I struggle to reject the version of Nigeria as an abnormal country. But certain incidents in the country have continued to insistently and adamantly push this feeling. If Nigeria were a nation structured to function like a decent country, certain coterie of politicians should never have been shot into the limelight. But I am not surprised that this is Nigeria, a country devoid of leaders; a country ruled by irrational and irresponsible rulers; a country where you have an assemblage of complacent and easily contented people.
Rivers State is one odious example. For instance, the Rivers State politics is a brand of politics that has consistently left soured taste in the mouth of all decent, enlightened and responsible citizens.
In Nigeria, we celebrate wrong leaders simply because they bow to our favoured affinities so that, no matter the offensive aberrations they commit, we see them as flawless and faultless people. This is why many people in Rivers and outside the state, particularly those who are completely averse to his cantankerous posture, hold the popular view that if Nigerian politics were decent, persons like Barrister Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, the governor of Rivers State, might never have been shot to fame as it stands currently.
So, it is not enough that people like that are straddling the land, but we are compelled to call them our leaders. Wike is very powerful and influential but his foray into partisan politics about two decades ago, he has remained under highly controversial circumstances. His political sagacity is typical of Nigerian political elite: use all you have to grab power and hang on there.
Is the rumour swirling that the state government allegedly provoked protests in London and engaged in other clandestine moves linked with alleged inducements ostensibly to manipulate observer mission report in the just concluded 2019 general elections in favour of the PDP true? This and some of the issues are what Nigerians should probe with a view to knowing exactly what really happened.
Members of the opposition in Rivers State believe that the state government is determined to push for a clean copy of fabricated, false and misleading report indicting the Nigerian military, INEC and everyone opposed to Governor Wike and his party, the PDP. The question is: what will the Rivers State governor, PDP and their cohorts gain by deliberately overheating the polity through outright speculation? Why is Wike hell-bent on disparaging the military at any given occasion?
Had soldiers accepted the bribe from the Rivers State government during the recent elections in the state as alleged in some security circles, surely, the Nigerian Army would have been blackmailed with ‘authentic evidence’ to that effect by now. But Gen. Sarham was so smart by disappointing the state government by rejecting all forms of alleged inducements.
Apparently, sensing that it (state government) was losing the war on tainting the image of the Nigerian Army, the ruling government started another storm alleging that the governor had been marked for political assassination.
The portrait of Wike in politics is unattractive and his actions are often repulsive. But since we have misapplied the interpretation of democracy to some irrational limits, some human people are still parading and flaunting themselves as leaders of people.
