OPINION: Governor Wike's Penchant For Ugly Politics, By Erasmus Ikhide

Governor Nyesom Ezenwo Wike of Rivers State may have learned a few outlandish tricks from Adolf Hitler; the late German tyrant, master propagandist and one of the best firebrand orator the world has ever known. Like joke, prior to World War 11, Adolf Hitler haggled the Nazi Germany and railroaded the country and the entire world into the most abominable brutal human carnage and bloodbath in human history.

Before, during and after the Governorship election in 2015, governor Wike’s inciting comments and his charge to members of his party to resist arrest by security operatives was scaring. His sudden threat to officials of INEC and security agencies who failed to do the bidding of his political party or even the threat to supporters of political opponents were some of the earliest signs that the Rivers State might soon be soaked in blood. Governor Wike has kept the state under serious tension ever after. He didn’t disappoint on those promises, like Adolf Hitler.

Adolf Hitler primary rules were never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.

Goebbels and the Nazis used the Big Lie (propaganda) to turn long-standing antisemitism into mass murder. Big Lie or Propaganda was a narrative of an innocent, besieged Germany striking back at an “international Jewry”, which started World War 11. The propaganda repeated over and over the conspiracy that Jews were the real powers in Britain, Russia and the U. S. Jews had begun a “war of “extermination” against Germany, and so Germany had a duty and a right to “exterminate” and “annihilate” the Jews in self-defense”.

Like Adolf Hitler, Governor Wike, is a thoroughbred nihilist and an advocate of Machiavellianism where the end justifies the means. He assassinates his political opponents’ characters in order to attain political position at all cause at the detriment of the citizens of Rivers State who elected him to show leadership. Relentlessly and randomly, he picks on perceived enemies, one after another, with a measure of consistency and currency and systematically chase them away from political reckoning.

If you are a follower of Governor Nyesom Wike’s uncanny and unregenerate politics since 2015, you will observe the unwholesome manipulation of perceptions, the steady use of “big lies”, distortion of facts, false alarms, ethnic instigations, electoral brigade, blood money, assassination and outright violence that have signposted Rivers State with a tag as the most politically blood soaked state in Nigeria.

The Police, like everyone else suffered a major loss as DSP Akali Mohammed and his orderly were abducted and later beheaded by suspected cultists in Uju community in Ogba Egeema Ndoni local government area. The late Police officer was at the head of a police team from Mopol 48 to the community to take on cultists who allegedly held the area under siege when they met their untimely death in the hands of the cultists who laid ambush for them. The cultists hijacked their patrol vehicle and disappeared with their riffles. About 16 NYSC corps members were also reportedly abducted in the state during the elections and rescued by security men afterwards.

Godson Amos is one of those who lost their lives in the state allegedly to bullets on the day of the election in Mguitanwo community, Emohua local government area. His family members told newsmen that it was hard to believe that their brother, a final year student in the University of Port Harcourt was no more. “It is difficult to say that my younger brother is no more. We heard he was shot dead by security agents on election day in our village”, a family member lamented in agony.

The election that brought Governor Wike to power, along with the state and national assembly were the bloodiest in the history of electioneering in Nigeria. Many INEC officials, journalists, party faithful and police men were hacked down in broad day light for Mr. Wike’s ambition to be realised. Several dead bodies of police men buried in shallow graves were discovered with sights of headless opposition party chieftains, whose heads were hosted menacingly as trophy at victory rally.

Since he assumed office as the Governor, Mr. Wike has practically thrown decency overboard, fighting real and imaginary political enemies, federal forces, his political party, the PDP, his political opponents, the ruling party, the APC, the Independent National Electoral Commission, and the nation’s security apparatus.

Evidently, from the very beginning, it was clear that Mr. Wike would be a terrible disappointment to both Rivers State he seeks to govern and Nigeria at large. Rightly, he has taken incompetence in governance to a new height in Nigeria, turning Rivers State to a slaughter’s lab where human lives no longer worth much and where kidnapping, assassination and robbery have become the norms.

Recently, Mr. Wike is at it again, instigating another round of unrest in his State which is now known and called “Rivers State of Blood”. The governor has accused the Inspector-General of Police of a plot to eliminate him. The State Commissioner for Information and Communication, Dr. Austin Tam-George made the allegation that Governor Nyesom Wike has been targeted for elimination by the Nigeria Police Authorities. He claimed that Governor Wike had survived five assassination attempts in 11 months, accusing the police of complicity in attempts to eliminate the governor.

Tam-George said the governor’s Chief Security Officer was removed abruptly without any explanation, and that the six police officers dismissed by the police in January this year played a key role in foiling the series of attempts to kill Wike. The commissioner further disclosed that after several attempts to assassinate Wike had failed, an offer of N150 million was made to two of the six dismissed police officers, to directly kill the governor, but that the officers declined the offer.

Governor Wike himself had said at several fora that the federal government had laid out plans to execute him. He accused the police and the Department of State Services (DSS) of being at the fore-front of the plans, especially with the withdrawal of his security detail and failure to restore his guards despite appeals from different strata of the society.

But the Nigeria Police Force have dismissed the allegation by Governor Wike that it is mandated to execute him. “The allegation, coming from Governor Wike, is malicious and capable of misleading and causing disaffection between the Nigeria Police Force and the good people of Rivers State who the governor swore to lead and serve democratically without prejudice

“The Nigeria Police Force wishes to categorically state that, there is no iota of truth in all the allegations and false assertions in the interview granted by the Governor of Rivers State, Mr. Nyesom Wike, as regards his accusations against the Inspector General of Police and the Nigeria Police Force”, the Police Public Relations Officer, CSP Jimoh Moshood, said:

Mr. Moshood stated said the total number of 221 police personnel attached to Mr. Nyesom Wike, the governor of Rivers State, is more than the strength of some Police Area Commands formation in some States of Nigeria.

The latest of Governor Wike’s dramatic incursion as a purveyor of pure falsehood came with the discovery of $45 million dollars in an Ikoyi resident which he claimed was stolen by former Governor Rotimi Amaechi. He claimed the money belongs to the Rivers State Government and gave seven days ultimatum to the Federal Government to return the funds to his government.

“The money in question belongs to the former Rivers State Governor, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi. We want to confirm that the houses in Ikoyi also belong to Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi. “If you recollect in 2015, we said that gas turbines built by Former Governor Peter Odili were sold to Sahara Energy, business partners of Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi at $319million”.

“That money was used to sponsor the All Progressives Congress for the 2015 general elections. From the date of sale of the gas turbines to May 29, 2015, the money depleted from $319million to $204,000 . What was stashed at the Ikoyi residence was part of that fund”. He said: “We have facts to prove that the said money belongs to the Rivers State Government. The Federal Government must return our money”.

If Mr. Amaechi’s denied that he knew nothing about the resident and the discovered money by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC for which Governor Wike has persistently accused him, who else would he believed or convinced? What further evidence do we need to come to the conclusion that Governor Wike present preoccupation is an extension of his known acrimonious anger against Mr. Amaechi? Why is it that out of the 36 States of the federation it is only Rivers State Government that is claiming ownership of the recovered/discovered loot? Why is Governor Wike preemptive of EFCC’s investigation?

The struggle for political supremacy between former governor Rotimi Amaechi and Governor Nyesom Wike has a long and interesting background. Wike used to be an aide to Amaechi as governor and decided to stab his master using the influence of the former First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan.

Painfully, nothing significant has been credit to Mr. Wike’s governorship of Rivers State, two years down the lane. The destruction of the educational sector by stopping the scholarship and free education scheme put up by the Amaechi administration that has become a reference point in Africa increasingly tops his agenda as a policy thrust.

The model educational and health facilities put up in all the local government areas of the state built by previous government has become the dens of cultists. Mr. Wike has refused to pay the salaries of over 13,000 teachers employed by the administration of Amaechi in a bid to darkened his benefactor’s contribution to the development of the state at the expense of the suffering masses.

It’s obvious that Governor Wike’s brand of ugly politics has taken firm foothold in Nigeria political space where individual of violence intentions, with plenty thugs and charted touts are the most respected and celebrated in Nigeria. Until the like of Governor Nyesom Wike are curtailed from his ‘do or die’ political philosophy the circus show of madness, of blame game, of looting, of violence and bloodbath, will remain with us in Nigeria till eternity.

Erasmus Ikhide writes from Lagos