Nyesom Wike and the politics of nihilism, By Austin Tam-George

FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike.

By constantly imagining himself as governor of Rivers State and seeking so desperately to control the affairs of the State, Nyesom Wike may be exhibiting the worst strain of all hallucinations – the hallucination of power… Wike and his proxies have been waging a futile battle in the courts, in the streets, and in the media, to unseat the legitimate government of Governor Siminalayi Fubara.

Over the past one year, former Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike has shown that he is unable to accept the reality that he is no longer the governor of Rivers State.

Although he is the current Minister for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), with a full bucket of administrative responsibilities to the residents of the FCT, the minister has his total attention fixed on Rivers State, where he still imagines himself as the de facto governor and political godfather.

But Wike’s psychological inability to accept and operate within reality should be of concern to all Nigerians. In clinical psychology, when a person loses touch with reality, it is called psychosis.

A person with a psychotic condition may seem perfectly fine, but they may, in fact, be living a big part of their lives in an alternate universe.

For instance, psychotic individuals may hear voices that no one else hears – psychologists call this auditory hallucination. They may also see people that no one else sees – doctors call this visual hallucination.

By constantly imagining himself as governor of Rivers State and seeking so desperately to control the affairs of the State, Nyesom Wike may be exhibiting the worst strain of all hallucinations – the hallucination of power.

Wike and his proxies have been waging a futile battle in the courts, in the streets, and in the media, to unseat the legitimate government of Governor Siminalayi Fubara.

On the 7th of October, political hoodlums burnt down the headquarters of four local government area councils in Rivers State, after the successful conclusion of the local government elections by the state’s independent electoral body.

As they set the buildings ablaze, the arsonists could be heard in chilling videos, threatening even more violence and destruction.

On 10 October, Justice Joyce Abdulmalik of the Federal High Court in Abuja gave one of most bizarre rulings in Nigeria’s jurisprudence by stopping the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Accountant-General of the federation from releasing statutory financial allocations to Rivers State.

Justice Abdulmalik gave her judgement on the basis of what many believed was a completely meritless application, filed in a distant and improbable jurisdiction, by a cohort of Wike’s loyalists who seemed bent on destabilising Rivers State.

As one of the 36 federating states of Nigeria, Rivers State has a constitutionally guaranteed right to financial allocations from the Federal Government. The allocations are made for the purpose of governance and service delivery to the millions of people who live in the state.

Therefore, if there are disputes between organs of government over budgetary matters or financial appropriation, the resolution of such disputes must at least begin within the legal jurisdiction of Rivers State.

There are over ten judicial divisions in Rivers State presided over by dozens of high court judges. So, why take matters concerning the internal financial affairs of Rivers State to Abuja – a different legal jurisdiction, which is 642.3 kilometres away?

But in her rush to judgement, Justice Abdulmalik seemed to see jurisdiction where there was none. Crucially, Her Lordship neglected to reflect on the broader damage to society which her dystopian judgement might have caused.

For example, the judgement would have denied thousands of Rivers state teachers, doctors, civil servants, sanitation workers, and retirees of their salaries and gratuities.

The judgement would have halted the delivery of basic municipal services, and thrown over two hundred thousand innocent children out of school in Rivers State.

In other words, this was a judgement that was guaranteed to break the dam of popular anger in Rivers State and beyond.

Throughout his career, the German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, insisted that there was a tenuous link between politics and mental disorder. Nietzsche warned that we should be worried when politics is driven by people with a neurotic attachment to power.

Nyesom Wike and his judicial allies may be pushing Nigeria towards the frightening nihilism that Friedrich Nietzsche warned us about.

Thankfully, on 13 December, the Appeal Court in Abuja nullified the entirety of Justice Abdulmalik’s judgement for want of jurisdiction.

But, thanks to Justice Joyce Abdulmalik, lawyers may henceforth define “judicial psychosis” as a judge’s uncanny ability to see legal jurisdiction where there is none.

Austin Tam-George is a former senior executive fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge, Massachusetts. He served as commissioner for Information and Communication in Rivers State between 2015 and 2017.