Wike’s drunken moment and a hopeless House of Assembly, By Wale Bakare

We are an amazing people. When otherwise intelligent persons hail Wike as some sort of hero because of his brash and often uncouth approach to governance, I just laugh. When the Supreme Court removed the impostor Governor Omehia (and rightly so) in 2007 after 5 months, it should have ended that ignoble episode. However, 8 years later in 2015, in a fit of power (and probably Hennesy) drunkeness and crude politicking, he instigated the House of Assembly to recognise Celestine Omehia as a Former Governor, with full rights and benefits as Odili and Amechi who served for 8 years. In total disregard of the Supreme Court judgement which clearly said Omehia was an impostor. And let’s not forget that Wike is a lawyer, no matter how difficult it might be to believe.

Now, after 7 years and another falling out, he has again pushed the utterly hopeless House to suddenly realise that they did not fully appreciate the import of the Supreme Court ruling of 15 years ago and they should never have passed such a criminal motion. They then passed a fresh motion derecognising Omehia as a ‘Former Governor’ and stripping him of all privileges attached to that status. That would have been straightforward enough except for the little matter of the benefits and pension that Omehia had been enjoying over the past 7 years: a ‘miserly’ N695m!!!! The House has given him 7 days to return the money the State willingly handed over to him over a period of 7 years. How can people so dense lay claim to being Lawmakers?

This drama would be laugh-worthy if it wasn’t so tragic on so many levels. How a Governor could become so uncontrollable that he could blatantly use the House of Assembly which is meant to check his excesses, actually use the same body to perpetuate his impunity shows how faulty our form of Government is. That he could so blatantly spit on the decision of the Supreme Court of the country is telling. He practically overturned the decision of the SC. And he was aided in this perfidy by the State Legislators.

As sad as the above is, what boggles the mind is how Omehia was able to collect N695m over 7 years for illegally occupying an office for 5 months!! Madness! And these are the people who keep their citizens’ attention focused on the Federal Government as the bogeyman while they systematically loot their states dry without being accountable to anyone. If Omehia, whose pretensions to ‘Governorhood’ was aborted after 5 short months like the diseased foetus that it was, could have made away with N695m in just 7 years, I shudder to think what the others that spent 8 years are doing and keeping under the radar. Those ‘Super Governors’ from the first wave who were the unquestionable oracles in their states. I will not mention names but look around and you will find them seated comfortably in the Senate or seeking to be President. Meanwhile, Odili is still enjoying his lifetime immunity.

And we just go on like a people hypnotised!

-Bakare is a Lagos-based Public Affairs Analyst