By Ekesunnie Caleb 

As the 2027 general elections tempo unravel, a lot of politicians and their supporters had been mobilising within the  traditional media and the entire blogosphere and other visible formats and platform even as the election bell had just been rung. For the race to the Brick house, the name of the seat of power of Rivers State, pundits can tell you for free at the moment that the immediate past Minority Leader of the 10th House, House of Representatives, Ogundu Kingsley Chinda is coasting home to victory with all available indices but that will be for another day when the manifesto debuts and field work starts.

If there is anything significant in the ensuing campaign, it will be the performance record of predecessors, name recognition and capacity of flag bearers to wit: Nyesom Wike the FCT minister and former governor of Rives state and former governor of Rivers State and former transportation minister, Rotimi Amaechi, backing the candidates of the  All Progressives Congress, Rt. Hon. O K China and Africa Democratic Congress, ADC, Chief Gabriel Pidomson respectively; the capacity, performance, pedigree and records of both gladiators will sure count even for those who have no political backings.

I watched with interest, a trending video on Arise TV and which also trended on the social media where the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Eze Nyesom Wike at a programme in Ikwerre local government in his lively and captivating theatrical characteristics waxed ‘ no more battalion for many thousand years’ single. That single will rule the airwaves beyond the campaign season.

Wike’s musical composition is legendary and second to none at the moment.  In the single, Wike posites that before noon of the election day, his opponent will direct his followers to boycott the election because they would have been roundly defeated electorally because things have changed; Amaechi would no longer have access to battalion of soldiers, police and other instruments of state coercion as before.

I read Chief Rotimi Amaechi, CRA as fondly called, reel out his record, high points and achievement as Governor of Rivers State when he built primary schools likened to secondary schools and secondary schools likened to tertiary institutions in terms of structural outlay and standards; how he paid pregnant women N10,000 support, built railways from Kaduna to Abuja, Katsina to Maradi in Niger Republic. I also saw his video at a gathering in his Ubima hometown where he castigated President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s economic policies on fuel subsidy removal with promise to revert to status quo when elected as Vice President and all that.

I also watched him sometime at a protest in Abuja with his son, a Canada trained medical doctor if I am not mistaken wherein he said he was ‘hungry’ few months after leaving office and I began to wonder how the common man would construe his hunger; would it be a literal or metaphorical because Nigerians are wary of turncoating and trebblespeak. Who brought the APC as a political party to power? Who were the masterminds of the APC? Telling his associates and supporters with full chest as Nigerians say that he conspired to bring on the APC and would do same to take them down will not work this time because the party as presently constituted warehouses formidable politics mechinery which make such thought, effort and aspiration nothing but a pipe dream. January and February 2027 will tell better.

At the regional and state level, South-South and South-East will not rally behind CRA Vice Presidency cascading to his governorship candidate for Rivers State; a vice Presidential candidate who personally torpedoed former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s presidency will not sell in the South South and South East geo-political zones; the old block of the People’s democratic Party (PDP) have not forgiven him for removing Jonathan from office rather his Vice Presidential bid would re-open the wounds.

CRA will struggle very hard to convince Rivers people of the monumental failure called monorail project which he began but remains largely mumified at Borikiri to the extent that he lost or wasted the privilege of a minister of transportation under whom same railway affairs fell on his portfolio and for eight solid years, he never blinked an eye to either resuscitate or facilitate its completion as a super Minister under President Muhammadu Buhari administration.

His defence of being a state project which is not on exclusive legislative list will not fly because proactive leadership will engender cooperation between the state and the federal government in the interest and delivery of social services to the masses, that’s the end of politics and good governance but an opportunity he missed.  This would be compared and contrasted with the waste railed away to Niger Republic with lost national income and waste of humongous scare public resources which at the moment had been ripped and scraped by illicit ironmongers called ‘babanbolas’. This situation and account will not be lost during the campaigns as he would be required to account for it.

Nyesom Wike the FCT minister on the other hand is ready to give account of his stewardship as  minster of state, education in the GEJ administration of just one term starting from the number of universities and high institutions across the nation which are standing tall till date, the radical and innovative change in almajiri education which mopped thousands of out of school children symbolic and symptomatic of one social dysfunctionality index predominant in the North which Wike identified and reasonably profered a cure within the period.

CRA will struggle to campaign in the South South and the South East to promote himself and his gubernatorial candidate among other contestants he is fielding for different posts in the forthcoming general election because he must face public scrutiny for his eight year stewardship as a super minister in Buhari government with regard to what the South South and the South East at least got through his influence such that he is confident to ask for their vote to become vice president. Denigrating Tinubu and the APC with his ‘hunger’ theory will not work this time.

On the other hand, no one is in doubt of the sobriquet ‘WIW’, meaning that Wike is working in realising the Renewed hope agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, res ipsa loquitor; the transformational and development strides undertaken by Wike is unmatched such that even his critics will attest to the fact that Wike deserves his bragging right. Wike is aware of this and makes no joke about it.

His eight year period as governor of Rivers State still leaves a monumental visibility till this day which will come to play as the campaign rolls when Wike, the APC, formidable polical stakeholders will unveil the man of the moment who by every estimation will follow the development footsteps of Eze Nyesom Wike, I am referring to Ogundu Kingsley Chinda whom the voters have already declared ‘ our own’, the incoming executive governor of Rivers state come may 29, 2027.

Caleb is Chief Press Secretary to Ogundu Kingsley Chinda, Rivers APC gubernatorial candidate, 2027 general election.