The history Buhari’s stanza of the fourth republic will be incomplete without due honour to the Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike. Once in 2018, I compared him to the Great Mansa Musa of the old Mali Empire. In 2022 when he lost the PDP presidential ticket to Atiku Abubakar, I also wrote, eulogizing him as the forte of the old Eastern Region. However, it appears the loss of that ticket has turned Wike more unpredictable, unexpected and bewildering. Has the fate of Germanicus Caesar struck the foremost Governor of the Buhari era?
Germanicus Gaius Caesar, nicknamed Gaius Caligula, became Roman Emperor in AD 37 after the death of the unwilling Emperor Tiberius Caesar, under whom our Lord Christ Jesus was crucified in AD 33.
An ambitious emperor, who captured territories, Caligula unified the vast empire’s army commands in the Middle East and Africa, bringing all under the total monopoly of despotic rule. He was known for visiting cruelty on his subjects . But he was great in battle and committed efforts to modernize the city of Rome.
Then, something happened! Caligula suffered a strange illness, survived, but became strange. Like Caligula or unlike him( whichever you choose) when Wike bitterly lost the PDP presidential primaries, and the consolation vice presidential ticket also eluded him, thus set in, a sudden inexplicable.
Away from Nigeria and back to ancient Rome, Caligula among others, turned his horse to an adviser! And struck by epicureanism, he took extravagance to the peak, squandering the treasury which his predecessor, Tiberius Caesar had inherited from the Great Augustus Caesar and which he nurtured to multiples! Caligula went further. He wanted his subjects to view him as a god! This pretention to divinity was to cause him greatly when he ordered his status be erected in the Temple in Jerusalem. Herod Agrippa saved the chaos when at the risk of being executed by Agrippa , he prevailed on him to shelve the plan. This Edomite who became Herod Agrippa was capricious and would later want to erect the same status he prevailed on Caligula against. An aside ! It is this same Agrippa whom biblical account in the Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 12, says was eaten by worms for failing to disclaim a disquieting acclaim to divinity by the people of Judah .
Caligula’s illusion of greatness was to infinity, that he demeaned many Roman citizens so much, removing titles and confiscating estates. Even some of his enemies who fled to Egypt were catapulted back. But the Romans took it no longer. They conspired with his trusted praetorian guards and removed him in AD 41.
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