Even a child in the primary school should not be told about who the supervising Minister for Education, Nyesom Wike is. The Nigerian populace knows him better as the arrow head of the crises that have been rocking Rivers State, than as the Minister for Education he was supposed to be. Supposedly, he is better known as a rabble-rouser than a diplomat.
His incessant showcasing of affront in the politics of Rivers, offends every sensibility. His recent remark that Governor Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers State would go to jail in the event that President Goodluck Jonathan wins in the 2015 presidential elections, put Wike’s reputation in question. It does not meet the eyes why Amaechi will go to Wike’s mirage-jail.
Conversely, this statement shows that Wike has exhausted all the avenues he knew to remove Amaechi from office. Wike had leaned on the cases that Amaechi had with some opposition members concerning the 2007 and 2011 gubernatorial elections in the state to make his boast of removing Amaechi, but when he has seen that that did not work, he prolonged his boast to 2015; a tactic he has been using to hoodwink his unsuspecting marooned followership in some Local Government Areas of the state.
It is left for those who still take Wike seriously to continue to follow him. But the in-thing is that if there is anybody who may be heading to the gulag before or after 2015 for impropriation of office, that person is invariably not Amaechi, but Wike. No matter what Wike thinks, the government of Amaechi has been in the full swing of administration since its inception of office, whether performing creditably of not. But just a fraction of the Nigerian institutions, such as the Ministry for Education that Wike was appointed to man, has been in total ramshackle and, the minister was busy chasing after grasshopper round Amaechi’s building, hoping to hear when Amaechi would say stop.
Wike’s swagger that the Port Harcourt International Airport and all the land and sea boarders in Rivers State would be shut down immediately the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announces the victory of President Jonathan in 2015 to prevent Governor Amaechi from escaping, is a vacant show-off. Nevertheless, the statement shows that the second term of Mr. President would have more to vendetta than work to alleviate the plight of the hundreds of millions of Nigerians the unenthusiastic brag such as Wike’s, has jeopardized their future.
It is essential to state that Amaechi has given Wike the fight he least expected. Wike’s initial aim was perhaps, having been the Chief of Staff to the governor, he knew some of the loopholes around. He did not realise that Amaechi is a ‘Ninja’ whom close associates of his have said has a way of surviving in any catastrophe. It would be Wike who would be locking himself in shame in 2015, when he would see that Amaechi was still bouncing and making his obdurate comments against opposing views that are discourteous and not constructive.
The issue is that Wike, instead of accept with courage that he is afraid of the political sagacity and dexterity of Amaechi, is making statements to the contrary. Wike continues to expose himself to public ridicule by saying that Rivers State is PDP, instead of accept the fact that the party he belongs to has been slammed into being an opposition.
Against all odds, Wike least expected that he would be in the opposition political party in Rivers State, therefore he is making every unprintable comment against Amaechi, so that his ill-fated followership will continue in his misleading of them. What Wike does not realise before sending Amaechi to his prison in 2015 is that the state apparatuses are not complaining; they are of the statement that Amaechi has been accounting for every bit of his stewardship, consequently he has no reason to be afraid of any probe.
It is understandably that Wike has no account to render on his own education stewardship order than how he has been fighting hard in making sure that Amaechi was removed and sent direct to the prison without any forms of trial by a court of competent jurisdiction. When Wike said that Amaechi would be sent to prison in 2015, it rings a bell that the minister has a trademark in sending people to the prison without first sending them to court for trial.
Wike’s comment shows that he is still living in the past, where might is always right. Through the periscope, Nigerians could see that Amaechi has boxed Wike into a box, and Wike is raising his hands out for help.
Wike has shown that he draws his support from unfriendly comments and actions to survive in politics. If the national leadership of the PDP says that the party is now accommodating, Wike has obvious problems of using vicious comments and indiscipline behaviours to address issues besetting the party in the state before Amaechi left the PDP. Wike still continues! And these inconsiderate behaviours continue to go unchecked by the PDP at the national, simple because Wike enjoys the support of the presidency against Amaechi.
It saddens the heart of any keen stakeholders of any national discourse that Wike out of political overzealousness has decamped from sane attitude and is now toasting the disgruntled persons in the state with volcanic statements such as he would make the state ungovernable and the residents shall sleep with their two eyes open. And he is living up to that! This is a man that Jonathan and his wife hold in high esteem to deliver Rivers State in the 2015 presidential elections.
But Wike is a man who lacks patriotism to his home state, without the presidency minding the glaring critical factor. A reach within the inner mind of Wike shows him as a man who is incoherent and has no value for decorum, except to wander through statements upon statements that befit street urchins, especially during interviews and during his Grassroots Development Initiative rallies in Port Harcourt. Wike has shown that anywhere he belongs to suffers.
Education in Nigeria has really suffered under Wike’s watch the same way he wants Rivers State to suffer because he wants to be controling the power in the state from Abuja. Results today are that Wike does not make coherent statements, except those of war, kill and bury. This is a man who says that he is a barrister and in such a delicate position as education minister teaching the whole world how to use violence to achieve what ought to be achieved through diplomacy.
The Amaechi that Wike is today looking for his head was it who made him the Obio/Akpo Local Government Chairman in 2004. That decision was not welcomed by all, but Amaechi put in his head and Wike became chairman: from where he became rich and forgot all those who added to his uplift, when he was but rarely anybody.
Aside being the LGA chairman, Wike fervently became noticed when he was appointed as the Chief of Staff to the governor and subsequently minister; the later being the position he has turned to his guerrilla base, from where he takes off to bomb Amaechi with unedited words and hopeless political strategies aimed at ousting Amaechi.
Such a man like Wike does not like advise, but for the benefits of others, he should go back and learn the principles of education, not schooling, because he lacks the refinement to accept the realities of the moving times. Wike’s speech on topical issues should stop being tigbuo-zogbuo anywhere he went.
Gov. Chibuike Amaechi might not be totally a better man, but the carriage with which Wike carries himself, the late Sani Abachi might not be a dictator to where Wike is, should Wike happens to see himself as governor of Rivers State someday.
Let President Jonathan and all those concerned with the wildness of Wike in Rivers State know that once he is unable to achieve his political aim under the cover of Mrs. Jonathan, he will begin to expose them the way and manner he has tried to expose Amaechi, but had nothing to expose. Wike should first rejuvenate the education sector, before casting venoms and vituperations on Amaechi, to spare Rivers residents the shame that one of their own is incapable as a minister.
Odimegwu Onwumere, a Poet/Writer, writes from Rivers State.
