The man Nyesom, whose surname is Wike, today has become a household name from his admirers to those seeking his head for dinner, including those who turned around to blame the astute politics practitioner for their natural or self-imposed misfortunes. The name is today the latest lexicon in the dictionary of Science of Politics in Nigeria, while the man is now deemed a catalyst that quickens political actions and political results; a real game-changer in real modern politics.
The fear of Wike, master of the art and science of politics, is the beginning of wisdom and a true step to political breakthrough.
It is therefore not surprising that educationists, scholars and university administrators too have discovered this daystar and the new ideology he is bringing into the field of Power Politics, Power Dynamics and Science of Politics in general, which has very recently earned him a Doctorate degree (Honorary) at the famous University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
Of course, there is nothing unusual in having a novel brand of idea on how to break away from inefficient tradition by individuals becoming a new field of study. Late elder statesmen like Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikwe, Aminu Kano, Chief Gani Fawehinmi and Fela Anikulapo {Ransom Kuti) today have their methodologies “canonised” as fields of study.
This is quite in tune with universal academic dynamism and tradition, where emerging new methods of doing things are researched into in the continued quest to find and improve on solutions to surmount human challenges.
There is no doubt University of Port Harcourt deserves huge commendation for its initiative of “discovering” Wike as a study in the Science of Politics and its boldness to honour him.
There is a need, however, to up the game by keying into the current new initiative by the Federal University Oye Ekiti (FUOYE) and adorn Wike in a full professorial garment by awarding him Professor of Practice in Politics as done by FUOYE, which recently awarded Professor of Law Practice to some distinguished and senior lawyers in Nigeria.
Among the recent honoraries were Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), Yusuf Ali (SAN) and Toland Otaru ( SAN), who were awarded Professor of Law Practice.
At this juncture, it is sufficient to identify some of those uncommon decisions and actions of Wike that indubitably signpost him as a political mill and power hub in today’s politics in the country, which has canonised him as a field of study.
It may be interesting to start with how he worked very hard, defying all odds and scaling all hurdles to deny former Vice President Atiku Abubakar his life and Marabout foretold ambition of becoming President of Nigeria. After many attempts, the road appeared open for Atiku in 2023, but following his irresolvable fallout with Wike, the Rivers State-born politician ensured that Atiku, like the Biblical Moses, saw the Promised Land from afar but did not step it.
How did he do it? He pulled the rug from Atiku’s feet when he pulled out five PDP governors (G5) that were very strategic to his victory from Atiku’s armoury.
The second is like the first one; in fact, it was the other side of the coin he used against Atiku. In Rivers State, against all logic, permutation and tradition, Wike made history when he worked assiduously to ensure that the All Progressives Congress’ (APC) presidential candidate Bola Tinubu got the leading votes in the election.
Not only that he rallied members of his G5 who cut across the north-south divide to work for Tinubu’s victory in their various states. He even succeeded in making Chief Olabode George a prominent chieftain of the PDP and a sworn political enemy of Tinubu, not to support Atiku, his party’s presidential candidate.
One cannot forget in a hurry that while he conceded governorship victory to the PDP, he later succeeded in taking the wind from the sails of the governor when he turned the majority in the State House Assembly to sympathisers of the APC and avowed enemies of the ruling party in the state.
Even as a prominent leader of the PDP in the state, he controls the machinery of the state APC.
The Rumuodoli indigene lawyer turned politician today has the record of being the first opposition politician and first southerner to become the strategic and much-sought-after Federal Capital Territory Minister.
To confirm his mastery of Real Politics as well as his mastership in power politics and dynamics, while Wike is unstoppably digging in the APC, he remains the main power block and power broker in the PDP which he controls its soul as he holds firmly to key positions at all tiers of the party at the national level, just as a sizeable portion of some state Executive Councils are loyal to him.
As an authority who understands what power politics and dynamics is, the enigmatic politician who has vowed to retire Atiku in 2027, has effectively applied this concept as he is not only brokering power, he is crowning kings at all fronts who are his eyes day and night. If you like, call him an emperor, so be it. He has helped many to power as well as many out of trouble to the extent that few mischief makers who attempted to betray him are called to order by his mere shadow.
It is very significant to signpost and beam to Nigerians the legacy of identifying talents beyond partisanship, which Wike has come to popularise. What he did to Tinubu in 2023, and which he recently reenacted, is identifying talents or a national Messiah beyond party borders. It is not a betrayal of his party or bad belle politics, rather it is putting the nation first against the micro interest of a party. Wike is the much-desired new face in progressive and constructive opposition politics, signalling a new study in that brand of politics. He knows the limit of the capacities of Obi and Atiku in relation to Tinubu, including their track records.
As dangerous as the intention of those keeping their parent parties but working for the ADC coalition gang up is, it is definitely a recognition of the good news in the real politics of identifying and working for Tinubu Wike began to popularise since 2023. The only difference is that while Wike puts Nigeria first, the African Democratic Congress adventurers are positioning themselves first.
The man, Nyesom Wike, a political genius in the words of the great Tanzanian Pan-Africanist Frantz Damon, has, out of relative obscurity, discovered his mission (destiny) and is fulfilling it, which has amazingly and unbelievably transformed him into a political institution of a sort.
He has even transcended from an institution to a new study in contemporary Nigerian politics and has consciously and unconsciously altered the traditional order of political practice, ushering in new methodologies and strategies.
His methodologies and strategies, which have brazenly defied the old order, are bountifully yielding desired results and dividends to the disbelief and astonishment of traditional politics practitioners.
A close study of Wike will no doubt reveal that he is a transformed student of the Machiavelli School of Politics, where the end justifies the means. He has, however, reformed this brand to accommodate elements of social justice such as equity, fairness and justice for the majority before, while deciding on the means to the end, as against the old school that cares little or not about the effects on the majority but cares more about self.
This is exactly what the typical conservative Nigerian political practice is all about. To grab power at all costs and by all means for self-aggrandisement and their cabal financiers.
As said earlier, Wike has redefined this methodology; this was what defined his inimitable revolution as Rivers State governor; his strategy of departing from the selfish norm, which earned him a prestigious national recognition and Award by a President not from his PDP but the ruling party, late President Muhammadu Buhari, who decorated him as the Best Governor in Infrastructural Development.
Conservative politics must have a human face. This is the new brand of real politics Wike has brought into the traditionalist school of politics, that have changed the face of politics and political landscape and turned the tables against the die-hards and irredentists.
Atiku and Obi must understudy Wikeism (especially Obi) if they want further advances in their political fortunes and frontiers.
In this regard, we are talking about the progressivism genre of conservative politics, which Wike has brought into that field.
Just as students of the Great Obafemi Awolowo University in 1990 awarded the late human rights icon, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, the distinguished Senior Advocate of the Masses, we on this end hereby award Chief Nyesom Wike Professor of Politics Practice (Honorary).
The fear of Wike, master of the art and science of politics, is the beginning of wisdom and a true step to political breakthrough.
It is therefore not surprising that educationists, scholars and university administrators too have discovered this daystar and the new ideology he is bringing into the field of Power Politics, Power Dynamics and Science of Politics in general, which has very recently earned him a Doctorate degree (Honorary) at the famous University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
Of course, there is nothing unusual in having a novel brand of idea on how to break away from inefficient tradition by individuals becoming a new field of study. Late elder statesmen like Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikwe, Aminu Kano, Chief Gani Fawehinmi and Fela Anikulapo {Ransom Kuti) today have their methodologies “canonised” as fields of study.
This is quite in tune with universal academic dynamism and tradition, where emerging new methods of doing things are researched into in the continued quest to find and improve on solutions to surmount human challenges.
There is no doubt University of Port Harcourt deserves huge commendation for its initiative of “discovering” Wike as a study in the Science of Politics and its boldness to honour him.
There is a need, however, to up the game by keying into the current new initiative by the Federal University Oye Ekiti (FUOYE) and adorn Wike in a full professorial garment by awarding him Professor of Practice in Politics as done by FUOYE, which recently awarded Professor of Law Practice to some distinguished and senior lawyers in Nigeria.
Among the recent honoraries were Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), Yusuf Ali (SAN) and Toland Otaru ( SAN), who were awarded Professor of Law Practice.
At this juncture, it is sufficient to identify some of those uncommon decisions and actions of Wike that indubitably signpost him as a political mill and power hub in today’s politics in the country, which has canonised him as a field of study.
It may be interesting to start with how he worked very hard, defying all odds and scaling all hurdles to deny former Vice President Atiku Abubakar his life and Marabout foretold ambition of becoming President of Nigeria. After many attempts, the road appeared open for Atiku in 2023, but following his irresolvable fallout with Wike, the Rivers State-born politician ensured that Atiku, like the Biblical Moses, saw the Promised Land from afar but did not step it.
How did he do it? He pulled the rug from Atiku’s feet when he pulled out five PDP governors (G5) that were very strategic to his victory from Atiku’s armoury.
The second is like the first one; in fact, it was the other side of the coin he used against Atiku. In Rivers State, against all logic, permutation and tradition, Wike made history when he worked assiduously to ensure that the All Progressives Congress’ (APC) presidential candidate Bola Tinubu got the leading votes in the election.
Not only that he rallied members of his G5 who cut across the north-south divide to work for Tinubu’s victory in their various states. He even succeeded in making Chief Olabode George a prominent chieftain of the PDP and a sworn political enemy of Tinubu, not to support Atiku, his party’s presidential candidate.
One cannot forget in a hurry that while he conceded governorship victory to the PDP, he later succeeded in taking the wind from the sails of the governor when he turned the majority in the State House Assembly to sympathisers of the APC and avowed enemies of the ruling party in the state.
Even as a prominent leader of the PDP in the state, he controls the machinery of the state APC.
The Rumuodoli indigene lawyer turned politician today has the record of being the first opposition politician and first southerner to become the strategic and much-sought-after Federal Capital Territory Minister.
To confirm his mastery of Real Politics as well as his mastership in power politics and dynamics, while Wike is unstoppably digging in the APC, he remains the main power block and power broker in the PDP which he controls its soul as he holds firmly to key positions at all tiers of the party at the national level, just as a sizeable portion of some state Executive Councils are loyal to him.
As an authority who understands what power politics and dynamics is, the enigmatic politician who has vowed to retire Atiku in 2027, has effectively applied this concept as he is not only brokering power, he is crowning kings at all fronts who are his eyes day and night. If you like, call him an emperor, so be it. He has helped many to power as well as many out of trouble to the extent that few mischief makers who attempted to betray him are called to order by his mere shadow.
It is very significant to signpost and beam to Nigerians the legacy of identifying talents beyond partisanship, which Wike has come to popularise. What he did to Tinubu in 2023, and which he recently reenacted, is identifying talents or a national Messiah beyond party borders. It is not a betrayal of his party or bad belle politics, rather it is putting the nation first against the micro interest of a party. Wike is the much-desired new face in progressive and constructive opposition politics, signalling a new study in that brand of politics. He knows the limit of the capacities of Obi and Atiku in relation to Tinubu, including their track records.
As dangerous as the intention of those keeping their parent parties but working for the ADC coalition gang up is, it is definitely a recognition of the good news in the real politics of identifying and working for Tinubu Wike began to popularise since 2023. The only difference is that while Wike puts Nigeria first, the African Democratic Congress adventurers are positioning themselves first.
The man, Nyesom Wike, a political genius in the words of the great Tanzanian Pan-Africanist Frantz Damon, has, out of relative obscurity, discovered his mission (destiny) and is fulfilling it, which has amazingly and unbelievably transformed him into a political institution of a sort.
He has even transcended from an institution to a new study in contemporary Nigerian politics and has consciously and unconsciously altered the traditional order of political practice, ushering in new methodologies and strategies.
His methodologies and strategies, which have brazenly defied the old order, are bountifully yielding desired results and dividends to the disbelief and astonishment of traditional politics practitioners.
A close study of Wike will no doubt reveal that he is a transformed student of the Machiavelli School of Politics, where the end justifies the means. He has, however, reformed this brand to accommodate elements of social justice such as equity, fairness and justice for the majority before, while deciding on the means to the end, as against the old school that cares little or not about the effects on the majority but cares more about self.
This is exactly what the typical conservative Nigerian political practice is all about. To grab power at all costs and by all means for self-aggrandisement and their cabal financiers.
As said earlier, Wike has redefined this methodology; this was what defined his inimitable revolution as Rivers State governor; his strategy of departing from the selfish norm, which earned him a prestigious national recognition and Award by a President not from his PDP but the ruling party, late President Muhammadu Buhari, who decorated him as the Best Governor in Infrastructural Development.
Conservative politics must have a human face. This is the new brand of real politics Wike has brought into the traditionalist school of politics, that have changed the face of politics and political landscape and turned the tables against the die-hards and irredentists.
Atiku and Obi must understudy Wikeism (especially Obi) if they want further advances in their political fortunes and frontiers.
In this regard, we are talking about the progressivism genre of conservative politics, which Wike has brought into that field.
Just as students of the Great Obafemi Awolowo University in 1990 awarded the late human rights icon, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, the distinguished Senior Advocate of the Masses, we on this end hereby award Chief Nyesom Wike Professor of Politics Practice (Honorary).