By: Ifeanyi Izeze
Okrika wake Up! Okrika wake Up, no mean say Okrika de sleep nor slumber o! Na because Okrika no de do wetin dem suppose do when situation warrants! No be me talkam o, na Boma Erekosima talkam!
If you talk true, you die! If you don’t talk, you die! Is it not better for Rivers people to talk now and die.All die na die, abi!
How else can anybody describe the President’s and Nyesome Wike’s act of appointing a non-state indigene to head the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission (RSIEC) if not to say it was a direct affront to the entire people of Rivers State irrespective of the divide they belong. Whether you support Nyesom Wike or Governor Siminalayi Fubara in the ongoing tussle is immaterial here.
Are there such precedents anywhere in Nigeria whether now or since 1999 that this democratic dispensation was birthed? Or is it to say that Rivers state and its people deserve such experimentation to start with?
Even from common sense, it is known that the RSIEC Act as it is should not have recommended a non-indigene to head the electoral body not to talk of the court of public opinion.
Fubara should have been aware that the only restraining force his antagonists were afraid of was the massive support/protest by all strata of the Rivers society- elder statesmen, traditional rulers, youths, women, school children, and some ethnic nationality groups particularly the Ijaw National Congress (INC) and Ijaw Youths Council (IYC), that lined up behind him in support.
But in his naivety, the embattled governor, was decoyed into accepting the skewed conditionality for his reinstatement making him do stupid things including publicly cautioning/attacking those who were fanning the fire of protest against his removal and subsequent enthronement of a military rule in place of the democratically elected government. He warned those fighting for him to stop talking for him without first getting clearance from him.
Hear him (paraphrased): Who told you people I still want to go back to Government House as governor? Before you talk on my behalf, you must first get my consent/clearance. You cannot be speaking your mind and pretending to be talking on my behalf.
See classic Iberiberism or as Wike rightly put it: Mumurity is Mumurity!
This is someone that the societal goodwill (the only support he had) was trying to rescue from perdition. In his naivety he allowed himself to be turned against the only backbone he had. By the time Wike and his gang finish with him, he will be wiser by learning the very bitter lesson in politics. Those who know Sim Fubara should better tell him that there is no forgiveness, no peace deal in politics especially in Nigerian dark politics. He should as Chibuike Amaechi, Ambode and Tinubu of Lagos, Orji Uzo Kalu and Obasanjo amongst several others across the country.
Remember that this same Governor Fubara thanked President Tinubu for declaring state of emergency in Rivers state. He did not know that Emergency Rule has no time limit because it is a “state of abnormality,” that solely depends on the President’s prerogative of either mercy or callousness.
Now all the groups and individuals who would have been raising fire against Wike and the entire idea of Emergency Rule in the state have decided to simply keep quiet and mind their business after all they can’t be drinking Panadol for Fubara’s headache.
Sim, will thou be made whole? Receive sense and fight the good fight of faith and lay hold to what belongs to you! And if ye be willing and obedient to this counsel, you’ll eat the good of the land. Otherwise, you don go o!
The likes of the former factional Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State, Tony Okocha, have continued to dismissed any prospects of political forgiveness for Sim Fubara, stating that even a defection to the APC would not absolve him. And if anybody thinks Okocha just talks for himself, such person better wakeup his ideas as said in the military.
Whether anybody wants to hear this or not, the game plan is to completely isolate the embattled governor and grossly diminish his influence making him irrelevant in the political manoeuvrings and structure of the state. And whether the perpetrators are succeeding at that, my answer is a very big Yes!
As already decoded, rendering Sim Fubara irrelevant is part of a larger plan to hand over political and resources control of Rivers State to Nyesom Wike ahead of the 2027 elections. A crucial element of that plan includes the conduct of local government elections—previously scheduled by RSIEC for August 15, 2025—under a pro-Wike administrative setup.
Is it not curious that despite the emergency rule, the 27 pro-Wike lawmakers have remained in residence at the Assembly quarters along Aba Road in Port Harcourt—contrary to directives from the sole administrator?
In contrast, Governor Fubara has been evicted from the Government House, and security agents reportedly seized official vehicles from the deputy governor in a commando-style operation.
The clear indication is that the obvious lopsided ongoing emergency rule-political appointments is a deliberate agenda to ensure that if ever Fubara returns to office, he would find himself boxed into a political cocoon with little or no control at all over the state’s governance machinery including the resources. He will be completely useless as executive governor because he will only do what the ‘Amalekites’ want him to do.
Truth be told, Fubara’s antagonists using the President are obviously intending to incapacitate and ground him at one term and give the controversial State Assembly Members automatic second tenures each as compensation.
Without doubt, the body language of President Tinubu shows he’s preferring instead to act strictly in what he deems to be in the best interest of his2027 re-election gimmicks.
And even if Fubara is reinstated at the end of the Emergency Rule (only God knows when), with the new political structure through the ongoing dubious appointments Wike and the Military Administrator are covertly emplacing now, Fubara is even most likely to be impeached before this his chequered tenure runs out except he just plays along as a Dundi United. And even if he is tolerated to run out his term, there’s all likelihood his antagonists will unleash the EFCC on him just to make sure he doesn’t recover to give anybody trouble post 2027. Mark my word!
The National Assembly’s emergency rule gazette allows the president to end the six-month period at any time, provided peace is deemed restored. However, recent appointments under Ibas has been grossly skewed to favoured Wike’s loyalists, side-lining the Fubara’s people, if he still has anybody standing with him as his faction except the few key politicians that have been marked by the invading force as enemy soldiers.
Mind you, Local Government Chairmen and their deputies including all the council appointees are to be paid directly from the Federation Allocation Accounts Commission (FAAC). By this policy, the 774 local government across the country including the embattled ones from Rivers state now owes their allegiance and subsumed as such to the centre.
President Tinubu has transmitted to the Nigerian Senate for Confirmation Wike’s nominated members of: Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission (RSIEC); Rivers State Primary Healthcare Board; Rivers State Civil Service Commission; and Rivers State Local Government Civil Service Commission.
Five (5) Nominees to occupy the positions of Chairman and Members of the Rivers State Civil Service Commission and the seven (7) Nominees to occupy the positions of Chairman and Members of the Rivers State Local Government Service Commission.
All these appointments, are they dance steps of a President/mediator who is truly and sincerely out to make peace in the state?
How can you beat a child and at the same time forbid him from crying out? The people have the Right to protest, reject, resist, refuse to accept and/or lobby for reversal of the strange fire imposed on Rivers State from the centre just to satisfy one man, I mean one man. Haba, what kind of a country is this?
Now it’s being alleged that the Military Administrator of Rivers State, Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ekwe Ibas (rtd) has already siphoned N13.8billion from 23 Local Government funds as a fallout of the Emergency Rule. Where the money was taken to or who the money was given, only God knows for now!
Is it not clear that the Emergency Rule was never in the interest of the state but all about the control of funds of Rivers State? And sadly, the indigenes of the state are simply looking on while their common patrimony is being brazenly stolen.
These are matters Rivers people should be taking up but for whatever reasons, it looks they have surrendered to allowing whoever gains access to the state funds to loot as they like without any restriction whatsoever. Sim Fubara’s artlessness caused all these. May God help Rivers State and its people, Amen!
(IFEANYI IZEZE writes from Abuja: iizeze@yahoo.com; 234-8033043009)
