Those who still wonder why Nyesom Wike, the FCT Minister and immediate past governor of Rivers State, is highly regarded in the presidency can only be blind. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is first of all a politician, and politicians and elections are five and six.
Many theories exist to explain how the intimacy between Tinubu and Wike started, but what is public knowledge is that Wike helped Tinubu when it was crucial. He helped to do both good and bad things to get some five PDP state governors to work against their party to make Tinubu president.
Next, the crucial Rivers results that helped Tinubu overcome was manufactured by Wike. It is not for nothing that Tinubu made Wike his political point-man in Rivers, handing all appointments due the APC to this PDP kingpin. That was how Wike has to this day emerged a PDAPC man, and as Tinubu called him recently, the Ultimate Leader of Rivers State. Was it not at this point that Gov Sim Fubara calmed down and surrendered?
Read also: FEC approval stalls take-off of FCT bus terminals – Wike
Now, Tinubu has reaffirmed this by formally commending the FCT Minister for victories in both states.
According to Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to Tinubu, the President commended the FCT Minister for his remarkable achievements in the territory, which he said was why the people voted for the APC that had lost woefully in 2023.
So, the president that is an APC man is commending a PDP man for APC victories across the land.
Champions win games no matter how badly they played. Wike is a champion on what he does, winning elections. Some say he wins with bad tackles. They claim that he has a record of first creating crisis in other top parties in the place or state he wants to overrun. He allegedly uses the crisis to disqualify the parties from fielding candidates. They say he then plants his men in the remaining parties, and get them to stand down at the last minute. Then, he allegedly gets his own people elected unopposed.
That was why APC never contested elections in Rivers State for most of the years Wike reigned as governor. Now, the party boss in the state, Tony Okocha, boasts that the APC would henceforth be contesting and winning elections.
Now, candidates of the APC have won the bye-elections in Ahoada East II and Khana II State Constituencies.
At the end in Ahoada and Taaba, the APC swept the seats.
Seven political parties presented 12 candidates for the two Assembly seats.
PDP and ADC and some others did not contest. That is the Wike effect. So, anybody who thinks Tinubu would sacrifice Wike for anything or for anybody has another coming. Result sheets flying about already show where the APC won 1212 votes where number of voters were 213.
