“Nyesom Wike’s antecedents would make anyone working with him to be careful how unreliably powerful he gets. Hence, this crisis creates room for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to form an alliance with Sim Fubara as an option in any case Wike, gets dissatisfied with Tinubu and uses Rivers State to work against him in future”
The major person that will benefit from the Wike-Sim Crisis in Rivers state is Tinubu
Tinubu is fully aware of the crisis in Rivers state and wants it to continue.
Tinubu has always been involved in Rivers politics since the days of Amaechi. If you watch the trend, every Rivers governor from Dr. Peter Odili, Amaechi to Wike always turned out very influential nationwide. They all eventually ran or attempted to run for the office of the president of Nigeria.
When Amaechi defected from the PDP to the APC in 2014, and partly sponsored Buhari’s election in 2015, his interest was to form a national alliance so he could eventually run for president in 2023. It had very little to do with his relationship with GEJ. The GEJ and his wife’s issues were just a smoke screen to validate his ambition to be at the National spotlight.
In 2018, I met with Amaechi in his office in Abuja. The meeting was arranged by one of his key loyalists who happens to be a respected friend of mine. I was to be involved in the digital campaign for the election of Amaechi’s candidate in Rivers state and the re-election of Buhari in 2019. Amaechi never hid his intention to takeover from Buhari as Nigerian president in 2023 in that meeting.
Now, here are the reasons anyone working with Tinubu should be very careful…..
All along, Tinubu knew Amaechi was a threat to his 2023 ambition. For Amaechi to become a formidable opposition to Tinubu in 2023, Amaechi must produce a sitting Rivers state governor. Hence, Tinubu ensured Amaechi never produced a governor. He silently supported Wike to power in 2015 and supported him again for a second tenure in 2019. Tinubu was probably a part of why all the Federal might that Amaechi had could not give him certain control over the election in Rivers state.
On the other hand, in Lagos, before 2019, Former governor Ambode had shown signs he would not open up Lagos funds to sponsor Tinubu’s ambition in 2023.
He had challenged certain demands from Tinubu already. So Tinubu ensured he was removed from Office despite that he was rated as one of the top performing governors in Nigeria at that time. Ambode was disgraced out of office and Tinubu replaced him with a worthy stooge, whose past he had in his hands, and that was how Sanwo-Olu came into the picture.
With Amaechi not able to produce a sitting Rivers governor and Tinubu having a stooge he he had absolute control over in Lagos, Amaechi was already not a match for him, especially when it comes to having the funds to buy his way around the country in the 2023 elections. Hence, Amaechi lost out of the equation in 2019 when Wike won his second tenure.
Imagine for a second if with the meager funds Amaechi had, he came second in the primaries in 2023, what he would have done to Tinubu’s ambition had he access to the kind of money Wike expended in the PDP Presidential primaries added to his.
Let’s fast forward to Wike and Atiku’s beef..
All the while Wike was dancing around trying to hang things on Atiku, he already had a pact with Tinubu and the person assigned to ensure Wike did not make a U-turn on the Asiwaju agenda was governor Makinde.
Makinde’s singular duty in that purported G5 alliance was to play along with Wike to ensure he supported Asiwaju at the end of the day. This was also why Makinde did have a free ride in his own state elections afterwards.
Go and read Makinde’s background. When you are done, you will know that ordinarily he is not the type of person that would role with a Wike type of charcter. He had to do all the childish rigmaroles, which included wearing ashoebi and dancing drunk on live TV, with him to ensure that the Asiwaju agenda was implemented.
Now, to Wike and Sim matters…
I believe that Tinubu may be secretly fueling this Rivers crisis to his future advantage.
Wike’s antecedents would make anyone working with him to be careful how powerful he gets. Hence, this crisis creates room for Tinubu to form an alliance with Fubara as an option in any case Wike, in usual defiant manner, gets dissatisfied with Tinubu and works against him in future.
This is easily suspicious as Wike has refused to formally leave the PDP despite currently working for the APC government. Hence, Wike is probably perceived as a working time bomb that should be closely watched.
Hence, Tinubu’s strategy would be to ensure Fubara remains at logger-head with Wike while he strikes a deal with Fubara never to allow his impeachment and by so doing keep Fubara secretly loyal to him all through. This way, also, Wike cannot have access to the Rivers state funds and his power would gradually be diminished with time. This leaves no room for anyone financially powerful enough to challenge Tinubu in the near future.
I came to this conclusion when I observed Fubara’s body language before now and his sudden boldness to confront the Houe Of Assembly members loyal to Wike.
Unlike, when this issue first started where Fubara decried the efforts of the police to frustrate him, Fubara now palies with police.
Police have allegedly taken over the Rivers state Assembly complex moments after a high court in Port Harcourt restrained Wike’s loyalists from parading as lawmakers and Fubara ordered relocation of sittings to the Government House following the emergence of a factional speaker loyal to Fubara.
No commisoner of police posted to Rivers state would carry out Fubara’s orders on this matter without first hearing from the IGP who would have also acted on the president’s tone on this matter.
So when I see people, especially those loyal to Wike, trying to drag Tinubu into this matter, during their various press releases, as though he would side with them against Fubara, I am tempted to conclude that they probably do not understand that Asiwaju is the most dexterous politician in Nigeria, who often gets the best for his interest in every political crisis.
Again, these are just my opinion and I stand corrected. Also, this article is not for those who think linearly. It is intended only for those with the ability to foresee events based on antecedents and can comprehend possible outcomes.
So before you react, have a deep breath and use your mind critically.
Thank you!
