Chief Edwin Clark and His Manner of Politicking

Chief Edwin Clark is by all standards a notable Nigerian. A rabid Ijaw irredentist, he came into national prominence when the former military Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, appointed him a federal Commissioner. Since then, he has not left the limelight. His Itsekiri and Urhobo compatriots tolerate him as a benign irritant. At the national level, he is accommodated for his nuisance value even as an elder statesman. He comes across to most as the ‘attack dog’ of Any Government In Power (AGIP). Clark is in the news again for the familiar reason of going out of his way to curry favour with any incumbent government and lampooning past administrations that had granted him access to their dining tables.

The saying that failure is an orphan is coming alive with the reported utterances of the Ijaw chief who had made it known to Nigerians that hell will be let loose if Goodluck Jonathan was denied the opportunity to serve a second term as President of Nigeria. In less than six months of Jonathan leaving office, Clark is embarking on a political somersault unfit for a personality of his stature. He is telling the whole world that the same man he misled into believing that he was electorally invincible was a weak leader who lacked the political will to fight corruption. Under Jonathan’s administration, Clark got himself an approval for a private university which he built in record time. This is in addition to other perks he got by virtue of his nepotistic affiliation to a fellow Ijawman in government and power.

Not done, he is alleging that the same former President Olusegun Obasanjo he hob-knobbed with when he was in power legalised corruption. President Muhammadu Buhari he dismissed as a mullah and an Islamic fundamentalist has suddenly become the apple of his eyes with the magic wand to rid the nation of corruption and crush the Boko Haram menace. At the peak of the presidential campaign and in reaction to Buhari’s pledge to defeat the terrorist group, Clark stopped short of accusing him of being one of their promoters. The Buhari we know is streetwise enough to know whose hands to shake. If Clark is trying to divert the beams of the anti-corruption searchlight from himself, then he is welcome to his methods. But we acknowledge that this administration is savvy enough not to be carried away by the pretences of habitual and unrepentant gold diggers.

To add effect to his not too unexpected gaffe, he claims not only to have quit politics and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) but that he will not join the All Progressives Congress (APC). He may be thinking that he is still of electoral value at this time in the nation’s democratic journey. His Ijaw compatriots know better.

In our opinion, a man like Edwin Clark, a big masquerade, should know when to leave the arena especially as his antecedents are open to public scrutiny.

The post Clark And The AGIP Syndrome appeared first on Nigerian News from Leadership News.

Source: Leadership