Chief Marshal Sokari Harry of blessed memory gave me the same kind of vibes Mr. Ezenwo Nyesom Wike is giving right now. It is not in the offices the two men held, but in something else — their persona. Nyesom Wike is on the spot and battling what is described as ‘dual belongation’ in the Kegites Club.
But first, the Marshal Harry thoughts… As a journalism fledgling and the Tribune correspondent in Rivers State, I saw a lot of Chief Marshal Harry as the chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Rivers State before the subsequent political party’s offices he held before he was murdered.
This man’s murder in cold blood on 5 March, 2003, in the build-up to that year’s general election in Nigeria, left me really frightened and almost broken. His death struck so hard then because he was the first and perhaps the only top politician I could say I knew one-on-one who was murdered the way he was. The memory still worries because his killers are still roaming free. The only whiff of consolation comes sometimes from the thought that his murderers might have come face-to-face with that phenomenon called karma.
Another Rivers son killed in a brutal, unceremonious manner by politics and politicians was fondly referred to as Dede Ukwu (Big Brother) in Rivers State politics. Chief Aminosoari Kala Dikibo, more popularly known as Chief A. K. Dikibo, was killed in about the same period and in the same manner as Chief Marshal Harry. They were both reportedly shot dead. The murders of these men are still unresolved just like that of Chief James Ajibola Ige. And all of these blights on our nation’s political path have been flung to the back burner in the ranks of important national issues, like the masquerader’s garments.
I was arrested in Port Harcourt one Saturday morning in 2002 by operatives from the Mile One police station for “obstructing the arrest of suspects”. I think they were right because while they were raiding roadside traders in front of the Tribune Office at 31 Ikwerre Road, I stepped in to ask them why and also sought to see if the pleading traders could be let off the hook. They bundled me into their van with the ruffled traders. At the police station, they told the man at the counter that I was “obstructing policemen on duty.”
The Constable at the counter asked me “Who are you?” He was way calmer than I had envisaged. “I’m Sam Nwaoko of the Nigerian Tribune.” While I responded, he had already fished out the Panasonic midget tape recorder in one of my trousers’ pockets. He played it and the voice he heard was that of an angry man with total disregard for the Rivers State government authorities. “Na who be that?” the policeman asked. “Marshal Harry,” I promptly replied. “Na wa o! Na Marshal Harry be that? Why is he talking like that, wetin dey vex am?” I was coming from Chief Harry whom I had gone to interview that Saturday morning. I did not know what to tell the policeman nor did I know the whereabouts of the traders with whom I was brought to the police station.
However, my police station encounter ended at that counter. Another policeman had walked in and we exchanged warm pleasantries. He knew me very well. The people for whom I got into trouble were already back at their spots by the road and setbacks when I got back to my office. It was a relief to see them, but the illegality of their position…? I had been delayed while ‘gisting’ with the policemen about Rivers State politics. This was in 2002.
Harry’s and Dikibo’s murders are 20 years gone, but the Rivers State politics of today has thrown up memories of these men. However, the man on my mind is Chief Marshal Harry. He was not smooth in his vocal renditions. He was not a smooth talker. He was direct and blunt. Chief Harry was like that. Wike is like that. Some even see Wike as haughty. As the Chairman of Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State, Wike was a terror. He is a go-getter and his methods might confound. He was the council chairman who achieved results and ignored public opinion ratings. He was also rated like that as a governor for eight years.
On admission into the Kegites Club, National Headquarters, University of Ibadan, we the new Congoses were told of something they called ‘Dual Belongation’. We were warned thus: “There is no dual belongation, you either belong in or you belong out”. It means being in two places at the same time, and the club said it is not karid. We were warned seriously against it. By my interpretation and analysis, I found ‘Dual Belongation’ to mean disloyalty because one cannot competently serve two masters. He who embarks on the pursuit of two rats simultaneously will lose both.
Wike looks increasingly teetering and has left Rivers State at the precipice of political anarchy. He is at the tip of the pits he had dug through his speeches. He had spoken so much against defection from a political party and at the same time retaining the offices belonging to that party.
He had also said so much against leaving the PDP and had taken a former Zamfara State governor, Bello Matawalle, to the cleaners for breaking an oath he made against defection. Now, Wike is not just faced with the problem ‘dual belongation’, he is also balancing being in the PDP and working for the APC. Some elements have also staged protests against his administration of the Federal Capital Territory as minister and have called for his removal. His loyalists, commissioners and so on in Rivers State, have resigned from Governor Fubara’s government and some of them are said to be torn between loyalty and service.
Wike was an important component of the Dr. Peter Odili political behemoth of 1999 – 2007. Odili’s PDP structure of that era was the Araba tree which cannot be wrestled with bare hands. But after Odili completed his tenure in 2007, a new era began in Rivers State. There was, first, the Celestine Omehia dust before it settled and we had Rotimi Amaechi. From Amaechi, which had a lot of the ‘Odili boys’ in it till today, each governor has been unable to hold his empire together after governance. Odili and Amaechi could not and now, Wike is not in a good stead to do what his predecessors could not do. Odili was equanimous in taking what his political children threw at him. Amaechi (versus Wike) and Wike (versus Fubara) proved they could not stomach what they fed Dr Odili. Nigerians may have forgotten how much the Rivers State House of Assembly suffered when Amaechi and Wike squared up in the years of the Amaechi administration.
There is no way these can all be about the people of Rivers State. It is all about the political interests of the respective gladiators. Most of the commissioners Fubara is working with were men said to be handpicked for him by Wike. It was argued in some quarters that the exiting commissioners were told to resign. Some claim that they were asked to prove their loyalty or quit. Whichever way, they are under some form of pressure. These men are like puppets on a string. They are proving loyalty the way the politicians would want it and not in the way through which the state can benefit.
It is the most potent contention out there and Wike, more than Governor Fubara, has to prove that those doubting his overbearing nature are wrong. But, can he?
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