It’s Time For Minister Wike To Face His Job And Leave Governor Fubara Alone!

By Jesutega Onokpasa

I think it’s time for those of us of the All Progressives Congress, APC, to tell ourselves some blunt and bitter truths regarding the presently unfolding crisis in Rivers State.

It is quite easy and tempting to be inclined to blame the crisis on the alleged betrayal by Governor Sim Fubara of his predecessor and political godfather, former Governor Nyesom Wike, currently Minister for the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

However, unless we shamefully insist on playing the ostrich, the matter is clearly far more complicated than that.

How does a godfather treat his protege as Wike is said to have treated Fubara?

You appoint ADC, CSO, Orderly and cook for a mature man and the Governor of a state, for that matter?

You make appointments for him and dictate every little thing he can do as the Governor of a state?

You forbid him from attending Governors’ Forum meetings and he requires your permission to travel or be able to use the state’s official jet?

Is that one still a godson or just your slave, not even a mere house boy, for that matter?

Would any of us be able to treat our own children with such high-handedness, untenable abridgment of their freedom and total emasculation of their agency?

As FCT Minister, you are defacto Governor of Abuja but you must still maintain an iron grip on Rivers?

Is that how successful godfathers managed their godsons or precisely how to fail as a godfather?

You don’t know that you have to allow the godson some room to breathe or you will either choke him to death or into fullscale rebellion!

Trust me, anyone, even your most faithful and loyal follower, will choose rebellion over death in such unbearably suffocating circumstances.

Did Wike not get the memo?

If Wike didn’t get it, then he should humbly go and ask my oga, whom I suppose is also his oga, unless my oga is not actually his oga, and he is just pretending for now that our oga is his oga, while he is only biding his time, waiting for the right moment to strike in the not too distant future and do to our oga what he is presently accusing Governor Fubara of doing to him.

Let’s get real here, for God’s sake!

You will just roar like a lion and an Ijaw man would then go cowardly running to hide in the creeks like a little schoolboy or what?

Which Ijaw man?

No, he will spring right back at you like a crocodile that he is, as would an Urhobo, Itsekiri, Isoko or any Niger Deltan for that matter!

Many non-Niger Deltans might not necessarily appreciate the difference between a state like Rivers and their own states.

Ours is a region of astonishing diversity in all its ramifications.

So for instance, Rivers is not an ethnically homogeneous state like Ogun or Imo or Zamfara, for instance, where an overwhelming majority might identify with an overreaching ethnicity with minor differences therein.

Delta and Rivers are the most ethnically heterogeneous states in the Niger Delta with Bayelsa as the least heterogeneous.

I would say Rivers is even more ethnically diverse than Edo, Akwa-Ibom and arguably Cross River, all of which are more diverse than states like Ekiti, Borno or Benue, for instance.

Rivers, like Delta, presents a more pronounced set of political balancing challenges as a result of its more complex ethnic configuration.

In a state like Rivers in which the Upland part has continuously held power for 24 unbroken years in which the Lowland part patiently awaited its turn, you really think you will just remove their first Governor since 1999 and replace him with whom and from where?

You will have not only the Lowland part up in arms but scores of Ijaws and their allies from Bayelsa, certainly from Delta and probably even from as far away as Ondo and Akwa-Ibom trooping into the state to stand with their fellow tribesman.

Why have we been rotating the Governorship in our own Delta State since 1999?

After it went round our three senatorial districts, why did we bring it back to Delta Central where it all started, back then?

Is it not for peace to reign?

How else might you hold such a diverse jurisdiction together for everyone to have a sense of belonging?

So, tomorrow, if, peradventure, Governor Sheriff Oborevwori were to have a spat with his predecessor, someone will just come up with some utterly insane (and quite childish plot, for that matter) to try to remove him and replace him with his deputy so power suddenly disappears from Delta Central back to Delta North?

Or you try to remove him and his deputy for power to be taken to Delta South?

In which state?

Will the state still contain any of us after that, and that is if you were to even succeed with such a most idiotic game plan, in the first place?

What does Wike think he is up to in Rivers?

He wants to pack sand in Asiwaju’s garri?

With respect, I also quite like premium whiskey but I never, ever get carried away under its influence.

Our President acknowledged your contribution to his victory by giving you appointment and your “thank you” to him is to be giving him unnecessary drama capable of escalating into something quite unpalatable and totally avoidable?

Is it the welcome improvements President Bola Tinubu has made to our oil output that Wike should feel entitled to threaten with his kindergarten fight for power with his successor or has he forgotten where much of the money he’s budgeting for Abuja is coming from, in the first place?

Is it the exchange rate that Asiwaju is gallantly battling that he wants to further exacerbate?

You can’t begin to imagine how many members of our party are totally exasperated with Wike’s excesses and are quite sympathetic to Governor Fubara!

It’s just that many of us just decided to keep quiet, which, as far as I’m concerned, has been a mistake on our part because our top priority should always be our President whom we must ensure optimally succeeds and is not howsoever unnecessarily distracted from that overriding goal by anyone, no matter whom.

This absolute nonsense in Rivers has gone far enough.

We cannot continue to put up with a situation of “everyday one new drama from Minister Wike”!

I mean, you are not even a member of our party and yet you have become our President’s biggest headache in how many months?

You will control FCT and control Rivers State at the same time?

You think we are foolish men in our party?

With such a war chest under your belt how do I know you will not be fighting Asiwaju tomorrow and I will then have to fight you tooth and nail?

Let me even speak our regional parlance to you: “Senior Bros, dis mata done do!”

Please, for God’s sake, everybody should grow up, face their work and stop creating unnecessary distractions for our President!

Minister Wike, we appreciate you for supporting President Tinubu during the election but running Abuja is a good and big enough job for anyone to be given.

Be satisfied with it and be grateful for it.

More importantly, be mindful of the adverse effects of your undiplomatic predilections and unnecessarily brash and rather untoward proclivities on your benefactor who graciously gave you such a high-profile role to play in his administration.

President Tinubu’s reward for acknowledging you cannot continue to be these utterly inappropriate theatrics from your end.

So, kindly face your work, leave Sim alone to govern his state, and, quit creating further unnecessary drama, going forward.

Thank you.

*Onokpasa, a lawyer, was a member of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Presidential Campaign Council and writes from Abuja.