The story of the elusive quest for unity in Nigeria’s evolving fourth Republic can hardly be satisfactorily circumscribed at this point, without an eloquent mention of the name of Ex-Governor Nyesom Wike, hence our unfeigned averment that his name be made to feature honourably in letters of gold on the ineffaceable screen of our time-honoured history. Read Full Story
I had some time ago averred that Retired General Abdusalem Abubakar bequeathed to Nigeria the formula and elixir for accelerating our coming together to forge a truly UNITED and indivisible nation bound together in indissociable brotherhood and mutual love.
The General might have done this fortuitously, as one wonders if he might have realised the revolutionary significance of the Leadership succession Template he was bequeathing to a beleaguered nation hitherto synonymous with the intempestive intrusion of coups for any semblance of regime change. He had ordered that the kinsmen of the Winner of the June 12, 1993 general elections be made to produce the successor to the “inimitable” and sadistic goggled one, General Sani Abacha. He ensured this by officially insisting that each of the two major political parties of the period, viz the PDP and the APC, should compulsorily proceed to the ethno-cultural region of Chief MKO Abiola, to search for their Presidential Flag bearers for the 1999 general elections. At the end of the ensuing primaries, an unmistakable EGBA son, General Olusegun Obasanjo emerged as the President of our great nation.
The political parties without fuss, unpersuasively returned to the same Template in the 2007 Presidential Elections that returned the Presidency to the North as President Umar Musa Yar’adua mounted the saddle with Dr Goodluck Jonathan as his running mate. The early demise in office of Alhaji Umar Musa Yar’adua necessitated an unavoidable switch of the Presidency to the South, first by purely hierarchical succession and then by general elections for the constitutionally permissible second term for the original duo. By 2015, the Country’s Leadership succession Pendulum swung to the North with the emergence of President Muhammadu Buhari who only recently completed his 8 years two term tenure.
Then came the preparatory primaries for the 2023 General Elections. The APC unhesitatingly made public its Zoning or office distribution template for the Key offices à l’Abdusalami Abubakar, glaringly confirming that the Leadership Succession Pendulum should be swinging southwards, while the Party Chairmanship should go to the North.
The PDP, after lengthily prevaricating with spurious excuses spared no thought for the reinforcement of this Country’s Unity, deceptively holding on tenaciously to the nebulous concept of “Country-wide” selection spectrum, for what they considered as a way of prioritizing MERIT. But in undissimulated gerrymandering glaring to the even the uninitiated, the Party’s “Atikulated” and comprehensively ”inclusive” primaries hinged on the apparently “infallible” arithmetical reality, that the overwhelmingly swarming votes from the North, will guarantee undisputable victory for a PDP candidate from the region, even in abject defiance of the Rotational turn by turn Leadership succession template. But the confectioners and theoreticians of a “Winning formula” were oblivious of the unfathomable in-puts of God’s own mathematics, that could always rubbish all man-made projections and supputations. But those projections did not factor into reckoning the “Army of Justice” of the G-5 Governors or the unprecedented phenomenon of the metamorphosed OBIdient-Labour Party.
The “Army of Justice” led by Ex-Governor Nyesom Wike uncompromisingly maintained that the PDP National Chairman could not come from the North with the same Party’s Presidential Flag Bearer also coming from the same region. With the immanent brouhaha arising from this situation the earlier imagined inconsequential David the Shepherd boy vanquished Goliath offering himself the pleasurable pleasure of beheading Goliath with his apparently impregnable armoury.
Today, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu from the South West, is the President of Federal Republic of Nigeria. It is truly the first time a NADECO Militant has deservedly surfaced from the trenches to be opportune to salvage our dear Fatherland.
Herein lies the necessity for adherence to the philosophical stance of Ex-Governor Wike for the ONENESS and indivisibility of a United Nigeria, where none shall be oppressed, and everybody, whether from the North or the South should be allowed, in an atmosphere non-egoistic and non-discriminatory or bullying to ascend the saddle of Leadership of this Great County. Ex-Governor Wike commendably and uncompromisingly maintained that this country must grow stronger and stronger in the unpretentious and judicious spirit of equity and palpable fair play: this justice-imbued, turn by turn approach to orderly ascension of Power is henceforth encapsulated in Ex-Governor Wike’s popular chant: Enyere Ndi-eba, Enye Ndi-eba, Enyere Ndi-eba Enye Ndi- eba.
We consider Ex-Governor Wike as the hero of this year’s June 12 Celebration, for positively contributing to the triumph of a former Exile de la democratie, and well known NADECO Militant, as President of this great nation.
Are we prepared to learn from the “fall of Babylon” as we again strongly advise the insensate protagonists of unfettered greed to adhere to the wise counsel of our dear President, when he cautions on the deliberate management of our Multi-Ethno religious diversity. Let us hear this: The President is a Muslim, the Vice President is a Muslim, and the Chief Justice of the Federation is also a Muslim. Haba!!! Our sagacious and considerate President is saying, Alhaji Yari, sheathe your sword for a person in the amiable Personality of God’s Akpabio, a Christian from Akwa Ibom, South/South to become the Senate President for a much desirable sense of balance.
Like Atiku Abubakar, Alhaji Abubakar Yari is again dissimulating his greed, nudged on by the Obidientised Labour, for reasons best known to them, and alas mouthedly quoting or do I say mis-quoting our grundnorm as being non restrictive of aspiration to any political office: Ex-Governor Wike to the rescue: Enyere Ndi-eba Enye Ndieba Enyere Ndieba Enye Ndieba.
Yari is strongly advised to moderate his greed, and yield to the Asiwaju’s time-tested recommendation borne out of impeccable political maturity, in stepping down for the singularly accomplished Lawyer and uncommon Transformation Bulldozer of Akwa Ibom State for the post of Presidency of the Senate.
A stroke of the cane, like they say, should be enough for the WISE’
By
Chief Ojike J. Akiri
Former Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Local Government, Rivers State
Former Director-General, Ministry of Information and Culture, Rivers State
