By Dan Amor
BARRISTER Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, CON, GSSRS, POS (Africa), the ebullient and hardworking governor of Rivers State is quiet, self-effacing, gentle but dynamic. Except when provoked, Wike is so gentle and unassuming that he could easily be classified as a man who cannot hurt a fly. This quiet and simple disposition has become a defining factor in his political career. But Wike does not suffer fools gladly. Look for his trouble and you would know that the dog that does not bark can bite. Variously described as the hero of the 2015 general elections who ensured that the people of Rivers State monitored their votes till the last minute and made sure their votes counted, in terms of political activism and sagacity, Wike dwarfs all superlatives. Adequately informed of the time-tested Biblical injunction that one should count one’s blessings and name them one by one, and given the fact that in our clime, if you failed to name what you have achieved, your opponents who are given to pomposity and loudness would name them as their achievements, Wike had decided to let God and mankind note the spread and dimensions of his towering achievements in just three years of calling the shots in the state as governor. Again, certain members of the critical clan in the media, especially those working for his opponents, believed that since Wike’s immediate past predecessor, Mr. Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi allegedly “achieved so much” in the state, with the exit of the latter, the state would collapse in Wike’s hands. Unfortunately, not many realised that under Amaechi, the state was in huge debts while most of his projects were not completed.
Also, not a handful of those critics knew that before Wike, developments were largely concentrated in Port Harcourt, the capital city, much to the detriment of the rural dwellers who needed governance most. Not many knew that several communities were not accessible as they had no motorable roads; even as the people were living without potable water and at the mercy of sicknesses and diseases. Today, the story has changed. Wike’s humanism favours an assertion of the dignity of man against the asceticism of medieval misanthropy. Given Wike’s legendary love for his people, his elan, his charisma and his capacity to hold even his political adversaries in thrall, few can behold this action governor and not feel a sense of shame and inadequacy. Wike exudes a sure-footedness or confidence that wows. The governor’s grasp of issues and his insights are simply astounding. If the insights he proffers are penetrating, his quest for excellence is unrelenting. But, again, it is his vision and determination to provide comfort for his people that is the thrust of his political philosophy. It takes an astute politician with a consuming love for his people to see the faceless antagonism of fifth columnists who would not see anything good about his administration as a challenge and thus employ his manifest gusto to prove the bookmakers wrong. In just three years, he has canalized all dangerous proclivities into harmless channels. If you recall that it is the same Rivers State in which governance was kept on hold as the legislature and judiciary were proscribed for about two years that Wike has turned to a new haven in which people now go about their normal duties without molestation, you will understand the Wike phenomenon.
The sense of energy and optimism generated by the governor’s bold attempt to create a brave new model state in the Niger Delta, in spite of all odds, could have easily given way to disillusionment if his government did not turn visionary rhetoric into something rather more substantial. Of course, Wike’s mastery of political mood-music is not to be sniffed at. But he remains an epitome of courage. To be candid, Wike does not have a bad press. With some of the best hands in the media industry (Emma Okah and Simeon Nwakaudu, to be specific) at the helm of his media team, the antics of those sponsored bookmakers intent on running him down pave into insignificance. After the sense of drift that was the lot of the people in the recent past, in spite of intensive media hype, the state is experiencing a refreshing moment. The administration of Wike inspires widespread confidence. Like Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State (2007/2015), Wike has managed simultaneously to accept much of the legacy of his predecessor while creating public excitement about his own idea of good governance. He is attacking excruciating poverty and underdevelopment head-on through the commissioning of massive developmental projects.
While it is impossible to articulate the cumulative magnitude of Wike’s developmental strides in one piece, this may actually be a convenient factual aid to the bare construing of the governor’s staggering and enormous achievements in Rivers State in just three years. Besides asphalting a network of more than 1,000 kilometres of well developed, closely knit roads across the length and breadth of the state, his government has given more than just a facelift to education. He only recently approved automatic jobs for Rivers PhD graduates and automatic scholarship for all the 25 Rivers indigenes who bagged First Class Degrees during the 2018 convocation ceremony of the Rivers State University. What a governor! A random listing of some of the recently commissioned projects which attracted the creme de la creme of the upper reaches of the Nigerian society to the state would here suffice: the long abandoned Nyemoni Grammar School, Abonnema in Akuku Toru Local Government Area which was reconstructed by Mr. Projects, with all modern facilities, was commissioned by former Governor of Kaduna State, Senator Ahmed Makarfi last week Wednesday June 27. The reconstructed Government Secondary School, Onne, in Eleme Local Government Area was last week commissioned by former Governor of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido. On Sunday June 24, it was the turn of the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Paul Akwrght, who commissioned the Government Girls Secondary School, Rumuokwuta, constructed by Mr. Projects. Even while the Federal Government has consistently been denying Rivers State of Support Fund, Wike is still commissioning new projects on a daily basis. This means that the governor’s capacity for prudent management of the meagre resources of the state is legendary.
To accentuate his priority on education, after nipping the cascading insecurity crisis in the bud, not only has he built and renovated several schools across the state, he has reintroduced scholarship awards for indigenes to study at home ad abroad. An attempt to encode some of these numerous projects would definitely not leave the inimitable ones among the lots. Some of them include: Creek Road and Bishop Johnson Street; former Produce House, Moscow Road; flag off of Real Madrid Football Academy at Elekahia, Port Harcourt; Eleme-Alimini Internal Roads; Omoku Internal Roads; Garrison- Trans-Amadi Road; Cultural Centre, Bonny Street, Port Harcourt; Amadi – Ama Internal Roads; Doctors’ Quarters (BMSH); Woji – Elelenwo Road; BMGS, Bori, and Abacha Road. Others are: Mgbuoshimini Health Centre & Primary School; Primary Health Care Board Building at Water Lines; Ozuaha – Ipo – Omademe Road; Obiri Ikwerre – Airport Road; Traditional Rulers Council Secretariat, Isaac Boro Street; National Industrial Court Complex and Court of Appeal Complex, Moscow Road, Port Harcourt; Okochiri Internal Roads, Okrika; Isiokpo Internal Roads ( Phase 1); 24 nos 3- Bedroom Flats for Civil Servants; GGSS, Rumuokwuta; GSS, Onne; Faculty of Technical Education; Bolo Internal Roads, Ogu/Bolo Local Government Area; Medical College, Rivers State University; Elimgbu – Tali Roads; Aba Road Office Complex; SUBEB Head Office, Port Harcourt; Port Harcourt Pleasure Park ( complete with restaurant) and a host of others.
Aside from the admirable cordiality between government and organized Labour in the state, in spite of meagre financial inflow, this miracle cannot be divorced from the Governor’s strategic templates which include a creative facilitation of the flow of private investor money into the state’s hitherto unproductive assets to make them operational thereby lifting the state’s oil and non-oil economy. Another one is the transformation of the rural economy through lifting road access restrictions to rural entrepreneurial potentials. Add to this, the transformation of the system of governance into the new digital age for efficiency and attainment of the optimum in the aggregation of potential revenue resources of the state, excluding oil. Above all, the establishment of strategic assets across sectors, namely, healthcare, education, agriculture, rural electrification, water, urban and rural transportation to regenerate the rural-urban economy, among others. Such has been Wike’s approach to the massive transformation of Rivers State since the past three years which has made Nigerians to describe Wike as the best governor in the country in the current dispensation (2015 till date). Indeed, there is no space here to enumerate all the awards Wike has garnered since the past three years; that should be a subject for another day. As honey attracts bees so does Rivers State attract notable Nigerians. Some of them include: Vice President Yemi Osinbajo who nicknamed Wike, “Mr. Projects”, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar who recently declared him the best governor in Nigeria, the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, the Sultan of Sokoto Alhaji Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar III, the Obong of Calabar, Edidem Ekpo Okon Abasi (I), former Head of State General Abdulsalami Abubakar, and many others who have come to commission various projects in the state. These notable and well-to-do Nigerians could not have been bribed to rally for Wike, but are attracted to the state by the stream of infrastructural revolution anchored by Wike.
Yet, Wike is achieving all these despite unceasing attempts by political opponents to distract him. True, the political business corners a huge chunk of the ego market, and it is tougher than most professions to actually sort through the excess refuge since all manners of men and women go into politics with reckless abandon, hence no decorum in their approach to the game. In virtually all the states in Nigeria, parallel political structures exist alongside the official party structures, all in the bid to capture political power. But in none of these states is the race for supremacy so ardent and rough as in Rivers State. This ego market is what had metamorphosed into a shooting war that had threatened to engulf the entire state. The war, verging on conspiracy, rebellion and betrayal was indeed, taking a toll on social life and economic activities in the state. While it is interesting to investigate the genesis of the crisis, it is only fit and proper to admonish that this sponsored restiveness is unnecessary, counter-productive and anti-development. It should be condemned by all well-meaning Nigerians because, in an atmosphere governed by chaos, animosity and rancour, as was the case in Rivers State in the recent past, development is often seen in the dividing line between savagery and barbarism.
It is shameful that in place of understanding, love and cooperation to join hands together with Governor Wike who is in a hurry to change things for the better, to deliver to the people dividends of democracy, which is why even the Vice President Prof. Yemi Osinbajo from a rival party nicknamed him Mr. Projects, acrimony and bigotry now hold sway in the state. It is lamentable that in place of love, patriotism and support for the youthful governor who is determined to consign the woeful order of lawlessness that characterized the state in the past to the can bin of history, pandemonium and hatred have held sway. It is condemnable that in place of felicities and conviviality as signposts of a new dawn, swear words, arson and lethal discharges from offensive weapons had characterized the atmosphere in some parts of the state. In Obiakpor council and its environs, the atmosphere was one of a lawless, barbaric order no thanks to the murderous antics of heartless thugs who paraded themselves as politicians. The grim reality is that Rivers state hitherto a haven of sublime peace and tranquility had now been turned by political hoodlums and their sponsors into a wilderness best for the demonstration of untamed dissent and raw destructive energy. Thank God that Governor Wike has brought sanity and peace in just three years in the saddle.
Unfortunately, it is those who claim to be sons of the soil who were inflicting those untold pains and agonies on the people. If they are not deluded beyond redemption, these protagonists of the crisis in Rivers State must be dismayed that beyond the vast fortunes that they have accumulated over the years as political jobbers, they have little to show in terms of followership in their home state, for all the frenzied manipulations, the willful distortions and obfuscation, the blackmail and the lying that have been systematically employed by them to consecrate their dubious desire to make the state ungovernable for Wike. Yet they have failed to appreciate Edmund Burke’s wise dictum that the most important platoon to a politician is his home base. The recent declaration of support for Wike by traditional rulers and leaders of thought across the state shows that the protagonists are fighting a war of blame. Some of them have held federal appointments in recent times, yet they failed to attract much federal presence to their land of birth except violence. With the tacit support of the sitting Governor by the entire people who are lovers of peace and development, it is now obvious that the huge advantage that these trouble makers and their co-travellers have long garnered from those sponsoring them to destabilize their state has gradually turned into ashes in their mouth.
Three principal elements stand in the way to their narrow goal. The first is pride. The protagonists of the collective state of unease in Rivers State cannot bring themselves to admit that they are in error, that the path they have chosen cannot lead to their ambition to govern the state in perpetuity. They have failed to realise that but for providence that smiled on them in the victory of Wike as governor in 2015, their effort would merely help to prolong the agony of their people. The second element is greed. These people have reaped and are reaping huge dividends from the crisis, and from the grief it had brought upon their compatriots. To consolidate their new prosperity and influence, to remain politically relevant, they have to keep stoking the crisis.
Again, the third element is fear-fear of the glaring consequences of admitting errors, of being called to apologize to the people, of losing control of their weapons of destruction, fear of the prospect of being at the receiving rather than at the administering end of all their machinations in a vain bid to create the illusion of mass support of the people. Yet, neither common sense nor simple decency has ever appealed to their senses that the era of brutal passion and unbridled lust for power has gone for good in Nigeria. What is happening in Rivers State which Wike has been able to contain was an unflattering commentary about the capitulation of decent culture and promotion of anomie by a group of politicians who are not comfortable with the principled enthronement of order and accountability by someone they see as a needless monstrosity. But these fellows must begin now to nurture in themselves the requisite temperament and orientation for the implantation of civil, democratic ethos in this era of enlightened comportment. In fact, the Abuja politicians and their sponsors must lay down their arms and embrace peace for Rivers State to aspire to where Wike is taking it to as the leading state amongst Nigeria’s First Eleven Best States.
· Mr. Amor is the Editor-in-Chief of Lakis News.