THE WIKE PROBLEM IN THE PDP 

The Rivers State governor should quit wailing, rid himself of the entitlement mentality and toe his party line, writes Bolaji Adebiyi 

In his brilliant analysis of Nyesom Wike, governor of Rivers State, bitter response to both his defeat in the Peoples Democratic Party presidential primaries and the refusal of the winner, Atiku Abubakar, former vice-president of Nigeria, to pick him as the running mate, Ruben Abati, celebrated columnist, said the governor’s reaction had become a problem that the party must solve. 

Advising the trio of the PDP, Atiku and Wike to come together to act as one in the impending fight for the presidency in 2023, Abati concluded that the aggrieved governor needed to calm down and accept the pacification by the party leadership otherwise he would run the risk of being asked to do his worst. If that happens, Wike would be spectacularly demystified. 

This is a piece of excellent advice that Wike needs to take without further delay. But so far, he has been quiet and still brooding. Yet there is no concrete basis for his disappointment and anger. He entered into a contest in which only one of the 17 contestants could win. Like every other person, he expected to win while the others would lose. He also expected to have the cooperation and support of the others if he won. Indeed, in his voluble speech to the delegates shortly before votes were cast, he promised to support the eventual winner if he lost. Why is he now bitter and threatening to pull down the roof because he lost the contest? 

In his post-defeat speech to his supporters in Port-Harcourt, he complained that he was betrayed by his fellow southern governors with whom he had an agreement to swing the presidency southward. He was more pained by the action of Aminu Tambuwal, governor of Sokoto State, who practically decided the contest by stepping down for Atiku on the convention ground. Wike felt that having been the livewire of the party since 2015 by placing the treasury of Rivers State at the service of the PDP, he was entitled to its presidency as his reward. 

Wike’s entitlement mentality demonstrated a shocking political naivety and some of his actions in the last couple of years showed serious errors of political judgment. In an apparent strategic move to control the party machinery, he began to fund the party after it lost power in 2015, particularly after he secured the chairmanship of the party in 2017.  

With that financial gesture, arrogance which later metamorphosed into rascality set in. First, along with his fellow enfant terrible, Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State, Modu Sherriff was brought in as the party’s national chairman. Of course, the PDP establishment kicked in, leading to about two years of crises and legal battles. With Sherriff out of the way, Wike made his next move of installing his kinsman, Uche Secondus, as the national chairman against the run of play as the South-west expected to take the position by the party’s zoning convention. But because he was the one with the deep pocket, he had his way. Many people were unhappy but they kept their cool. 

Secondus made efforts to stabilise the party even as Wike’s conduct of ridding roughshod over everyone was becoming unbearable and a source of constant embarrassment to the party leadership. Not a few of his brother governors complained about his overbearing attitude and meddlesomeness with a couple of them claiming to have left the party on that account. Next, the Rivers State governor began to nurse presidential ambition and his kinsman’s chairmanship was no longer tenable. He moved against him. 

In spite of his deep pocket, Wike could not use the party structure to remove Secondus. He had to procure a backdoor ex parte order from a court in a remote town in Rivers State to edge out the national chairman. That singular act ought to have made it clear to him that his hold on the party was tenuous. Next, in cohort with his fellow southern governors, they pushed the chairmanship of the party up North in the mistaken belief that it would automatically commit the PDP to a southern presidency.  

If Wike did not realise that the forced removal of Secondus was a tactical error, the emergence of Iyorchia Ayu, an old ally of Atiku and a part of the PDP establishment, should have told him that his presidential ambition was headed for the rocks. Everyone in the party knows that whoever controls its machinery will always have his way in any policy contest. The confirmation of that was the battle for the zoning of the presidency and how Ayu used his position as the presiding officer to sway the decision in the way of an open contest contrary to the party’s constitution.   

Rather than beat a retreat and do a sober review of the tactical situation, Wike carried on tactlessly, believing that his deep pocket would give him victory in a party where all the major stakeholders were already fed up with his uncouth manner. He was clearly bound to lose because his southern base was not only thoroughly divided but many of his brother governors were also working for his main opponent, Atiku. 

Equally unmeritorious is his anger at the refusal of Atiku to choose him as the running mate. First, at the onset of the contest, Atiku pleaded with Wike to support him and in return run with him. Wike refused and opted to compete. Second, he told everyone during the electioneering that he was running to be a presidential, not a vice-presidential candidate. Finally, once the contest was narrowed down to Ifeanyi Okowa, the urbane governor of Delta State, and himself, it ought to have been clear to him that Okowa would be preferred. 

Much more experienced, more brilliant, more of stable character and uncontroversial, Okowa is by far more suited to hold the vice-presidential position. Very few people remembered that Okowa was the chairman of the electoral sub-committee of the 2018 Port-Harcourt presidential primary convention where Atiku trounced Tambuwal, Wike’s candidate. Why should Atiku not reward Okowa? 

Meanwhile, in spite of all that has happened, Wike needs to understand that his options are limited and that he needs the PDP more than the party needs him. He has imposed a civil servant without any political root as the party’s governorship candidate in Rivers State. Members are still seething with anger. He needs all the support he can get to put out the bush fire at home or else… 

Adebiyi, the managing editor of THISDAY Newspapers, writes from bolaji.adebiyi@thisdaylive.com       

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