As a matter of individual policy, I have secret admiration for strong men even if I publicly disagree with them in a lot of things they do. Strong men are instruments of change. They are not afraid to take a decision. They will rather make wrong decision than not make any decision at all. They are the builders of strong institutions which is the foundation for great nations. A blessed country usually have righteous visionary strong leaders, while a perishing nation is cursed with evil, strong and visionless leaders. Most times, strong men are always excessively independent, especially during the height of their power, that most of them eventually end by committing political suicide.
Julius Caesar was one of the strongest warriors of the ancient world. He was the undefeated military General of Rome whose word was law. He put Rome on the world map today and made Rome the world’s super power for almost 1000 years. He believed at a point that he was invincible and despised all warnings by loved ones about the conspiracy to kill him by his friends and inner circle who became jealous of his immense rise to power. He even rejected the warnings from the gods as he proclaimed that he was more dangerous than danger itself. Despite his great achievements, he was killed like a chicken, by the same friends he was warned about. The last words he said were “even you Brutus”. He said this when his proud heart exploded on seeing his best friend, Brutus, whom he ran to for help, when other conspirators were stabbing him, turned back to him and stabbed him harder than the others. He died. The greatest fault of strong men is that, more often than not, they are poor judges of men. Their belief in their invincibility makes them look down on the capability of others to overwhelm them until it’s too late.
Nyesom Wike is a strong man by any standard imaginable. When every notable politician deserted the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), he remained and invested his energy and resources in the revitalisation of the party. At a certain time, he was the lone voice of opposition to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). The immunity granted to a sitting governor became his greatest shield from the possibility of APC using the instrumentality of the law to deal with him. The ruling APC vowed to stop his re-election for second term as the governor of Rivers State in 2019, yet he was able to stop the ruling party, with all its control of the Armed Forces, from even contesting at all in his state. His political dexterity ensured division among the members of APC in Rivers State till date. Whoever opposed him was politically destroyed and whoever supported him was promoted. He dangles both carrot and stick before his followers and ensures that they receive what they deserve. At a certain point in time, he was the undisputed leader of PDP. When he sneezes, the party catches cold. He dared the party to shift the presidential primary election scheduled to hold in Port Harcourt in 2018 and the party buckled. Wike, as most other strong leaders, is plagued by being a poor judge of people. In 2018, he supported his closest political ally and fellow governor, Hon Tambuwal from Sokoto State, against the presidential ambition of His Excellency, Atiku Abubakar, in an unwritten solidarity among the younger political associates seeking for a generational change. They are in their late 50s while Atiku is officially in his late 70s. Since it was the turn of the Northerners to produce the president for the primary election of 2018, Wike wholeheartedly supported his “friend”.
During the PDP presidential primary election of 2022, Wike vowed with fellow Southern governors that power must shift to the South. He must have expected initially that his “friend” Tambuwal should throw his weight behind him, but unfortunately Tambuwal declared his own interest to run, in total negation of the PDP’s constitutionally provided section on power shift and rotation between North and South. Obviously, if Wike had judged the situation and the participants correctly, he would have been the presidential candidate of the PDP. He modified his strategy from being a pragmatic straight shooter to a man of subtlety thinking he can outsmart his “friends” in their own tricks.
The best way a good judge of people overcomes the cunning craft of untrustworthy friends is by judging their antecedents. In 2011, some Northern elite believed that President Goodluck Jonathan ought not to contest and that power should remain in the North to enable the North complete its second term since President Umaru Yar’Adua, who was elected into office, died before completing his first term. The mood of the country then was that President Jonathan was a young man who should be allowed to complete the joint two-term tenure of eight years. It was allegedly agreed that Jonathan should do only one term to complete the joint ticket. However, the most prominent leaders of the North decided to challenge Jonathan in the presidential primary election of 2010. The North decided to do a preliminary sectional election among all their aspirants to choose only one of them to contest. They succeeded in choosing Atiku Abubakar among other contestants that included President IBB, Governor Saraki and others. Atiku was full of hopes going into the primary against Jonathan being the sole candidate from the North. At the end of the day, he lost. The lesson was that you cannot defeat a sitting president in the primary of his party.
By 2014, when Jonathan allegedly disregarded the earlier agreement to do only a term and insisted on re-contesting in 2014, Atiku, Saraki, Kwankwaso and the rest of Northern political elite, who believed that zoning favoured them, did not bother contesting with Jonathan. They openly worked out on him and instantly formed a new association, the New PDP. This new association defected to the opposition APC then and joined hands with them to defeat Jonathan. If Wike were a good judge of people, having vowed in the Southern Governors Forum that power must move South, he would have had no business going into the primary election with any Northern candidate. He would have insisted on zoning and I guarantee you that he would have gotten it because the powers of PDP was tilted in favour of Southern Governors. PDP has about nine governors in the South against about five in the North. But because Wike trusted his invincibility, he thought he would win despite the intransigence of the Northern candidates and when he received the shock of his life by the betrayal from his “friend” it was too late for him to do anything. I could hear him say in his mind, “even you Tambuwal”. Peter Obi sensed that and cleverly shifted to Labour Party and is today the recipient of the positive energy of a Third Force. It was a mistake for Wike to have participated in that primary election knowing full well that his Northern friends were participating in the primary election against the spirit of power shift and rotation of which they subscribed to in their Constitution.
If Wike is a good judge of people, he wouldn’t have been surprised about what his “friend” Tambuwal did. When Goodluck Jonathan won his presidential election in 2011, he wanted to maintain the zoning arrangement that ensured the sharing of the first six most powerful political offices to the six geo-political zones in Nigeria. He wanted to be gender sensitive too. He, therefore, chose Mulikat Akande from the Southwest to occupy the Speaker of the House of Representatives. His Vice President, Namadi Sambo,was from the Northwest, the same geo-political zone with Tambuwal, yet Tambuwal insisted that he will run against the zoning arrangement of his party, PDP and usurped the post meant for the Southwest. Ironically, Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s party, ACN, led by Gbajabiamilla, teamed up with Tambuwal, to deny Mulikat the post. Obviously, Tinubu did not want any Yourba person, who is not under his control, to come under the first six most powerful offices in the land from where the person will begin to challenge his authority in the Southwest.
It was the same Tambuwal that betrayed Gbajabiamilla in 2015 and supported Dogara to emerge Speaker forgetting the role Gbaja played in his own emergence four years back. He made it clear that he doesn’t believe in zoning, he believes only in power however gotten. The pattern has also shown that he doesn’t support the aspirations of Southerners and is willing to sacrifice any Southerner in favour of fellow Northerner even if the Southerner supported him in the past. What happened to Wike is identical to the above analogy. Wike supported Tambuwal against Atiku in 2019 and both lost to Atiku. However, in 2022, Tambuwal betrayed Wike and supported Atiku, fellow Northerner, against Wike the Southerner. If Wike had any presidential ambition, he had no reason supporting any Northern candidate against the other because it’s a lose lose situation. Even if Tambuwal had won, Wike would have attracted enmity from Atiku too. The less of political enemies you make within your party, the brighter your chances to win primary elections. Atiku could not even choose him to be his vice, despite the recommendation of his select Committee led by Governor Samuel Ortom, because of all those accumulated actions of Wike against his ambition. It was a mistake, therefore, by Wike to support Tambuwal against Atiku in 2019 and it shouldn’t have surprised him that Tambuwal betrayed him if he were a good judge of people.
However, Wike would make the gravest mistake if he supports Atiku or Tinubu in the forthcoming presidential election. Wike certainly will not contest any election in 2023. The political relevance of Wike from 2023 will depend on who the next president will be. Both Tinubu and Atiku detest opposition and both have shown vindictive tendencies. They do not support the aspirations of any politician not under their rubber stamp. The utterances Wike had made against APC cannot be cleaned with the most powerful detergent ever. He has made many enemies in APC starting from his former boss, Chibuike Amechi. He has made Atiku come crawling for his cooperation and this is always an unpardonable sin in politics. Obasanjo dubbed Atiku disloyal because Atiku made Obasanjo come crawling for his cooperation in 2003 after some skirmishes between them in their Presidency. Wike is certainly a strong man. Every presidential candidate is scheming for his support because they understand the consequences of losing his support. He is the beautiful bride. Wike, however, must realise that immediately the bride is married off to a groom, she turns to serve the groom. He should use this opportunity to make a choice that will augur well for Nigeria.