Former Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, has revealed how he was saved from a plane crash as was his wife from cancer during the 2023 presidential election.
Wike disclosed during a Thanksgiving service at the St. Peters Deanery, Rumuepirikom, Obio-Akpor area of the state, that his wife was diagnosed with cancer during the campaign. He said that he had contemplated quitting the campaigns, but his wife encouraged him to continue.
“Being a strong woman, my wife never showed it. But today my wife is hale and hearty. The cancer incident was the one I knew that God had done all for me,” said Wike. The former governor also said that a fire mysteriously gutted his wife’s room and destroyed her belongings while he was on a campaign trip.
Sharing on his close shave with a plane crash while traveling to Abuja after the presidential primaries, Wike said “15 minutes after takeoff at the air force base, we heard an explosion. They locked up the cockpit. One engine is gone and the pilot said it was safer to turn back to Port Harcourt. Before we landed, there were many ambulances and fire service trucks lined up. We landed safely by the Grace of God. I didn’t tell anybody”
While narrating how he had similar near-death experience from poisoning, Wike narrated that “In December 2018, it was a day my former Chief of Staff was going to have Thanksgiving. I was to attend that Thanksgiving. From that Sunday I never came down from my room. It was bad. But those who attended the January 1st state banquet of 2019 will know that I never spoke that day. I just sat down there and told the Deputy Governor to speak on my behalf. I thought it was over”.
He went on to share that he was flown to a hospital in Beirut at midnight where doctors informed him that he had no liver or kidney after running a series of tests. “I didn’t know I had been poisoned at our party’s secretariat,” he said, adding that the doctors discharged him after he received treatments, and after he returned home, he decided not to enter any party leader’s home during the course of his campaigns.
According to the former governor, he kept most of the incidents secret to avoid frightening his supporters. “God was in charge, everybody who knew how we came to power in 2015 knew it was turbulent. But God saw us through. When you are in office, many people think things are going well with you. Nobody wants to find out the problems you are facing as a human,” he said.
