Alphonsus Nweze
Former member of Anambra State House of Assembly and a legal practitioner, Ezenwa Chigbo Emwezor, has flayed Governor Nyesom Wike.
Speaking in an exclusive interview to Primepointers, an Online Newspaper, Emwezor said Wike contrary to perception of many southerners is not doing what he is doing because of the interest of anybody, either for the South or for Rivers State but for what he is going to get from the system.
The former chairman of Judicial Committee in the Anambra State House of Assembly expressed surprise that Wike who had earlier said that the All Progressives Congress (APC) has cancer and would not leave people who have malaria to join a party with cancer, would turn back to be hobnobbing with the cancerous part.
He said Wike made the statement because then “things were rosy for him in PDP. He was calculating he was going to get the presidential ticket of PDP. Now, he is hobnobbing with APC, the party does not have cancer any more. He is meeting with Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He is now meeting with APC when was the cancer cured. So, the cancer APC has was because Wike does not match with what APC has. So, it shows you that all this grandstanding is self-serving.”
The former legislator said Wike was said to have been fighting for the South but when he was told that the Presidency should be zoned to South East, he said no because when he said South he meant himself, not for the purpose of justice, equity and fairness, thinking he had what it takes to get the ticket.
Ezenwa Enwezor said Wike was part of the reason the Labour Party candidate, Mr. Peter Obi left PDP, saying that he was so impudent to come to Anambra State to declare that Obi was not going to win the presidential nomination of PDP, not even in Anambra State because he had seized the machinery of the party.
“If Wike must come to equity, he must come with clean hands. Everybody must wash his hands. If we are saying it is unfair, unconscienable for the power to remain in the North, we are saying we believe the North has had it for these number of years. If it comes to South, it will also be unfair and unconscienable for those areas that has had a bite at the presidency of NIgeria to now take it again. So, what standard are we using if it is not good for the North to take another shot and it is good for South South to take it,” he said.
The ex-legislator and right activist said “consistency, fairness demands that you should go to the area that has not tasted it at all, which is the South East. These tells you that Wike’s agitation is for himself, not for anybody.”
He dismissed the impression by many that Wike was betrayed, saying that Wike went to the North and permeated it but Tambuwal and and his group felt they should support Atiku for their own political interest.
Wike, according to Enwezor, assured that he support anybody who emerged as the flag bearer of the party but to show that all those utterances were self-serving, he refused to support Atiku.
He wondered why Wike was now raging for not being appointed as the Vice-Presidential candidate, when in actual sense he had derided the office of the Vice-President of Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Enwezor also noted that it is the prerogative of the presidential candidate to nominate who should be his running mate, saying, “it is not a matter you can impose yourself on the party no matter how powerful you are.”
“Wike is moving under the misconception that he is too powerful and that he must get whatever he wants, not only in PDP but in any other party. That is his problem. If you believe in the party and you are not picked, why do you undermine the party you said does not have cancer but malaria and now romancing with a cancerous party. You are even romancing with labour party which you drove its presidential candidate out of PDP. These are contradictions and it goes to show that Wike is not working for anybody but for himself.”
Continuing, “what he is doing is that one man can hold the entire political party to ransome. No matter what he is bringing to the table. He must be humble enough to accept the fact, the reality that we function in a democracy, where the majority must have their way.”
He advised that the way out for Wike is to comport himself because with what he is doing, even those other party would not trust him if he joins them, they will describe him as “behaving like a bull in a China shop, destroying everything.”
He asserted that neither APC nor Labour will trust him because he has shown himself to be impatience with procedure.
Ezenwa Enwezor asked Wike to take a cue from his political godfather and former Governor of Rivers State, Dr. Peter Odili, who was the highest flier and would have won the PDP presidential ticket in 2007 but was torpedoed.
He was projected as the Vice-Presidential candidate but the slot was given to Goodluck Jonathan who later became the President of Nigeria.
“Odili did not rock the boat. So, I can’t understand what the hullabaloo is all about but certainly it is not about NIgerian people. It is not about the people of Southern Nigeria and Rivers State,” he ended.
