IN the Rivers front, COVID-19 appears to have birthed a severe strain of another gubernatorial virus. So, it’s politic to ask: what ails Rivers Governor, Nyesom Wike? This question is imperative because, whatever the strain, it appears getting worse, each passing day.


Well, maybe it’s patriotism — of the most virulent paternalistic hue? Well, patriotism might be the last bastion of the scoundrel. But when it’s infused with the deepest, most consuming and most doting hue of paternalistic love? What you get is an explosive cocktail!

No sooner had COVID-19 broken, and everyone started closing their “borders”, than “Father” Wike — damned if he would not, at all cost, protect his “children!” — exploded into action with fearsome ire.

His first grouse, that merited a full gubernatorial growl, loud and harsh, was with the Federal Government. Because it had aided Lagos, national COVID-19 epicenter with a grant of N10 billion, even after Lagos had gone ahead to fight a national menace, with own cash, without asking FG for a kobo, Wike declared his Rivers children federal orphans. But he assured that as he, their father lived, they would be okay.

Then Wike pounced on a helicopter service company, harshly rounding upon it, for allegedly breaking the Rivers lockdown, to airlift aliens into Rivers, putative COVID-19-positive aliens, that could infect his darling Rivers children. He swore, rippling with rare and engaging paternal love, that would happen over his dead body!


It took a shouting bout between the governor and the federal aviation authorities to settle that face-off, for Wike’s accused persons were no more than oil workers, to keep the oil sector purring, while the rest of the economy was on lockdown.


Oil workers! Those were the next Wike target, except that now the battlefront had moved from the airstrip to the road from neighboring Akwa Ibom. From that sector, came a Coaster mini-bus, with oil workers, in transit from Akwa Ibom, inward Rivers. But Wike, doting father, won’t have such nonsense!

Pronto, he ordered their “arrest” and virtually frog-jumped them into the nearest isolation center. When that push came to a shove, PENGASSAN, the senior oil workers union, threatened a strike. But with eyeball riveted on the eyeball, the governorate crow and backed off. But he had tried to protect his lovely children, as a responsible father would, see?

Each time the battle moved to different sectors, “Father” Wike rushed into a state broadcast. The beloved Rivers “children” must be informed! So far, “Hell is other people”, a famous quip from the French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1944 play, No Exit, would appear sweet music in the Rivers ear. Ironically, “no entry, no exit” rings true of the current temper of Wike’s Rivers!

But in his latest activism — destructive, not a few swear — hell isn’t other people at all, as the governor just supervised the pulling down of two hotels, whose owners allegedly flouted Rivers COVID-19 hotel regulation order.

Patrons were alleged to have partied all-night at the two hotels, COVID-19 social distancing be damned! That cropped Wike’s terrible gubernatorial ire and the hotels became mere rubbles, the demolition of one of them, under the direct supervision of the governor himself!


Now, one of the hotel owners, one of the beloved Wike “children”, is lamenting he should have built his hotel in Lagos, and not in his home state, Rivers!

Now, what ails Wike? Is the doting father hitting on his own darling “children”? Is the Rivers COVID-19 revolution of love consuming its own children? What ails Wike?