Elder statesman and leader of the Ijaw nation, Chief Edwin Clark, has dismissed comments made by the leader of the Ijaw People’s Congress, Senator George Sekibo, saying they overrated the role played by the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Barrister Nyesom Wike, in the Ijaws and Rivers Politics.
Sekibo, while leading a delegation of the Ijaw People’s Congress, to a meeting with the Prof. Benjamin Okaba -led Ijaw National Congress and Ijaw Youth Council, at the Ijaw House in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, on Friday, had said that the narrative that the FCT Minister hated the Ijaws was not true.
He also said that the Ijaws were a minority in the state, adding that the Minister (Wike) had given five of nine federal appointments in the state, to Ijaw indigenes.
However, in a letter to Senator Sekibo on Sunday, Clark said the Ijaws had made sacrifices for the survival of Rivers State, of which Wike himself was a beneficiary, stressing that the Ijaws supported the FCT Minister to his current political level, and that they had never asked him to bow to them throughout his two tenures as Governor of Rivers State.
Clark described the Wike-Fubara feud as sad and disturbing, noting that Wike epitomized the godfather-godson syndrome.
The letter partly reads “I am therefore at loss when I listened to your narrative regarding the unimaginable extent to which Wike has helped the Ijaw people. On the contrary, perhaps unknown to you, Wike has been the number one beneficiary of the goodwill of the Ijaw people. Throughout his political life, he has benefited from the help of the Ijaws.
“That is why his disagreement with Siminalayi Fubara whom he had picked over and above all our other sons and daughters, is quite sad and at times, disturbing. It is not a fight between the Ijaws and other groups. No, because this fight is actually about what is right and proper. He epitomized the so-called godfather-godson syndrome.
“He is not the first person to have been a major political actor and later come to the centre. Many of us were key political power brokers in our states and came to the centre, yet shun suffocating godfatherism roles as much as possible”.
He further urged the Senator and his colleagues to advise Wike to focus on his job as FCT Minister, noting that his image had been dented on the national scene, pointing out that what Sekibo and other leaders were doing, was akin to “sacrificing the Ijaw soul on the platter of political patronage”.
The letter further read, “Since you and your colleagues are close associates of Wike and are ready to go to any extent to promote his image which has now become totally dented at the national scene, it is time to advise him to face his work in Abuja and leave the governor to do his work.
“My dear son, you are an Ijaw man from Ogu. Did the people of Ogu lord it over Barr. Nyesom Wike because they fought to make him Governor? What you and your fellows are doing is sacrificing the Ijaw soul on the platter of political patronage. Think again!”, he added