What we have come to see and live with week in and out in the name of political leadership is an unbridled quest for power and unrestrained or unhinged desire and perpetuity in political office.
Last week was laden with absurdities coming from two of the most misfit public officers of this democratic dispensation.
These characters are no other than the FCT minister Nyesom Wike, whose primary assignment in office, it appears, is to seek the perpetual comfort of judges, land allocation and to act as spoiler or traitor to any effort aimed at providing opposition or alternative to his benefactor: President Bola Tinubu.
The other character is the Senate President Godswill Akpabio. A man whose over three years tenure as leader of the red chamber has conducted himself in a manner that makes him less fitting of the exalted office he occupies.
These men have continued to leave no one in doubt that they would stop at nothing to preserve their personal interests even if such interests would ultimately bring about the ruins of the larger population, society or the nation.
On May 6, 2026, Akpabio, presiding over Senate session, attempted to force through Standing Orders 2026 that sought to restrict eligibility for presiding and principal leadership positions to senators who have served at least two consecutive terms.
Many senators were not comfortable because they knew that Akpabio’s move was neither driven by sincere need for reform nor does it have anything to do with taking advantage of the experience of the so-called second consecutive term senators but a brazen and shameless attempt at perpetuating themselves in office.
This brazen move by Akpabio would have denied Adams Oshiomhole and other current second term governors who are already poised to retire to the old peoples home, sorry the national assembly, next year, from eyeing such offices.
As first term senator now, should the senator representing Edo North, Senator Oshiomhole return in 2027, he would not qualify to aspire to hold principal office in the 11th Senate, he would not have had eight unbroken years to qualify him.
Of course, Oshiomhole’s resistance angered Akpabio who threatened to walk him out of the Senate.
By Thursday, the shameless Akpabio could not preside over the session when the Senate rescinded the controversial amendments.
Akpabio’s blind pursuit for self-perpetuity is not premised on the place of experience in leadership but at exclusivity and hegemony.
The very desire that has been the driving force behind the crooked amendments and eventual signing into law of the 2026 Electoral Act. The motivation and incentive are to create crooked path for them to return to office, come 2027.
Meanwhile, Akpabio became minority leader on his first term. He became Senate president in his second term but he now seeks to change the rules in the middle of the game so that come 2027, only he and a few others like Senator Opeyemi Bamidele can become Senate president, ignoring the fact that those offices are usually zoned.
Oshiomhole had only cried out because he had been excluded. I swear, the former Edo governor would have kept quiet if he were a second term senator like Akpabio in this 10th Senate.
As for our usual indiscreet and loquacious Minister Wike, he was again operating in a familiar terrain when he again assembled the media to Abuja to talk down on anything and everything that caught his fancy. He let loose his tongue and spoke in his usual abrasive and ill-mannered style.
He last week threatened to seal any Abuja building hosting Turaki-led PDP or allowing forms to be sold from their premises. He also warned any bank used by them.
He also had a word for his estranged godson, Siminalayi Fubara, the Rivers State governor, advising him to respect the terms of the truce they had with President Tinubu, saying whoever submits himself to arbitration must abide by the decisions reached.
Of course, the unspoken agreement he speaks about is that Fubara would not seek a second term. So, hearing that some segment of the people are calling on Fubara to go for a second term, he insists, is farce and falsehood.
He also had a word for the media and finally descended into the lowest level of his ludicrousness when in responding to a pastor who was pleading with him to rescind his decision of allocating Jabi Lake to private developer, he said; “To the woman who was crying, if she likes, let her call God to come down. What is my business? How does Jabi become hers?
Pastor Sarah Omakwu had made the appeal in a video posted on her Instagram page, where she was seen kneeling while addressing the minister.
“I cannot fight the minister of the FCT. I cannot. But I go on my knees as a mother in this land that Jabi Lake Recreation Centre should not be given to anybody,” she said.
If a more discreet Wike had left his explanation on the reasons he gave, he probably would not have attracted the backlash he is getting for his lack of tact, but to prove that he neither respects man nor fears God, he let loose his indiscretion in a rage of tactlessness.
It would be foolhardy of Wike to think that Fubara would not seek a second term in office. President Tinubu has conceded the task of organising state primaries to the state governors and there is no way Fubara would exclude himself.
Second, Wike claims he is in the PDP, so how does he think he can possibly prevent Fubara from getting the APC ticket, when he Wike has no role to play in the APC choice of who is to get the ticket?
As for Fubara, he has no choice but to finally put this overreaching feudal lord where he belongs. Enough of the shenanigans and absurdities from the FCT minister, whose only source of strength is his unfettered access to the public till.
Wike has done enough of playing god, and now that he appears prepared to confront God, only He can respond appropriately.
