Is Wike heading for ‘dustbin of history’?
By Olu Fasan NYESOM Wike, the maverick Rivers State governor, is a toxic influence on Nigerian politics. Like all narcissists, he thrives on applause and adulation from sycophants and praise singers. His outsized presence in Nigerian politics is fuelled by the oxygen of publicity he constantly receives from the media even for his most infantile behaviour. But after next month’s presidential election, whatever the outcome, and after he leaves office as governor on May 29, Wike would gradually fade into political irrelevance and eventually end up in the “dustbin of history”. It would be a good riddance! If those words are harsh, well, it’s because they should be. Public life is too important to be the property of narcissists, of self-aggrandising megalomaniac, who see everything through the prism of self-promotion. Politics, democracy and the party system that underpins them must never be so personalised that any individual is too powerful and above party discipline. In a system whe...