Nigeria, Sept. 13 -- When I said recently that I do not see Nasir El-Rufai as significantly different from Nyesom Wike, the WhatsApp platform reacted as though I had committed an abomination. To some, it felt like calling an "angel" a "devil." The outrage was instant. But politics, like memory, is a poor archivist, and a closer look suggests both men have lived double lives in the public imagination. They are heroes to some, villains to others, and rarely both at once for the same audience.



Wike is the perfect case of how quickly the portrait is repainted. The same man now labeled an APC collaborator was once celebrated as the last man standing for the PDP, the one who bankrolled the opposition when figures like Atiku had gone quiet....