Why Wike Can’t Win This Fight With Fubara  

Why Wike Can’t Win This Fight With Fubara

 

 

There are several battles one fights in life: some you win, some you lose. It is only the unwise who thinks all battles must be won. Discretion, they say, is the better part of valour.

 

Since after the election of 2023, while many states have moved on, for Rivers State, it has been a war without end. The war of attrition between incumbent Governor Simi­nalayi Fubara and his benefactor and predecessor Nyesom Wike, will only have one outcome: impact negatively on the fortunes of the state.

 

For Wike as godfather all arsenals within his disposal would be deployed to wear down a sitting governor just to prove that he made him governor. And what is at the centre of it all: ego. The bruised ego of Wike, now Minis­ter of the FCT.

 

Presidency to Wike, face your job in Abuja, count Tinubu out of Rivers crisis

 

True, Wike may have single-hand­edly installed Fubara, his Accountant General, as governor but it will be na­ive of him to think that he can still hold on to the levers of power after leaving office.

 

Truth is that Wike has lost this one, and the earlier he comes to terms with this reality, the better for him.

 

The issue is not who is right or who is wrong. You can accuse Fubara of ingratitude but that does nothing to help the complexity of the crisis. Fubara is now the governor and Wike must move on. Our political landscape is replete with stories of godsons rubbishing their godfathers. Fubara is not the first and would not be the last. After all, Wike himself was also a beneficiary of this, both as minister of state for education and as governor, under former President Goodluck Jonathan.

 

Moments after the election when this crisis started, Wike told a dele­gation of Rivers Caucus in the 10th National Assembly comprising three Senators and 11 members of the House of Representatives, who visited him in Abuja, that he was not interested in the governance of Riv­ers but wants the political structure he had put in place to remain intact.

 

This was after reported attempts by the state House of Assembly to remove Governor Fubara.

 

He had said: “I was a governor for eight years. I am now FCT Minister, and some will say that I am asking for 25 percent. That is madness.

 

“I am not interested in the gover­nance of Rivers; I am not interested. I am here as a governor in FCT, but I am interested in the political struc­ture of Rivers, which we have built over the years.

 

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“If anybody dares to bring it down, the person will face the crisis he wants in his life. Perform or don’t perform, but don’t touch our political structure.

 

“Anybody who puts his hand in our structure, anything you see, take it.”

 

 

He accused the governor of hob­nobbing with his political foes. For him, whether Fubara delivers service to the larger population of the people in the state or not he does not care; his only worry is Fubara’s fraternity with his sworn enemies.

 

If Wike is as smart as one thinks he is, he should know that with these actions of his he is only leaving Fuba­ra with no option other than running into the embrace and open arms of his political opponents. After all, like they say: the enemy of my enemy is my best friend.

 

In December 2023, 27 members of the state house of assembly defected from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) to join the All Progressives Congress (APC). The lawmakers, led by Martin Amaewhule, are loyal to Wike.

 

The legislators gave the crisis within the PDP as reason for their defection.

 

The Rivers legislature is a 32-mem­ber assembly. One lawmaker died shortly after the 2023 general elec­tions, leaving 31 members. Out of 31 members, 27 are loyal to Wike, while four are loyal to Governor Fubara.

 

Recently, the Rivers State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) ordered its members in the state House of Assembly to com­mence impeachment process against Governor Fubara.

 

APC’s impeachment call is com­ing barely 24 hours after Governor Fubara had said the House of Assem­bly led by Martin Amaewhule, is not recognised by law.

 

 

Chairman of the APC in Rivers State, Chief Tony Okocha, said in a press conference in Port Harcourt that the impeachment process was necessary because the governor “has insulted the sensibility” of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

 

 

APC said the Governor’s blatant refusal to honour the peace agree­ment initiated by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu between Fubara and Wike, some months ago and his recent declaration of the lawmakers’ seats vacant, were responsible for the impeachment move.

 

Recall that last Monday, Governor Fubara had declared, for the first time since the commencement of the cri­sis, that the APC lawmakers do not exist in the eyes of the law, adding that “those group of men who claim that they are Assembly members, they are not existing…their existence and whatever they have been doing is be­cause I allow them to do so. If I don’t recognize them, they are nowhere”.

 

He said the lawmakers are only existing based on his interest in the Abuja peace accord initiated by Pres­ident Tinubu.

 

Fubara said despite wielding state powers which he can deploy to achieve his aim, he has continued to act as the big brother in the face of in­timidation and unwarranted attacks.

 

He revealed that he had always been present at any meeting that was called to resolve the crisis in the state but after each meeting, he was met with a new dimension of the crisis from the opposing side.

 

He said: “Those group of men who claim that they are Assembly mem­bers are not Assembly members, they are not existing. I want it to be on re­cord. I accepted that Peace Accord to give them a floating. That is the truth.

 

 

“We might have our division but I believe that one day, we could also come together but it has gotten to a time when I have to make a statement that they are not existing. Their exis­tence is me allowing them to exist. If I de-recognise them, they are nowhere. I want you to see the sacrifice I have made in allowing peace to reign in our state.”

 

And to walk the talk, Fubara, im­plemented a minor cabinet reshuffle in the state. Affected by the reshuffle are the Attorney General and Com­missioner for Justice, Zacchaeus Adangor; and the Commissioner for Finance, Isaac Kamalu.

 

Both commissioners, who are loy­alists of ex-governor Wike, had previ­ously resigned from their positions last December in the heat of the polit­ical crisis but they were reinstated as part of the peace agreement initiated by President Bola Tinubu.

 

How the APC expects to eat its cake and still have it beats my imagi­nation hollow.

 

In the first place, both Wike and Fubara belong to the opposition PDP. What manner of peaceful res­olution were they expecting from an APC president that would favour the PDP? Is Wike happy that his party lost 27 lawmakers to the opposition APC? What moral justification does he have to demand loyalty from Fuba­ra when he is not loyal to the party that brought him to prominence?

 

The President brokered a peace in which the APC is the main ben­eficiary and yet hoped it would last in a PDP state. A so-called peaceful agreement that gives the APC an up­per hand in the affairs of a PDP state.

 

APC harvested 27 PDP state leg­islators in one fell swoop and they expect a symbiotic relationship to exist between the Assembly and the governor. That is stretching one’s luck too far. It was a matter of time before the cookies would crumble.

 

 

Last Wednesday, the governor’s camp elected the member represent­ing Bonny State Constituency, Victor Oko-Jumbo as a factional Speaker of the State Assembly.

 

Wike has an assignment which should pre-occupy him. Rivers State is completely out of his control, his insistence on controlling the affairs in the state would amount to swim­ming against the tide. He spent his eight years there and now it is the turn of Fubara. If anything, Fuba­ra being Ijaw, is the first from that extraction to be governor since 1999, what would Wike tell the people now is the reason he wants to deny them this opportunity?

 

Wike must learn from the expe­rience of those before him. When former Adams Oshiomhole was hell-bent on sacking his godson and cur­rent governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki, all appeals to him to back down fell on deaf ears. That obstinacy almost cost him his political career.

 

If Fubara is the choice of the peo­ple of the state, it would amount to arrogating too much power to him­self to think that he can dislodge him from outside of the state.

 

As for the defected 27 legislators, I will point to the experience of the Edo legislators who were doing the bidding of their Abuja-based bene­factor, Oshiomhole, who was then the chairman of the APC. They will live to rue their indiscretion. What will they say is the dispute in the PDP for which they have decamped? Is the APC too free of crisis when they joined and now?

 

The power of an incumbent gov­ernor is such that when he exercises it even his political godfather would scamper for safety. If in doubt, the experience of Orji Uzor Kalu in the hands of Theodore Orji in Abia and Ken Nnamani in hands Chimaroke Nnamani in Enugu would suffice if that of Edo is not enough.