate Alhaji Atiku. He stopped just short of asking the country not to elect Alhaji Atiku, for as a lawyer, he knew too well his party’s constitution to open his flanks to party leaders to move directly against him. He was satisfied with their feigning movements and feeble thrusting, confident that it left him with nearly all the advantages. So he has stopped short of open rebellion, and in consonance with the democratic spirit, has cleverly gone only as far as heresy. Now, whether they will apply the same fire at the stakes to burn a heretic as they would use tornado nails to crucify a rebel remains to be seen. Mr Wike has moved his positions continuously as circumstances have made him to shift ground, but the party has remained hardened and implacable. He was denied presidential ticket, lost the running mate ticket with which he was tantalised, and even the southern shift of the chairmanship has proved a bridge too far. To him, these are moral issues that do not admit of equivocations.

No one can predict how the fight would be resolved, not the hesitant Alhaji Atiku, not the adamant Dr Ayu, and from all indications, not even the pugnacious Mr Wike. The damage to the party’s administrative, crusading and moral fabric is undoubtedly immense. However, the bone of contention is as plain as daylight. If the party can’t yield the chairmanship to the South, it will be safely conjectured, even if a few of Mr Wike’s backers become turncoats, that the fight would be irresolvable. The party’s Board of Trustees (BoT) is mediating the disagreement, a disagreement already complicated by the exit of the Wike group from the party’s presidential campaign council. It is not, however, clear what they are mediating in a case Alhaji Atiku himself was alleged to have privately acknowledged was uncomplicated and morally straightforward. Unfortunately, there can be only one outcome: Dr Ayu’s resignation or Alhaji Atiku standing pat. If Mr Wike’s group is not placated, the PDP will face disaster. Mr Wike, it is now abundantly clear, will not give up the struggle, no, not by a mile. In fact, given how irate he has become, no one is sure he will relent even after Dr. Ayu had taken hemlock.

Former party chairman Uche Secondus, who was virtually foisted on the party and then also virtually singlehandedly removed by Mr Wike, is alleged to be exultant that the Rivers governor had finally met his match and got his comeuppance. There will be many more within the PDP who would irritate the boisterous governor. In a searing press conference cum media chat last Friday, the governor had lashed out at his enemies and prophesied that the party was fated both to defeat and ruin. More ominously, he indicated he would do his best to deliver victory to PDP candidates at all levels in the state, leaving party leaders in suspense regarding what he would do at the presidential election. They are not too dimwitted not to understand his insinuations. In turn, however, they have warned of him of dire consequences. But he dares them with glacial indifference and contempt. With Lagos and Kano largely out of their reach, and now possibly Rivers, PDP’s presidential hope may have dimmed considerably, leading the respected Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) publication of Britain to predict doom and defeat for the party. But faced with catastrophe, a point that often impels men to do and absorb the unimaginable, it is not certain that the PDP and Alhaji Atiku would not begin to think the unthinkable and visualise throwing in the towel. The gnarling Mr Wike has them by the jugular; that is bad enough. To also allow him strangulate them in the nether regions down below would be pain in excess of their forbearance.

 

 

Buhari’s last UNGA address

President Muhammadu Buhari must have struck a chord when he told the 77th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York last week that his address would be his last to the august body, while a new face from Nigeria, a new president, would be addressing the 78th UNGA. Much more than anything he had said or done, his unflagging commitment to the peaceful transfer of power devoid of tenure elongation under any guise may in the end be his most remarkable contribution to democracy and stability in Nigeria. His predecessor Goodluck Jonathan was also committed to the smooth transition of power, and despite running into a storm during the polls, had behaved nobly. So, the president has been admirably quite insistent on handing over the reins of power at the expiration of his second term in office. Doubters earlier scoffed at his promise to respect term limits, probably instigated by the shenanigans of previous Nigerian governments, but President Buhari has left no one in doubt where he stands on constitutional term limits.

At UNGA, the president was explicit about where he stands on term limits. He restated this same resolve when last June the condescending former Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain asked him on the margins of the 26th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) whether he would run for office again. “Another term for me?” he had growled, “No! The first person who tried it didn’t end very well.” But just in case there were skeptics among his audience at the 77th UNGA, President Buhari anticipatively insisted the thought had not crossed his mind. He had added poignantly that “We believe in the sanctity of constitutional term limits and we have steadfastly adhered to it in Nigeria. We have seen the corrosive impact on values when leaders elsewhere seek to change the rules to stay on in power.” But respecting constitutional term limits, as laudable as that is, is not the best democratic bequest possible. Again, the president recognised this dilemma and suggested in the same address that Nigeria was championing democracy and the rule of law in the West African sub-region. Said he: “In Nigeria, not only have we worked to strengthen our democracy, but we have supported it and promoted the rule of law in our sub-region. In The Gambia, we helped guarantee the first democratic transition since independence. In Guinea-Bissau we stood by the democratically elected Government when it faced mutiny. And in the Republic of Chad, following the tragic death of its President, the late Idris Deby Itno in the battle field, we joined forces with its other neighbours and international partners to stabilise the country and encourage the peaceful transition to democracy, a process which is ongoing.” Of course, the president left out the inconvenient details of the mismanagement, frustrations with, and lack of immediate success in dealing with the coups in Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso.

Many analysts view the president’s boast of promoting the rule of law in the sub-region as a bit of an exaggeration. Opposing a few coups d’état is not exactly the same thing as promoting the rule of law. Whether in Nigeria or elsewhere, President Buhari’s record is a mixed one at best. His ambivalent and paternalistic policy towards Nigerian judiciary is perhaps the best reflection of the president’s self-confessed respect for the rule of law. Few legal analysts will agree with him on his self-acclaimed promotion of the rule of law, whether as it relates to the deposition of a chief justice, some questionable court judgements, or even the rights of individuals unlawfully incarcerated. The president’s record in this dispensation has of course been far better than his record as a military ruler. But in the end, just as his predecessor Olusegun Obasanjo belatedly discovered, legacies go beyond the superficial gestures of mouthing rule of law and democracy phrases. The president will be praised for submitting himself without coercion to term limits and allowing primaries and elections to be conducted in a free and fair manner, for as he told UNGA, “We have invested heavily to strengthen our framework for free and fair elections”, but it is unlikely analysts will fall into a swoon over his vaunted promotion of democracy and rule of law.

In his address, President Buhari also called for debt cancellation for developing countries facing fiscal stress. He is unlikely to be heeded. Making the case for debt cancellation was perfunctory. He had said: “Indeed, the multifaceted challenges facing most developing countries have placed a debilitating chokehold on their fiscal space. This equally calls for the need to address the burden of unsustainable external debt by a global commitment to the expansion and extension of the Debt Service Suspension Initiative to countries facing fiscal and liquidity challenges as well as outright cancellation for countries facing the most severe challenges.” Whether he meant to include Nigeria in that miserable bracket is unclear. But in the closing years of the Obasanjo presidency, in 2005/2006, Nigeria exited the Paris Club by achieving unprecedented debt relief of about $18bn (out of a total debt of about $31bn) after paying $12bn to creditors. Today, Nigeria is fully back into peonage, owing over $40bn to creditors, with debt service in excess of $2bn. It is okay to advocate for debt relief, but it is not clear whether Nigeria is qualified; and if qualified, whether it would not return to its vomit a few undisciplined years after relief.

President Buhari’s UNGA address does not break new grounds in content, advocacy and logic, at least in a way that is consistent with farewell speeches. Of course it cannot, not simply because it would be unprecedented, going by the controversial records of the president’s years in office, but because the country itself has been unable to rise to the occasion. As a former United States president Richard Nixon argued, the greatness of a leader is inextricably, though not ineluctably, linked with the greatness of his country. No matter how brilliant and resourceful a leader is, without a corresponding demonstration of economic and military power and inventiveness, he and his country are bound to rate poorly. With Nigerian leaders showing a lack of capacity to ennoble the office they occupy, it is not surprising that the office has also been unable to ennoble them. As he gave his last address to UNGA, it would have been appropriate for the president to ask himself whether he would be missed, not only by the global body, but also by his countrymen when he bids them farewell in a few months to come.

 

*Anya, not Anya, a correction

The photograph of the respected scientist and boardroom guru, Prof. Anya O. Anya, was inadvertently used on this page last week to illustrate the column even though he was not mentioned in the piece. We meant to use the photograph of the controversial and acerbic linguist, Prof. Uju Anya. The mix-up is regretted.

 

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