Whichever way you look at the political drama in Rivers State, it still looks like Wike is in Catch-22 position:
If he allies with Tonye Cole and wins at the Supreme Court, this doesn’t mean that Cole will abandon his political alliances of the past to collapse and be subservient to Wike. This is highly unlikely.
If he allows the status quo ante to remain, Gov. Fubara will ensure that Wike has no grassroots support base in Rivers. He might not even be allowed to go to RIvers again, thereby eroding his political base. Learning from the experiences of the governors before him. A case in point is Goje vs Yahya of Gombe.
If he presented a case of PDP rigging at the courts, this may hamper the genuity of the entire 2023 election in Rivers state and could affect the entire political victory across the board, which may result in losing some of the seats of the members already sympathetic to Wike. More losses.
If Fubara on the other hand moves alongside Amaechi, the question of ethnic politics marketed by Wike and his team will be decided in favor of the governor because Amechi is already an Ikwerre man.
If Wike eventually returns to APC, the APC structure may swap to the opposition, ripping APC of core loyalists from our party in favor of new entrants. A win from one side but a loss from the other.
As it stands now, the only thing holding Wike’s political capital is the seat as the FCT Minister. If he ceases to be FCT minister, the loyalty from his current team cannot be guaranteed.
Most importantly, Rivers State is a traditional PDP domain. Most of the establishments in Rivers are for the PDP, the traditional rulers are for the PDP and the people at the grassroots have been with the PDP.
In as much as our party, the APC is playing a tactical game here, we must look at things strategically. We must play our cards very well in favor of future election victories. Rivers is a rich and influential State with a high-level political maturity. We may choose to conciliate Wike where it is required, but we should not lose sight of maintaining our stronger relationship with the Rivers PDP establishment since the current governor might not be planning for any position beyond governorship in 2027.
We must be careful not to inherit some unnecessary enmity from the people we truly need in favor of some friends with unstable political capital for the sake of our future election victories.
