By Innocent Okon
In South-South Nigeria, there’s a musician that treats fun loving people of Akwa Ibom and Cross River states to sensuous songs!
Like Sir Shina Peters in the South West, if you can’t identify his voice in the music, you will definitely hear him remindking you of his name several times in the course of the song.
He goes by the stage name, Sir Wilker Jackson, and his lyrics would not dissuade you to think he is not a ladies man!
I have had the privilege of watching his shows and can confidently posit that what God took from him in looks, he abundantly made up with creativity and commanding unique voice.
Although most of his songs are done in Ibibio and Efik languages, he once came up with a song which he offered both in English, pidgin and Ibibio languages. That evergreen song is entitled : LIKE PLAY LIKE PLAY, SIR WILKER BECOME NUMBER ONE!
The song is about his travails in the music industry and the resounding success that has come his way as a reward. A musical story of grass to grace we have read and told many a time!
In the same South-South Nigeria is one oil-(rich political bloc called Rivers state. The state has a serving Governor that is arguably loud and proud. He likes spilling the beans and definitely an interviewer’s delight any day.
His name is Nyesom Wike and his many controversies and battles are the widgets you can access and assess his administration. He is not the best choice for a public Relations porfolio nor a Diplomatic service. He is untamed, loquacious, rugged and belligerent.
His resume reveals that he was once a chairman of a local government council in the state; Chief of Staff to a state Governor, and a Minister of state for Education at the Federal level before his present job as a Governor.
His present duty post has afforded the nation to know Governor Wike as a stormy petrel with an inestimable nuisance value! He belongs to the leading opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and truth be told, his utterances and conduct, either in the past or in recent times, have generated more discomfort, anxiety and concerns to both the party and some Nigerians.
Sometime this year, Wike contested the Presidential primaries of his party and finished a distant second behind the former Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar. Since then, neither the Party nor the polity has known peace!
Wike’s sense of entitlement is contestably awful. It’s either his way or the highway. Once upon a time, he had suo motu ‘picked’ a national chairman for the Party in the person of Uche Secondus.
The present national chairman of his party, which he now mobilises to kick out of office, was reportedly ‘installed’ by him and his cabal. He is now seen in political circles as the reigning Miss Political bride in Nigeria.
Desperate political suitors now take turns to beg for his attention in both Port Harcourt and London!
Yes, as our Sir Wilker Jackson sang, “like play l, like play” Wike has become the number one choice in political courtship.
But at what cost? Why should the commonwealth of the people of Rivers state always be deployed to break coconuts that are going to be served to the entire nation?
In 2007, then Governor Peter Odili did same. In 2015, Chubuike Amaechi as a Governor did same. This is 2022 with an election year within earshot, another Governor of Rivers state now prefers convening political meetings in London than in his home state! As at the last check, the people of South-South geo-political bloc of Nigeria are republicans in political disposition. They don’t like being dictated to and taken for granted! Is Wike reckoning with this immutable truth? Let Wike dance. But let him watch his back.
Okon, and a lawyer, lives in Uyo.