For celebrating his son’s recent graduation from a foreign institution, social Media users have criticized the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, over the act.
Wike who is the immediate past Governor of Rivers State, had shared the celebration on his X handle, an action that has resulted to backlash from critics, particularly Rivers indigenes.
Some Critics alleged that in 2015, shortly after Wike assumed office as governor, he cancelled the sponsorship of Rivers State students studying abroad under the Rivers State Sustainable Development Agency, RSSDA.
The scholarship programme, initiated by his predecessor, Rt Hon Rotimi Amaechi, became dormant during Wike’s tenure, leaving students and their families in distress.
They angrily accused Wike of depriving Rivers youths of international educational opportunities while funding his own son’s foreign education.
The criticism resulted in the emergence of an old video of Wike on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily where Wike argued that certain courses, including law, should be studied in Nigeria rather than abroad.
A Port Harcourt-based youth activist, Charles Jaja, described the situation as hypocritical, questioning why Wike prioritised his son’s education abroad while cancelling similar opportunities for others during his administration.
According to him: “Years back, former Governor Wike pulled out all Rivers children sent abroad to study at various foreign universities by Rotimi Amaechi’s administration, claiming that Amaechi only wasted Rivers money in sending those children abroad to study courses that could have been offered here in Nigeria.
“Today, he’s on his handle celebrating the graduation of his own son in the UK, where he studied law. Is this not hypocritical in all ramifications?
“He says one thing and does another. Why didn’t he allow his own son to study law here in RSU (Rivers State University) or in any other university in Nigeria?
“It is a complete injustice on his own part to have deprived these children of benefiting from what the state had to offer them, by returning them to Nigeria and not allowing them to complete the course of their dreams where they were sent to study.
“I certainly believe that the cry of these children has risen to God as a memorial and that God will certainly avenge their cries for them. If not now, certainly later.”
