Nyesom Wike In a previous article, we wrote on Why It is Difficult for PDP to Send Out Nyesom WIke and it was spelled out why the camp loyal to former vice president Atiku Abubakar has been unable to quit Nyesom Wike despite his political movements which seemed to have gone against the interest of Atiku Abubakar, the 2023 presidential candidate of the party and the supposed National Leader of the party.
In this article, we will talk about the power of Nyesom Wike and why his political influence may continue to hunt Atiku Abubakar, probably, till he dumps the party or goes into political extinction, knowing fully well that Atiku’s failure to win the 2023 presidential election has imposed political retirement in his political career whether he would accept the call of the nature, peacefully or forcefully.
To preempt the comprehension of the power of Nyesom Wike and how his political influence has been undermanaged by his former allies, including Atiku Abubakar and Rotimi Amaechi, in a recent interview which was granted after the Supreme Court of Justice delivered its judgment on the 2023 Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, Rotimi Amaechi revealed that his most expensive political mistake was that he nominated Nyesom Wike for a ministerial position. Although if we are to discuss this deeply, nominating Wike was never a mistake for Amaechi but his failure to manage Wike. Leaving this for a side discussion if time permits, Amaechi’s remark is an indication that Nyesom Wike’s kind of politics is worth study, emulation, and decent attention if you would want to bring him back to your table, always, with respect.
Flashback, immediately Nyesom Wike was nominated by Amaechi and appointed Minister of State for Education, he did not complain about the portfolio given to him despite the importance of Rivers to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in every election cycle. Instead, he proceeded to create an empire even beyond his home state.
Just like every apprenticed warrior who wants to become a master, you must first destroy your master, and Rotimi Amaechi was never spared on Wike’s way to the throne of a Political Lord.
Like every regional master who wants to maintain relevance, you must always do the bidding of your overall master and if you must part way, it must be for the benefit of the overall master. This is nothing different from what Nyesom Wike did under Goodluck Jonathan through the doors of Patience Jonathan, the former Nigerian First Lady.
By 2015, Nyesom Wike had positioned himself as a “small president” and the de facto member of PDP in Nigeria, this was the same time that Atiku Abubakar abandoned the party to ally with the newly formed All Progressives Congress (APC) which, still, he later abandoned in 2017.
During the 2015 General Election, Nyesom Wike accumulated enormous political power within the PDP; the magnitude of political power that the likes of Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola could also be said to have accumulated from the political palace of All Progressives Congress (APC) through his [then] loyalty to Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu who is now the President of Nigeria.
Unlike Rauf Aregbesola who got lost when he was flashed with the cornerstone of the powerhouse and stood against his politically active boss Bola Tinubu; Nyesom Wike kept his loyalty to Jonathan and centered the activities of his political rascals toward upholding the relevance of Goodluck Jonathan even though Jonathan and PDP are not more in power.
Nyesom Wike relied on Jonathan’s influence to win the heart of PDP which may not fade out completely, even in the next decade of political powerplay in the country.
Banking on Jonathan’s supremacy position in the PDP [then], Nyesom Wike was principally instrumental to the outing of Alhaji Kawu Baraje as the National Chairman of PDP in 2012 and the election of Alhaji Bamanga Tukur as a subsequent National Chairman of PDP was never achieved without the influence of Nyesom Wike as the [then] Patience Jonathan’s boy as many people regarded him.
The removal of Bamanga Tukur and the election of Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu as the subsequent PDP National Chairman in 2014 was never strange to the influence of Nyesom Wike’s political power.
Although he might have stayed underground to influence the appointment and subsequent removal of these PDP National Chairmen since 2011 when Goodluck Jonathan was experimenting with political strategies to ensure his failed 2015 second term in Office, Nyesom Wike came to the limelight of effecting who took what in PDP in 2015, when Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu was forced by PDP governors to resign as PDP National Chairman.
You may want to argue this but to no cause, Nyesom Wike almost singlehandedly picked the former Borno State Governor Ali Modu Sheriff as Acting National Chairman of PDP in 2016 after the same Wike had paved the way for Prince Uche Secondus to rise to the position of the Acting National Chairman of the party for several months after Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu was removed by his influence.
The same Nyesom Wike who installed Ali Modu Sheriff as the PDP Acting National Chairman and supported him to stay beyond the three months allowed by the party’s constitution worked Modu Sheriff out of the party and brought in the former Governor of Kaduna State, Senator Ahmed Makarfi to lead the National Caretaker Committee of the party in the party’s Port Harcourt Convention in 2016.
Nyesom Wike stood firmly with Makarfi’s led NWC to defeat Ali Modu Sheriff’s claim of heading a parallel PDP NWC during the political crisis that rocked the party after the 2015 election loss. Then, Atiku Abubakar was still in APC and he could not recognize the relevance of such a political actor.
Not only this, the same Nyesom Wike worked tirelessly to defeat Senator Ibrahim Mantu and Prof. Tunde Adeniran who conducted a parallel PDP National Convention in 2016 on the same day Wike was organizing the Port Harcourt Convention of the party. He did not only defeat Ibrahim Mantu/Prof. Adeniran’s camp, they both endorsed and gave their support to the choice of Makarfi’s National Chairman which was sponsored by Nyesom Wike.
If you think such a politician would just allow himself to be trashed by a politician like Atiku Abubakar, it is either you are aiming for the destruction of the party or the political extinction of his opponents.
Not only this, recall that Nyesom Wike was fully instrumental to the emergence of Prince Uche Secondus as the National Chairman of the Party at a National Convention conducted by the leadership of Ahmed Makarfi in 2017.
In 2021, it was not hearsay, Nyesom Wike was here and there working for and realized that Prince Uche Secondus was removed as the party’s National Chairman and he was also among the few members of the party who appointed Prof. Iyorchia Ayu as the National Chairman of the party in 2021 in preparation for the 2023 General Election.
Nyesom Wike was not strange to the removal of Iyorchia Ayu and control and management of the affairs of the party is never done out of his awareness since Ayu was removed after the 2023 polls.
Now, what you may need to understand is that a politician with the power to either singlehandedly or always get involved in the appointment and removal of the National Chairman of a political party should be feared for one purpose within the party. He would always have the support of the majority of the stakeholders of the party because he must have been instrumental to their appointment either at a previous stage of their political development or even up to date.
For instance, it is relevant to consider the possibility that Nyesom Wike would be instrumental to the emergence of most of the PDP former and serving Governors, Senators, and political bigwigs who must have gone through him in finding their ways from the National Chairmen they knew he was instrumental to their appointments.
Besides, many of the beneficiaries of Wike’s political ruggedness would count more on him than either Atiku Abubakar or anyone else who would abandon them for another political party at any time.
Take for instance, when Nyesom Wike was appointed as a Minister by the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, many former and serving PDP Governors, and leaders of the party defied the party and Atiku Abubakar to congratulate Nyesom Wike on his appointment. The most shocking of these congratulatory messages was the one from Alhaji Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri, the Executive Governor of Adamawa State from where Atiku Abubakar hails. He congratulated Wike with a set of resounding words.
Understandably, Alhaji Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri was never a candidate for Atiku Abubakar in 2019; he was a candidate of Nyesom Wike and was presented to Atiku Abubakar by Nyesom Wike as a bargain for Wike’s support to Atiku Abubakar’s presidential ambition which Wike super-managed in the party’s presidential primary organized in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
Even if you would want to doubt the involvement of Wike in the emergence of most of the PDP Governors, Senators, and national leaders; take your time and do research into the emergence of Umaru Fintiri in Adamawa and Godwin Obaseki in Edo State as Governorship candidates of PDP in their states.
Nyesom Wike has created an army of political followers who have dispersed themselves across political tents in the PDP. If they are loyal to you today, it does not mean they are disloyal to Wike; their loyalty to you is a service to Wike’s political cycle. He has spent his time, money, and agility to build people within the party that anyone can easily defeat without consuming the party, itself.
Category: World-News
Tag: Nyesom Wike PDP
Written by Omooba Alekuwodo (omoobaalekuwodo)
Published 11/19/2023 2:47:43 PM