Belligerent and with a voice that is mid-way between
gruffness and barking, Wike's mysterious escape from conviction in 2008 was not
his last brush with allegations of stealing public funds. Information available
to 247 ureports.com from Federal Ministry of Education sources in Abuja allege
that the education minister Wike may have elevated the act of bribery by a
quantum leap – which has caught principals of federal government colleges
crying foul.
Saddled with the responsibility of overseeing
federally owned schools as minister of state, it is alleged that during the
disbursement of N16.7 billion of allocated funds for running the schools in the
fourth quarter of 2012, the then minister of state Wike had summoned the
principals to a closed door meeting at the federal secretariat Abuja to demand
for a 40% kickback from the allocation.
It was alleged that previously, the principals had
been paying a 15% kick-back to the minister of state. Wike's alleged demand of
40% was equivalent to an increase from N2.5 billion to N6.68 billion for the
fourth quarter of 2012 alone. This was most painful for the principals ( about
70 of them) who were unable to fight back because the minister had the power to
sack them without pension or other accumulated gratuities. According to
247ureports, one of the principals remarked that corruption at the minister's
office was 'too airtight and concretized' to evade the eyes of investigators
and claimed that the dilapidated infrastructure which litter Federal Government
College school compounds are symptomatic of the fraudulent deductions allegedly
made quarterly at the office of the minister of state. According to
247ureports, a source within the ministry claimed that the minister had
expressed 'interests of joining the gubernatorial contest of 2015 and may have
begun amassing the necessary war-chest'
The Civil Society Network Against Corruption (CSNAC)
had also petitioned the EFCC over the alleged corrupt practices of Nyesom Wike,
minister of Education urging the commission to investigate Ahmed Mohammed,
former executive secretary of Universal Basic Education UBE. According to the
petition signed by CSNAC's chairman Olanrewaju Suraju, Wike and Ahmed Mohammed
had mismanaged over N50 billion fund allocated to primary education. Ruqayyatu
Rufai, then the education minister was also indicted. According to the
petition, 'the contract for the building of Almajiri schools and supply of
textbooks was alleged to have been allocated to the front of Nyesom Wike which
is in conflict of interests with regards to his position as Minister of State
for Education.
Nyesom Wike is a very rich man though he has never
really held a job outside government appointments. After law school, he had
interned for a few years in the law chambers of John Mbata (later senator)
before Mbata put him forward to run for the council chairmanship of Obio-Akpor
which is said to be the second richest council in Nigeria. It is certainly the
seat of the Nigerian oil industry, hosting the industrial and residential areas
of oil majors and global oil servicing conglomerates including Shell (SPDC),
Total, Agip, Slumberger and many more. After two terms as council chairman, he
became chief of staff, Government House Port Harcourt and finally a Nigerian
minister for Education. His wages as a public office holder can not explain the
enormous wealth which he is using to build his gubernatorial movement the GDI.
He always travels in a private jet and was riding in armoured cars many years
before Stella Oduah got the idea. Wike owns a massive multi-billion naira hotel
building in Port Harcourt called Hesteria, another massive multi-billion naira
complex on Stadium Road, Port Harcourt and multi-million naira choice
properties in Abuja and Port Harcourt including his present home on William
Jumbo Street right across the road from Government House, Port Harcourt.
People are outraged by Nyesom Wike's not so
covert gubernatorial contensions because it smacks of disregard for the ethnic
groups which are yet to produce a governor of Rivers State. It seems to many a
mark of high greed and inordinate ambition for Wike to embark on the grand
exploitation of the President's estranged relationship with his former boss
Rotimi Amaechi, all the time plotting under cover a gubernatorial invasion of
Rivers State, never minding that this guber-hunger, the lust of taking over
from Amaechi (a fellow Ikwerre) for another eight years would be a rape on the
turn-by-turn conscience and brotherhood of Rivers people. This ruthless
aggression against the accepted way of sharing power in the state portends to
be far more destructive than the impunity over which Wike has superintended
while allowing the blame to rest on the president. The aggressive invasion of
the Rivers political space by Wike has created much concern but it is now being
speculated that he has been warned by insiders at the Villa to back away from
his gubernatorial schemes. There is no evidence that he has heeded that advice.
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