As if from the blues, Governor Nyesom Wike suddenly woke up one day to do what he is normally expected to do: accuse his sworn enemy, Minister of Transport and Aviation, Honourable Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, of hosting Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, to a birthday dinner. A former Rivers State Commissioner for Information and Communications, Mrs. Ibim Semenitari, had explained why Rotimi Amaechi’s administration hosted the Nobel Laureate for a birthday dinner (“Why Amaechi hosted Soyinka”, Nation, January 11, p7). According to her, the decision to honour Prof. Soyinka “had a link with his role in the naming of Port Harcourt as the UNESCO world book capital city 2014”. Obviously, this is a legacy Amaechi left for Wike to cherish and adore as the current Governor of Rivers State whose capital city, Port Harcourt, of all capital cities in Nigeria, was so enviously honoured by a prestigious international organization like the UNESCO. The honour did not come by Wike’s influence or Amaechi’s, but by Soyinka’s personal achievements and robust international connection.
Now, as expected, Semenitari’s successor, a Dr. Austin Tam-George, speaking for Wike, not only alleged that ¦ 82m was “wasted” on hosting the Nobel Laureate, but threatened that Wike’s extremely shaky administration would involve the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in probing the expenditure on the programme. However, Mrs. Semenitari had replied. According to her, “¦ 82 million was not spent on the dinner alone as Tam-George, PDP and their cohorts would want the world to believe”. She then challenged Tam-George to release the entire documents as contained in her (Sementari’s) memo, reference MOI/com /c./82/vol iii/227 “to cover dance, drama by University of Port Harcourt Arts Village, Great Singha and his highlife band; set design, stage lighting, costume design and stage property, dinner, transportation and accommodation of guests from outside the country and those outside Rivers State, among others”.
She said that instead of putting into proper context what necessitated the honour for the Nobel Laureate, the detractors exhibited “a sinister motive” of referring to Prof. Soyinka as “a friend of Amaechi”, thus reducing the state honour to a personal non-issue. She noted that having turned down several other honours for his enormous contributions to the growth of the literary industry in Rivers State, “it was a decision of the State Executive Council to celebrate a man who had been a strong voice in the birth of Garden City Literary Festival (later Port Harcourt Literary Festival) which catapulted the state to a global player in the arts”.
On his part, Professor Wole Soyinka had graciously “honoured” Wike with a reply which would not have been necessary if Wike had not attempted to bring his friend, Rotimi Amaechi, into the picture as his main target. Hence, instead of a probe for his friend, Rotimi Amaechi alone who organized the dinner in his honour, what we read as Soyinka’s reply was “¦ 82 dinner probe: Soyinka dares EFCC, knocks Wike”, (The Punch, January 8, p7). Soyinka sees Wike’s “present level of abominable distractions as causing despair”, anticipating his warning to the nation that when you fight corruption “corruption strikes back”. He continues, “The unprecedented call by this governor is prescient of a warning I recounted in my recent pamphlet ‘The republic of liars’, and was taken from my address to an anti-corruption global conference that took place in Tunisia two years ago”. Describing Wike as wikeleaks, Soyinka agreed with his (Wike’s) call for a probe into the money for the dinner in his honour: “I do however fully support the wikeleaks call for multi-directional probes”, he said, but more importantly, “I recommend further that he involves the services of the INTERPOL to guarantee its extension to all international organizations and governments to whom I owe accountable events of recognition – including birthday luncheons, dinners, cultural receptions and events of real, fictitious, or simply opportunistic flavouring – to which I have submitted myself”.
Now, with all the honours accorded Soyinka by international communities, he might just as well have asked “what then is the big deal about Wike’s howler concerning Amaechi’s addition to the many similar honours given to him at the international level?” Hence, in my judgment, this matter, certainly, is simply making a mountain out of a mole-hill. As for Amaechi, now Minister of Transport and Aviation and Soyinka’s friend who was really Wike’s target, he simply asked Wike “to go to court instead of peddling lies against him and Soyinka”. He said it was “unfortunate” for Wike to peddle lies against him and Soyinka, the Nobel Laureate, in order to “criminalize legitimate government transaction”. Amaehi continued, “Since Wike is blind to his responsibilities as the governor of Rivers State and has insisted on attacking the person and reputation of Amaechi as his one and only project, then let him go to court to prove his allegations and stop the nefarious insinuations”. Period!
But the Rivers State APC has apologized to Soyinka on the N82m alleged expenditure (Daily Trust, January 12, p.20). Describing as unfortunate the embarrassment caused him by the recent allegation by the state government that former Governor Chibuike Amaechi spent a sum of N82m to organize a birthday “dinner” in his honour, the Rivers State Chapter of the All Progressive Congress (APC), in a statement signed by its Chairman, Dr. Davies Ibiamu Ikanga, said: “On behalf of the good people of Rivers State, we hereby tender our unreserved apology to Prof. Soyinka and we assure him that Wike’s vile attempt to link him to an imaginary corruption will fail. This accusation is nothing but the ranting of a drowning man looking for whom to pull along into the sinking pool but Wike has over-reached himself this time because Prof. Soyinka is globally renowned as a man of impeccable integrity who has never been associated with corruption in his 80 years on earth”
That Wike could descend so low as to indirectly attack Soyinka on the well deserved honour accorded him by a governor who is well educated on a matter of that nature, like giving honour to whom honour is due, clearly shows the semi-illiterate and primitive mentality of Governor Wike. Let him, at least, be reminded that the saying might be true after all that a prophet is not honoured in his own home. For Wike, he should be told, out of his ignorance, that Prof. Soyinka had been accorded more celebrity dinners of similar qualities abroad than the one he is making so much noise about. My judgment is that the man, Nyesom Wike, is destined to misadventures and misfirings most of the time.
It should be noted that once again, in his tragic political adventures, Wike’s hoopla has turned to Wike’s political howler. On his blind and misguided attack on the duo of Amaechi and Soyinka, Wike, the irritant Governor of Rivers State, has goofed again, as in his character, and probably beyond redemption. Perhaps he, like many undisclosed others, needs deliverance.
- Makinde, FNAL is DG/CEO, Awolowo Centre for Philosophy, Ideology and Good Governance, Osogbo.
