Barrister Nyesom Wike, governor of Rivers State, is one politician many people love to hate. Even though his most acerbic critics concede that he has largely delivered on his mandate as governor, he has not won too many friends with his style of raw politics, braggado and devil-may-care public utterances. The entire political landscape, particularly the family of his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Rivers State, where he superintends, is littered with vestiges of his indiscretion. It is even worse with those who have dared to oppose him in Rivers – for they have since come to learn that Wike sees no need to swat pesky flies with a broom, when he permanently wields a sledgehammer. Even within the leadership of the ruling All Progressives Congress, not too many can say, for certain, whether Wike is friend or foe.
But then, the Yoruba have a saying that the deviant child always has a day in which he is useful – if you like, call it his moment in the sunshine. Or his 15 minutes of fame. That day of reckoning for Wike (I did not call him a bad child!), who has consistently rubbed many of us on the wrong side, was last weekend, when he personally supervised the demolition, in Eleme, of a hotel alleged to have flouted the lockdown regime imposed in the state to check the spread of the raging Covid-19 pandemic.
And, I’d say, on this one, I stand with him.
I recall watching Wike’s statewide broadcast announcing the new emergency regime last week, and the heated debate I got into, on several social media platforms, regarding the style and language of the his delivery. My position then was that the governor not only needed to name names (oil companies, aviation companies and all), as he did in the broadcast, but also spell out everything in his characteristic unambiguous language, so that nobody would say he or she did not understand. I argued that, given what we were seeing in Lagos, Abuja and Kano (which was just beginning to unravel then), only a China-style type of lockdown would achieve any results here. Of course, Wike’s lockdown is not a rigid as China’s, it remains the most realistic attempt at hoisting a sit-at-home order since this corona virus crisis arrived Nigeria.
I almost came to tears as Lagosians swarmed out last Monday to make nonsense of all the great work Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu had done in the preceding five weeks. I daily see how people move around without face masks, gloves or showing any respect for the social distancing protocol. Impunity in high and low places combined with suicidal lawlessness. I saw images of people massing around burial places and worship places, as spineless governors, especially in the North, refuse to put their feet down. Clearly, the sternness needed to beat people into line was missing. People saw no serious repercussion for flouting the executive orders, so all the orders were obeyed more in the breach. Some even, openly, dared the governors, the Presidential Task Force and the NCDC. It was the same way the owners of the demolished hotel in Eleme were said to have beaten up, and seriously wounded, some Rivers State government officials who went to enforce the lockdown order there. Something just had to give.
Enter Wike!
Of course, not many people thought that the Rivers Governor would go as far as auctioning people’s cars and demolishing buildings, but I was not in doubt that if Wike is still Wike, he would make good his threat. Yes, he might decide to soft-pedal now that the public outcry is high, but it would not be because he has been intimidated. Rather, it would be because he has already achieved what he set out to achieve – which is to use a scapegoat to show that he means business. To leave no one in doubt that he can bark and bite. It is vintage Wike! The oil companies, charter aircraft operators, and even the federal aviation authorities know this for a fact.
So, the questions to ask now are: Is Wike achieving results? The answer is yes. Is Wike brash? Again, the answer is Yes. Can the same thing be done differently? Yes, of course. But, can the same results be achieved? My answer is No! or, at least, not in today’s lawless Nigeria, where our leaders easily succumb to cheap blackmail of religion, ethnicity, godfatherism, moneybags and even hunger and poverty. Because our leaders don’t stand for anything, they fall for everything. That is why Wike stands out.
Managing the Covid-19 crisis in Nigeria today requires men who wear the pants – I dare say, men with balls! It’s time to forget political correctness and do what needs to be done. It’s not about playing politics with palliatives and commandeering donations from persons and banks which can barely afford to donate. Or from banks which are themselves in dying need of donations. It is not about mutual, ineffective, and ultimately disastrous, exchange of Almajiri. It is not about living in denial and shamelessly parodying ludicrous tales of mysterious deaths and heatwave.
It is about how a Governor Sanwo-Olu has stood up to be counted in Lagos. It is about how Prince Dapo Abiodun has stuck to his lockdown regime in Ogun, even as Lagos was easing off. It is about how the FCT minster has ignored the political sissies all around his zone to enforce the lockdown, and all the attendant protocol. It is about how the duo of Yahaya Bello and Ben Ayade (even if we disagree with them) have stuck to whatever they are convinced is in the best interest of their people, and called everybody’s bluff. It is about leadership.
It is about how Governor Gboyega Oyetola of Osun state, even with his meagre resources and featherweight financial muscle, has battled the situation to a standstill in his state – which goes to confirm the old saying that what really matters is not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog. Oyetola’s Osun sharply contrasts with Ganduje’s Kano, where an otherwise wobbling and fumbling state executive seemed to be more interested in attracting another federal allocation windfall than saving his dying people. It also explains why he was busy distributing coffins in Kano, while his colleagues were investing in drugs, hospital beds and personal protection equipment, as well as enforcing safe distancing and other protocols.
It is about keeping the Almajiri boys in the same states where we used them to sex up election results a few months ago, and solving the problems there. Because, we all know that there are no parents for these boys to return to, in the states we are now deporting them to. As Sen. Shehu Sani has always said, let’s not be satisfied with deodorizing the mess. Let’s clear it. If the Northern governors sincerely want to tackle the menace of Almajiri, they should be man enough to address it, instead of hiding behind Covid-19. For after the buck-passing, which is essentially what this Almajiri redistribution is all about (discounting the alleged clandestine plot to even deploy some of them to states where they do not occur naturally), the Corona virus would still be staring us in the face.
…BETWEEN DEMOLITION AND CONFISCATION
There is also the argument that the Rivers State governor could just have confiscated the said hotels, rather than demolish them. Now, this is a valid argument, considering that the assets have now been wasted, when they could have been put to better use.
I also faced the same dilemma over Anambra state, years back, when the then governor, Mr. Peter Obi, declared full-scale war on kidnappers. I had goose pimples as I watched bulldozers pull down one mansion after mansion, edifice after edifice – all of them, proven proceeds of kidnapping. I wondered why government could not just take over the buildings and convert them to hospitals, schools, public libraries or even office space for government ministries, departments and agencies.
But then, there is a reverse side to the argument. We live in a country where we could wake up one day and discover that the buildings, which we confiscated for public use, have suddenly become the private property of one senior government official, or that it has mysteriously been returned to those from whom it was originally seized.
We have seen instances where property that were rightfully and legally confiscated by government have eventually been returned to their original owners – not necessarily because fresh facts emerged to fault the bases for the original forfeiture orders, but because those originally adjudged to have criminally acquired the property suddenly became politically correct and had to be compensated.
The same felons either dorn the in-vogue political toga, to have their ‘sins’ automatically forgiven, or, like the quintessential vulture, patiently wait for when a new government, would happen on the scene and revert every ‘draconian’ decision of the present regime, to boost its own public image and acceptability.
This has been our lot with every administration, without exemption, since independence.
Each time I recall how, less than 10 years after their routing from the streets of Owerri, convicted Otokoto ritualists (or their heirs) were on the verge of reclaiming all the property that the then military government confiscated from them, I begin to regret why the buildings were not pulled down when they were seized. For, it is now clear that even if the property were to be kept, and put to public use, one charlatan would happen in government, some day in the future, who would just return the property to the original felons. It is even worse in a contemporary Nigeria, where we either have no sense of history, or are endowed with a warped sense of history. Yet, we keep deluding ourselves that crime does not pay.
It is probably against this backdrop of a possible future reversal that some of those who find themselves in power now opt for total destruction (complete annihilation) of their ‘victims’, to ensure there is no chance of their ever rising from the ashes again. Of course, the reverse side is that if ever there is any miscarriage of justice, the damage would remain irredeemable.
As for Wike, one is still a little reluctant to comment on this matter, knowing that, in the politics of Rivers State, this matter, like several others before it, will eventually end up in the courts. Even if Wike finds a way to compensate the hotel owner, political opponents would still encourage the hotelier to take the matter to court. That is the way they roll in Rivers.
