Wike’s Dance Of Debauchery 

At circuits, performers render their artistic performances and the thrilled audience clap and cheer. As a child in those nostalgic days, I first came across that word “circuit” while watching those televised foreign programmes, where performers, notably acrobatic dancers and illusionists, entertained the audience with their amazing feats. I unfailingly found those performances thrilling.

While circuits have become associated with weekend lifestyle in big towns and cities where you find event centres, night clubs and other such places of leisure, one man, Nyesom Wike, the enfant terrible former governor of Rivers state, now the FCT minister, has become famous for making circuits in odd spaces, providing entertainment in places not known to host such things. He has turned the political space into a circuit, outdoing old hands like Dino Melaye and Ayo Fayose in serving us political entertainment. Those dance moves,. accompanied by music rendition from a sycophantic band, in the build-up to the 2023 elections, would nearly rival the music rendition of a Davido and the comedy performance of an AY.

While Wike’s political circuit did not start from the period immediately preceding that election when the maverick politician literarily began an energetic prodigal dance against his party, the PDP, most of his erstwhile cheerers seemed to be recognising only then that their supposed anti-APC, anti-Buhari hero was nothing but a gifted entertainer. A more sober look at his public disposition would have allowed one to read in-between the lines to see through his antics, but given that only a few persons are capable of such profound perception, it naturally had to take the heightened drama of that pre-election period for most people to figure out who Wike really is and what he is really doing.

Wike is no different from most other Nigerian politicians for whom politics is an art in deception. True, politics, from time immemorial, is a manipulative venture where politicians apply all manner of artistry to make what’s unreal appear real. However, in healthy climes, societal norms and institutions ensure that these dangerous antics are always kept in check in order to protect society from the full weight of their potentially disastrous effect.

But our clime is far from being healthy, hence tolerates a much higher degree of political mischief than any sane country would tolerate from its politicians. Yes in our clime, politics has effectively become an amoral venture where only.those who are ready to dine with the devil become successful.

It was exactly this situation that gave us the man Wike. He is not an odd fellow among us, as many social media comments about him seem to suggest, he is rather where he should belong – Nigeria. Those who think otherwise are merely failing to see that what Wike exhibits is nothing but a character pattern that runs in the blood of a typical Nigerian politician. Most politicians, like Wike, would rig elections when it suits them and would grandstand as a defender of credible elections when it is in their interest. They would fight a Buhari for being despotic but would tolerate no opposition when given power. They would condemn corruption in public, but behind the scenes they are doing all they condemn. This is the Nigerian politician.

The only additional crime of Wike is his devil-may-care audacity and sheer barefacedness which inevitably amplify his sins before the public. Other politicians are not necessarily holier, they merely still have some sense of shame which drives them to moderate their steps in that inglorious dance. On the contrary, Wike does not mind applying the greatest intensity to his dance moves, and does not care doing this stark naked. He has flouted the central rule in the art of deception – never make your mischief too obvious for every Tom, Dick and Harry to see through your antics. This is his sin.

Otherwise, he is simply a Nigerian politician playing his politics the Nigerian way. We should not delude ourselves that our moral disposition as a country stands tall over Wike’s debauchery. No, Wike is merely acting according to our collective moral level. If his antics are indeed incompatible with the values of our system, then the system would have long ago hobbled him. But on the contrary, the system has been rewarding him with steady success – from being a local government chairman to becoming a governor’s chief of staff, then sitting as a governor himself for eight years, and now is back as a minister. Wike is an example of all that is political success.

He has a perfect understanding of our debauched system where one attains success quick and huge by playing to the debauched rules. Under President Goodluck Jonathan, he played the role of a loyal son with eyes on the governorship. He made himself a willing tool for just any depraved job. Through a sleight of hand, he contrived for the PDP an unprecedented number of votes – close to 1.5 million – in the 2015 presidential election! His ruthless rigging in that election was generously aided by the security agencies who fully turned up to intimidate the opposition.

When Jonathan lost, Wike quickly set his eyes on becoming the next PDP’s first among equals. To achieve this, he began to pose as a fearless activist against dictatorship and misgovernance. He made efforts to be seen as the fiercest critic of Buhari and APC, in other words, the leading voice of the opposition in the country. He followed this up with taking up a large chunk of the financial burdens of the PDP. He sought to be the lord of the party who would handpick and sack national chairmen at will. Prince Uche Secondus was a famous beneficiary-turned-victim.

Wike’s grandiose entry into Edo state in 2020, as the leader of the PDP delegation, ostensibly to stop the APC rigging machine from subverting the people’s will in an election that pitted Governor Obaseki against his erstwhile godfather, Adams Oshiomhole, was one notable incident in Wike’s long-running drama of deceit. His exit from Benin City upon Obaseki’s victory was predictably laced with even greater pomp as he gloried in the acclaim of having triumphed over anti-democratic forces. He was positioning himself as the unrivaled hero of the PDP.

However, when this phantom heroism could not fetch him the ultimate prize, which is the presidential ticket in 2023, Wike turned a spoiler. PDP must fall in that election. Anyone who supported Atiku must be crushed. With his eyes set firmly on his rehabilitation post-May 29, 2023 when his governorship tenure was to end, he tactically began to court Tinubu and the APC. He repeated for them the electoral magic he performed for Jonathan and PDP in 2015, only that this time he couldn’t muster up to 1.4 million votes

Today Wike’s politics comes across as an unprecedented.oddity. He’s in PDP and at the same time a part of the APC government, when no coalition arrangement has been struck between the two rival parties. He’s today pitted against his erstwhile godson, Governor Simi Fubara, obviously for reasons that are completely selfish. He’s not at peace with PDP and yet would not ditch it for the APC in whose government he serves. He still has personal interest to protect in PDP. He has invested too much therein to just turn his back on the party. But at the same time, he wants to share the booty of the 2023 election victory with APC.

Truth is that given Wike’s deep understanding of our system and its depraved rule of survival, he is always a candidate for political success. This, coupled with his unhesitating readiness to ruthlessly play by these rules, takes him even further away from failure.

Those who believe his antics would soon bring him ultimate failure are merely failing to see our system for what it really is. Today, former President Trump is fighting desperately to save his head and protect his political career from ultimate collapse largely because of “unserious” issues like making a hush payment and overvaluing one of his properties. Contrast this with the case of our own Abdullahi Ganduje, who was caught on camera stuffing dollars collected from contractors as bribe into his babaringa, and all the system could do was reward him with a second governorship tenure, and four years later, with the chairmanship of the ruling party.

So, we need to understand that Wike is a man created in the image and likeness of our system. A system can only create what looks like it and not otherwise. Therefore, Wike is the mirror through which we see our real self, striped of all window dressing and pretensions. But many people are just finding out. His ultimate goal is to become the president of this country. If he fails to realise this goal, then it must have been not as a result of his perceived character, but rather as a result of being on the wrong side of fortune.

Henry Chigozie Duru, PhD, teaches journalism and mass communication at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria.