Solomon Bob
A visitor to Nigeria witnessing the frenzied bedlam and concurrent media attacks against Governor Nyesom Wike since Sunday’s pulling down of two seedy hotels in Rivers State would be forgiven for thinking that the most egregious act of absolutism has just been unleashed.
But that is very far from the reality — so far from reality that it casts the individuals going off on a tangent to push that falsehood as fraudulent commentators or at best whited sepulchres. They close their eyes to actual dictatorship and injustice everywhere while inventing a love-in with willful lawbreakers as they reach for a soft target.
For some reason, Gov. Wike has always been a target and fall guy of a section of the media and commenting public who are too scared to call a spade a spade and invariably come off as flat track bullies. But what is their grouse against him this time?
Here’s their case: that in these extraordinary times when even the most basic of freedoms cannot be enjoyed due to very drastic restrictive measures being adopted globally to curb the spread of the deadly Coronavirus, that under these exigent circumstances, the Governor ordered the taking down of two hotels whose continued operation violated a lawful regulation and potentially imperiled the lives of the people. Stripped of the deliberate conflation of facts with politics, this is the case against Governor Wike.
Now, the unique circumstances of today’s living in the light of the covid-19 pandemic warrant the exercise of emergency powers by chief executives across the board in order that they can take charge of a really dangerous situation and respond as appropriate.
In the United States, which has a long history of such a powerful instrument for executive response during a time of crisis or emergency and from where we have copied the practice, they’re styled as Executive Orders.
Although relatively an uncharted territory for us in Nigeria, this administration has relied on executive orders more than any and popularized their deployment. There is no doubting their legality or force of law even as no court has had to make a pronouncement on the extent of their powers. In fact, the House of Representatives Committee on Nigerian Content placed reliance on an executive order signed by President Muhammadu Buhari in broadening its jurisdiction beyond the scope authorized by the enabling Act.
Governor Wike signed Executive Order N0. 7 of the Quarantine (Coronavirus and Other Infectious Diseases) Regulations 2020 requiring all hoteliers in Rivers State to temporarily cease operations as the government battled to prevent a wave of community infection from the virus.
All over the world people obey such directives without a need to compel them because they realize that these are extremely difficult and dangerous times. But the victim-playing hoteliers in Rivers State did not only engage in a bewildering act of serial violation of the regulation requiring them to shutdown, they, in fact, launched an audacious and brutal assault on state officials on covid-19 regulations enforcement duties.
James Burnham, America’s 20th century political prophet characterizes effete inaction represented as an iteration of liberalism as the “ideology of Western suicide”. In the face of the daring and unflagging recalcitrance displayed by the hoteliers, Gov. Wike’s executive orders would have lost their deterrent and coercive lustre if he did not respond in the manner that he did. And in the event of an escalation in covid-19 cases in the state, he could very well have faced charges of culpable surrender or abdication from the same sanctimonious and saber-rattling babble calling for his head today.
Those pushing the false argument of illegal denial of a citizen’s right to means of livelihood are unwittingly framing this as a battle between wealth and health. I would stand by health every time because only the living can chase wealth. The Governor did what every responsible leader should do — place the health of the people before any and everything else. There is, therefore, justification for the actions taken from both the legal and utilitarian standpoints. In any event, those aggrieved have time and opportunity to litigate their grievance.
In the grand scheme of things, governance is about taking tough decisions. Even so, Governor Wike did not pull down the princely mansions and radio stations of his political opponents as governors elsewhere are wont to do and have been doing. And just last year, federal authorities in Abuja demolished a stately hotel on the flimsiest, if silliest, of excuses including that it offended an indeterminate social behavior! But we didn’t hear the voices of these venom-spitting activists and self-appointed social crusaders.
But we ought to know, however, what ever connects Rivers State is treated differently. Governor Wike appears to be the ruling party’s public enemy number one and, undoubtedly, their elephant in the room. They despise him and harbor what amounts to visceral animus against him.
Unsurprisingly, some of their invisible hands, forever chomping at the bit, have pounced on the hotels incident as their latest lightning rod with mendacious ammunition duly supplied by implacable home opponents.
From the Bar, too, their sympathizers have not pulled their punches. Button-down senior lawyers and others with self-exalting god complex who have been shutting their eyes to execrable arbitrariness, lawlessness and outright illegality have thrown in everything but the kitchen sink. Groggy from five years of timorous slumber, they’ve been spitting guff without knowing the facts.
Worse, most have been doing so not in the lofty diction that their assumed ethical high ground demands, but in sheer gutter and undignified diatribe. To the discerning, that double-facedness is surely going to rub up the wrong way. What manner of senior advocate flies into a temper and gushes ad hominem on the basis of a beer parlor gossip?
Lawyers casting unjustified aspersions on Gov. Wike are unknowingly engaging in a double act of self-abasement and self-immolation. The Governor has done more for the enhancement of rule of law in this country within the last 5 years than any other public officer. He has also shown support for the comatose Nigerian Bar Association with a view to piggybacking them to public relevance.
The minuscule air of democratic freedom and pluralism enjoyed today owe in large part his boldness, unbowed zest and prescience in calling out this administration while his whimpering traducers either connived or condoned.
Nearly four years ago when hooded men raided judges houses at midnight and desecrated the temples of justice nationwide, only Gov. Wike stood up to the unprecedented state-sponsored gangsterism. Today’s hypocritical and name-calling senior advocates and self-appointed activists were either quiet or cheered the lawless derring-do while the Governor took the extraordinary risk of facing down armed men at midnight to prevent the well-coordinated assault and arrest of a federal judge within his domain.
Some say Wike’s fearlessness in stranding up for his people and what he believes in stem from his assurance of immunity as a sitting governor. And I’ve asked if other governors do not have immunity.
As we say in law, you cannot give what you don’t have. Governor Wike is wired to oppose injustice in any shape or form. He is an instinctual stickler for law and order and an untiring advocate for constitutionalism.
He is a standout outlier among today’s crop of leaders on the vexed question of principle in politics. This and his no-nonsense direct talking and hands-on style constitute his endearment to his people; and they trust him because they know he will never betray them or trade his conviction for personal gain. Few leaders in Nigeria today can walk the streets to raucous acclaim like Governor Wike.
But the media is awash with a different painting of the Governor. We witnessed the same tendentious bile when Caverton helicopters, acting on the capricious directive of the Minister of Aviation, were flying in passengers to Port Harcourt, passengers whose covid-19 health status were unknown, culminating in a series violations of an executive order signed by the Governor which require everyone entering Rivers State to submit to a check in verification of their covid-19 status.
As in the current hotels demolition controversy, the usual suspects jumped into the fray, assailed and tore into the Governor. Are Nigerians secret felons at heart who embrace lawbreakers?
Rather than excoriate the minister who, in an apparent and disrespectful power grab, did not bother to make contacts with authorities in Port Harcourt concerning extant covid-19 health protocols on the ground, they charged that the Governor was warmongering, obdurate and insubordinate.
Warmongering for causing the arrest of passengers and pilots whose entry violated a valid regulation to protect Rivers people? But the Governor has a job to do just as the President. He doesn’t hold his office at the pleasure of the President and he is not accountable to him but to the people of Rivers State.
As we have seen in the UK, U.S. and elsewhere, central authorities generally defer to constituent governments to take absolute charge of their domains in the covid-19 enforcement measures. There’s no known instance in which President Trump or any of his secretaries went against the executive order of a governor either by refusing to comply or issuing a counter order. The logic is simple, the governors are more acquainted with their terrains and are directly responsible to their people.
Nevertheless, we have seen more brazen acts of obstruction and threatened arrest against federal agents by other Nigerian governors since the Caverton incident, but no allegations of warmongering and insubordination against them are screaming in the media. Not even a whimper from the jaundiced gaggle.
There’s something to be said about Rivers people who use everything for politics and politics for everything and who fall for the bait of outsiders to trash their own. Such individuals need a sense of enlightened self interest and deserve to be scorned. It is extremely foolish to join outsiders to unnecessarily and unconstructively traduce your own in the name of politics. No outsider will stand for Rivers State when it comes to it. We’ve been here before. They say if rattles like a snake and slithers like a snake, then it is a snake, don’t wait till you get bitten.
With a tremendous record in service delivery under very unfriendly conditions, Governor Wike is a great leader. Many states wish they had him. He has the passion of a preacher for his people, the boldness of a man who is self-assured without being arrogant and the meticulous gravitas of a judge. He has put everything, including his own life, on the line for Rivers people.
In the ongoing coronavirus crisis, he has again played a blinder and Rivers State is relatively safe from the ravages elsewhere due to his proactive and pragmatic approach. This is in spite of the state’s strategic location and deliberate attempts to sabotage his government’s efforts.
•Bob is a member of the House of Representatives from Rivers State.