Wike, PDP: When The Sword Destroys Its Pouch

In Yoruba family sociology, children are categorised into three broad groups. The stratification is determined by the character portraiture of the child. The first category is called Omo Ojú – a child who requires just a glance from the parents to do the right thing. Omo Ojú is the ideal child any parent would wish for.

He is the disciplined one who takes redress by the mere look of the parents.

Most often than not, an Omo Ojú does not even require the presence of the parents before he or she behaves very well.

A typical Omo Ojú is that child who says “my parents must not hear this” (omo obi mi o gbodo gbo). Omo Ojú behaves very well not because the parents are harsh on him or her, but because he/she is the well brought up one and attaches importance to the family name.

Omo Ojú goes out with the mother and is offered food by their host. He/she refuses, politely, to take the food.

The mother, if the host insists, merely says: “we just finished eating before coming”; even when they have nothing at home for their next meal and Omo Ojú nods his/her head in affirmation. Omo Ojú is an Omo Alálúbáríkà – the blessed child who gives no trouble to the parents.

The second category of children is the one known as Omo Ohùn or Omo Òrò – a child who requires you to talk to him or her before he or she behaves well.

An Omo Ohùn or Omo Òrò, at times, requires the parents to say some unprintable words before he/she acts according to the acceptable norms of the society.

He/she is not usually the delight of the parents. The parents shout, threaten or curse for them to fall back in line.

These are the type of children you often hear their parents say: «even the creator knows I am not quiet about your matter (Eleda na mo pe mi o dake lori oro re).

The father, for instance, in his peak of frustration asks if he indeed is the biological father of such a child. When that happens, the mother becomes dejected because her fidelity is being interrogated. Yet she knows that the father knows the truth but the behaviour of an Omo Ohùn or Omo Òrò is why the father queries the paternity.

The third category is the worst of them all. He is called Omo Igi – a child that must see the cane before he acts well. Omo Igi is the typical picaro of the worst form. Anywhere he is, there is trouble and chaos. He is as indecent as he is incorrigible.

An inorigibe, Omo Igi goes back to the same offence almost immediately after a reprimand. Among his peer group, he causes chaos. In his family circles, Omo Igi is the allegorical Àjàntálá – an unruly child; the enfant terrible.

He is an àwíìgbó (listens to no counsel), an àbéìgbà (refuses entreaties); a typical olóríkunkun (an irritant, stubborn being).

Above all, an omo Igi acts only in his own wisdom. No matter how organised a place is, once an Omo Igi enters, peace takes a flight. He is an oníjàgídíjàgan (a compulsive trouble maker). He is also an àjàígbólà (when he fights, he does not know when to apply the brakes); the typical fight-to-finish element.

The only thing an Omo Igi understands is thorough whipping or in the alternative, to be completely ignored.

It is useless to persuade him to toe the path of honour. Nothing satisfies an Omo Igi unless he is disgraced and dishonoured.

No parent wishes to have an Omo Igi as a child. No society desires his type. Most often than not, in the family and the larger society, an Omo Igi turns a pariah. His innate hubris of bad mannerism follows him anywhere he goes. He acts such that the larger society thinks he is not well brought up (aláìlékô). But the truth is that an Omo Igi is a typically well-brought up child, who throws overboard all his home training; hence he is called an àkóìgbà – impervious to training.

The opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, held its convention on May 28 through May 29, 2022, where it elected its presidential candidate. In the keenly contested primaries, the former Vice President and itinerant politician, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, won with 371 votes to defeat the incumbent governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, who scored 237 votes.

Ever since the election, the party has known no peace. What finally triggered the self-destruct voyage the PDP is navigating at the moment is the choice of a vice-presidential candidate. While Wike swallowed the bitter pill of defeat at the primaries, it was reported that Atiku made overtures to him to be his running mate.

Wike, it was further gathered, was persuaded to accept the offer.

In fairness to him, he never lobbied to be Atiku’s running mate. Atiku, the candidate, without any inducement, set up a selection committee to assist in picking a running mate. That was the beginning of the unending crisis in the opposition party.

Atiku, for reasons best known to him, turned down the majority recommendation of the committee he personally set up and chose to pick Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State as his running mate. His argument: “my running mate would have the potential to succeed me at a moment’s notice, that is, a President-in-waiting. In other words, the person must have the qualities to be Presiden”, is what is stoking the embers of disunity in the party.

Without being magisterial, I daresay that statement is most ungentlemanly in content and un-presidential in delivery.

Wike never lobbied to be anybody’s running mate.

If Atiku decided to withdraw his initial offer, he could have done that without rubbing salt on Wike’s injury. There are some words that are too pregnant with meanings. Atiku uttered some at the unveiling of Okowa. Wike has the right to be angry. I would have been angry too if I were in his shoes. But even at that, his anger should be devoid of the tendencies to destroy the very house that has given him shelter in the last two decades. Why do I say so?

Wike’s open romance with the ruling APC in recent times is unbecoming. It shows a deep-seated bitterness. That, in itself, is as ungentlemanly as the initial offence. His rebuff of virtually all attempts to bring about peace tells much about his character. Hobnobbing with the APC at this critical moment, to me, is a psychological war of attrition against the PDP. I think, and very strongly too, that the PDP should ignore him!

Otherwise, the party will be molding him into a Frankenstein monster that may turn out to be the party’s nemesis. My people advise that you cut the branches of an Iroko tree when it is too young; when it grows, it requires a daily sacrifice from you.

Wike, by his romance with the APC, is embarking on a journey to political adultery, of which his Man Friday from Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose, holds the patent right. It is a journey to political oblivion. People simply don’t learn from history.

Bukola Saraki, in 2014, led some PDP governors and leaders to walk out on President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan at Eagle Square. He thought he was on top of the world then. Where is he today? It took Bukola just eight years to bring to ruins the legacies his late father, Oloye Olusola Saraki, built over decades.

The Kwara ‘o to ge’ movement swept him off the Kwara political ladder. Today, Bukola is struggling for relevance and he is back in the same PDP.

In his Rivers State backyard, Wike has a living lesson. Rotimi Amaechi, as a sitting PDP governor openly despised Jonathan and practically became the APC’s ATM machine, counterbalancing the financial war chest of Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

As a minister of Transport, Amaechi concentrated almost every project in the North, thinking that his APC friends would hand over the party presidential ticket to him. They only allowed him to run around the Adokiye Amesimaka Stadium. When the real race began at the APC presidential primaries on June, 8, 2022, they shoved him aside. Ever since, who has heard anything about Amaechi again? Wike can toe the same line. He can tear down the PDP for all I care. What have been the benefits of the PDP to the Nigerian masses, anyway? The worst that can happen to the PDP is the loss of the 2023 presidential election. If that happens, does Wike gain anything? He will only go into political oblivion like Fayose.

The shout of “Oshokomole” attracts opprobrium on the streets of Ekiti today. Wike, if he likes, should invite General Muhammadu Buhari to come and commission projects in Rivers State so as to “pepper” the PDP. The shame of his political folly will soon come pouring on him like the rains after the August break.

Atiku, at Okowa unveiling, said he wanted a running mate that is presidential in character and content, I felt it was too insulting to the person of Wike. But events in recent times have come to prove that the Waziri Adamawa was eternally right. When a man is accused of having a massive alimentary canal, he controls his gastronomical tendencies. I ask: is there anything presidential in the conducts of the Rivers State governor in the last few weeks?

Where is the finesse of that exalted office? Where is the ‘Excellency’ in the prefix of his designation as a governor of a state? Atiku offered him the vice presidential slot, yes! Atiku set up a committee to select a running mate for him, OK! The committee selected Wike in a vote of 14 to three, so? Atiku went ahead to pick Okowa, what again? Is that why the house should collapse on everybody? Is that enough reason why Wike should become rabid in his anger against the entire leadership of the party? Granted that he sustained the party financially, as some are wont to argue, with whose resources was he able to accomplish that?

A personal family inheritance or the patrimony of the Rivers people? Come off it! Truth is Wike is becoming an Alásejù – an obstinate person. My people say alásejù, péré niíté – the obstinate gets easily disgraced. It is usually difficult for a woman introduced to whoredom to retrace her steps. Someone, somewhere, has introduced Wike to the Lagos political whoredom. He is already in the web of the lords of political adulterers of the South West and the leech, which leads that gang, does not let go of whatever it holds. It is unfortunate that Wike would allow a common political harlot to lead him to his political Golgotha! The sad thing here is that unlike the Saviour, who resurrected three days after His Golgotha experience, there is no such grace for Wike. The choice is his’. PDP should dare him and put an end to the bully’s war of attrition. Bashorun Dele Momodu has put the issue in proper perspective.

PDP is the only solid platform that Wike has, he counsels. All other political sand is sinking sand. If Wike likes, let him burn the bridge and kill the bridge builders as well. He is like a leech which threatens to kill the dog, its host forgetting that once the dog dies, the leech goes into extinction! I saw an inscription on a building in Ogbomosho some years ago.

It reads: “Àdàbà ò ñáaní àhún kùn›gbé. Pápá njó, ęyé lo; kétékété kú, ìsó pin “- the dove does not care if the bush is set on fire. The bush burns, the bird flies. When the donkey dies, its tethering ends. That should be instructive to Wike. The one egging him on towards the slaughter slab of the Lagos whoremonger is finished, politically. He is now looking for more victims in a “da bi mo se da” scheme. How do I translate this? It simply means: join me in my sorry state. If that is how Wike wishes to end his political Odyssey, the PDP should wish him luck. No omo igi ends well in the first instance. Nyesom Wike will only be fulfilling his strata of atavistic regression!