Is Wike The Nigerian Political Chichidodo?

The recent unedifying outburst of the immediate past governor of Rivers State and current minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Barrister Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, against Ireti Kingibe is unfortunate, unbecoming of a public officer of Wike’s rank; and portrays the self acclaimed political saint of Ikwerre as an itinerant peevish social irritant and a man full of himself. Ireti Kingibe is both a mother and the senator representing the FCT in the Senate. Wike’s seemingly iron-cast promise that Senator Kingibe will not return to the Senate is not just an overstatement.

It is also a pointer to the delusion of members of the elite Nigerian political cabal who think that their ‘privatisation’ of the Nigerian electoral system as demonstrated in the 2023 general elections had become settled! Wike’s statement calls for concern from Nigerian patriots, the operators of the Nigerian electoral system and the general public. In my 2023 piece on Wike entitled: ‘Wike’s flight from the earth to the mound’, I x-rayed the yawning disparity and inconsistency between the words and the actions of Wike – a man whom political pundits have allegedly dubbed the Nigerian political chichidodo. I came across the chichidodo in Ayi Kwei Amah’s classic prose: “The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born”.

The chichidodo, a bird, found in Ghana has a queer character and an uncanny reputation: The chichidodo hates human excrements with all its soul, but it relishes and depends on maggots.