Wike versus Fubara: I’m fully persuaded that this agreement merely postpones the evil day. Like the ill-fated Aburi Accord, I don’t see how the mistrust that has developed can be wished away with a magician’s wand. It’s quite conceivable that Tinubu didn’t really broker peace but simply used the power of his office to enhance the electoral fortunes of the APC in Rivers, with some already predicting the ultimate defection of Fubara to the APC!
By Tiko Okoye
The open display of hostility between FCT Minister and former Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike and his successor in the Port Harcourt Brick House took nearly everyone by surprise. This is because in the interlude just before and immediately after Siminalayi Fubara swore the oath of office, himself and Wike were prancing all over Port Harcourt like inseparable Siamese twins!
The new kid on the block kept addressing Wike at every public event as “My Oga.” It was like a love relationship made in heaven and when one cheeky journalist had the ‘animal boldness’ to ask Wike what he would do if Fubara turned out to be a ‘betrayer,’ a gruff Wike fired back that hell would first freeze over before such a thing would happen. Well, it happened sooner than anyone ever expected, plus hell didn’t need to freeze over.
Things soon threatened to get out of hand when Fubara reportedly despatched caterpillars to bulldoze the entire structure of the state House of Assembly under the guise of remodelling it! When the call on President Bola Tinubu from several parts of the nation reached the point where he could no longer pretend not to hear, he invited key stakeholders to a meeting at Aso Villa last Monday to resolve the political crisis.
Reported to be in attendance were: Tinubu (chief convener), VP Kashim Shettima, Chief of Staff Femi Gbajabiamila, former Gov. Peter Odili, Wike, Fubara, Rivers Dep. Gov. Ngozi Odu, state APC acting Chairman Tony Okocha, state PDP acting Chairman Aaron Chukwuemeka and the Speaker, Rt. Hon. Martin Amaewhule, one of the 27 PDP members who defected to the APC and were officially received at a grand ‘thanksgiving service’ held last Sunday in Port Harcourt, with APC National Chairman Abdullahi Ganduje and other members of the National Working Committee in attendance.
According to the signed accord, impeachment proceedings against Fubara must immediately cease; Fubara to immediately withdraw all matters instituted by him in courts; leadership of the House of Assembly as led by Amaewhule to be recognized alongside the 27 members who defected; commissioners who resigned from Fubara’s cabinet to be reinstated.
I’m fully persuaded that this agreement merely postpones the evil day. Like the ill-fated Aburi Accord, I don’t see how the mistrust that has developed can be wished away with a magician’s wand. It’s quite conceivable that Tinubu didn’t really broker peace but simply used the power of his office to enhance the electoral fortunes of the APC in Rivers, with some already predicting the ultimate defection of Fubara to the APC!
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Still, the parties concerned voluntarily signed the Aso Villa Accord and should be given elbow room to implement its terms, devoid of incitement, provocation and emotive prodding from their various support bases. If any party is at fault it must be the docile members of the PDP National Working Committee who never even attempted to resolve the ‘family affair,’ gifting Tinubu the opportunity to become a grand patriarch of sorts to the Rivers PDP!
The real tragedy is that majority of commentators see nothing wrong with the huge wastage of scarce development funds attendant with the act of demolishing the building where legislative activities are being conducted just to stop the legislators from convening to impeach the governor! Was the structure put up in the first place with his personal funds? What if some aggrieved indigenes consequently act to prevent the governor from assenting to a bill that they viscerally dislike by detonating bombs in the Government House? Would that be acceptable to Fubara and all those supporting him on the basis that he was giving Wike his ‘long-overdue comeuppance’?
How can a box purportedly containing the state’s draft budget be dumped in front of only four legislators in a room in Government House and the budget ‘approved’ before even the governor could re-enter his own office? Yet, all those copiously quoting how sections of the Constitution make it impossible for defected Rivers lawmakers to be re-admitted unless through fresh elections see nothing wrong with this anomaly? Is there no longer a constitutional process for passing bills into laws?
Those saying that Mr. President has no authority to intervene in the crisis should perish the thought of pleading for Mr. President’s intervention as the only recourse next time around would be a declaration of a state of emergency! Ask all Fubara’s new-found fans and chorus leaders where they were when it mattered most as Wike was fighting tooth and nail to have Fubara crowned governor? Are they even aware that Fubara is the first Riverine/Ijaw man to govern Rivers since 1999? The worst thing Fubara can therefore do is to succumb to pressures from those egging him on to play the ethnic card.
I’ve never been a fan of Wike. As a matter of fact, he has been at the receiving end of not a few essays by me castigating him in no uncertain terms. I’ve always believed that Wike is too pugnacious, querulous, boastful and dismissive. But one must give the man his due. Wike has consistently proven that he’s a Nigerian politician – in the mould of former Ekiti State Gov. Ayo Fayose and the late strongman of Ibadan politics Lamidi Adedibu, exports of ‘stomach infrastructure’ and ‘amala politricks’ respectively – who has mastered the political chess game in Nigeria.
Till today, I’m still scratching my head over how Wike performed the feat of leading PDP to win every contested seat in Rivers only to end up lawfully delivering the presidential election to APC’s Tinubu to fulfil his vow that Atiku would never win the state. Any other man who caused so much grief to the winning chances of his party’s presidential candidate would’ve been expelled for “anti-party” offences; but not Wike! And just see how he practically retired the fiery Amaechi from politics.
It’s very obvious that Wike being with the PDP in the body and the APC in the spirit is a gambit Wike plotted with President Tinubu. As long as Wike professes to be a PDP member, he remains a huge thorn in Atiku’s flesh. And something else: it prevents Amaechi from returning to the PDP as he greatly desires to do.
Amaechi is simply keeping his defection in check because both himself and Wike can never be in the same party, regardless of however anyone waxes lyrical on politics being about permanent interests as against permanent friendship. The bad belle between both principalities has gone beyond the point of ‘no return.’
With all due respect, those contending that Wike was too hasty in going for Fubara’s jugular and should’ve patiently waited for the transition period when the latter is seeking a second term, just like Tinubu purportedly did in Akinwunmi Ambode’s case in Lagos are comparing apples with oranges. Truth is that Tinubu is a recurring decimal, a principality in Lagos politics with storied antecedents that go as far back as the Third Republic when he was a top player in NADECO’s quest to retrieve MKO Abiola’s annulled pan-Nigeria electoral mandate.
Furthermore, Tinubu’s goodwill among Lagosians skyrocketed when he successfully bested then-President Olusegun Obasanjo at the Supreme Court for illegally withholding revenues due to the local government authorities in Lagos. It was cemented when Tinubu survived the garrison onslaught of the PDP led by Obasanjo, and emerging as the last man standing when the Obasanjo-created Prof Maurice Iwu-INEC tsunami swept his Alliance for Democracy fellow governors out of power. Plus Tinubu has never had any credible opponent in the mould of Amaechi looming over his shoulders in the same manner as adversarial threat the latter poses to Wike.
Tinubu has spent over 20 years building his political base nationwide. On the other hand, Wike’s goodwill rests entirely on being seen as the knight in shining armour ever ready to battle then-Goodluck Jonathan’s and PDP’s perceived enemies to the ground, particularly chieftains of the All Progressives Congress (APC) like Muhammadu Buhari, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Rotimi Amaechi and Lai Mohammed. It is hardly surprising that once Wike magically made Tinubu win the Rivers’ vote in the presidential election all his erstwhile doting fans would turn against him for committing the ’unpardonable sin’ of enabling ‘the enemy’!
The major reason why Wike handpicked Fubara to succeed him was because he saw in the latter an apolitical technocrat who would marvellously help him to keep lubricating the machinery of his power base. Wike least expected his protégé to be the one who would literally disrobe him in the village square. And as the African adage avers, “It’s only a tree in the forest that would continue to remain fixed in the same spot despite hearing loggers discuss plans to hew it down.” Prevention, it is said, is better than cure.
And now the same PDP acting National Chairman, Amb. Umar Damagum, who was caught sleeping on duty and who supporters of Atiku have been desperately seeking to oust on the basis of being pro-Wike, has recently been lobbing hand grenades in Wike’s direction. This is coming even as Atiku’s camp filed a lawsuit seeking to have Damagum removed and Sen. Iyorchia Ayu returned as substantive national chairman. Let’s now await how Wike would react to this development and whether it would culminate in a broad-based reconciliation that would finally force Wike out of the PDP.