Rivers Crisis Deepens: Nigerians Alarmed as Wike and Fubara's Feud Hinders Governance

Political watchers in Rivers State are worried as the political battle between the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Chief Nyesom Wike and his political godson, Siminalayi Fubara, takes a toll on governance in the state.

DAILY POST reports that it did not take much longer after the 2023 governorship election in Rivers State and the swearing in before Governor Fubara fell out with his benefactor and the immediate past governor, Wike.

While some Nigerians and political onlookers see Wike as domineering or overbearing, others feel the governor’s refusal to remain loyal to the political structure and leadership through which power was entrusted to him, is already a betrayal of trust, as according to them, loyalty remains one of the clearest tests of character.

“Politics is not charity. Power is not a gift that arrives from heaven without human instruments. In Nigerian politics, loyalty is not abstract morality; it is political capital.

“Every serious aspirant knows that the open backing of a sitting governor or dominant political leader is an enormous advantage,” a chieftain of the APC in Delta State, Chief Chukwuma Ugbah said.

Keen observers believe that it is not unusual for a predecessor and successor to disagree. However, according to them, such differences should not be allowed to escalate without restraint and degenerate into a dirty public fight.

While many would have thought that a lasting peace had returned through the intervention of President Bola Tinubu, the crisis appears to have taken a different dimension.

Fubara, who was saved from impeachment at the last minute by the president’s declaration of state of emergency, was again served notice of impeachment last week by the State Assembly, with all fingers pointing at the FCT Minister.

The earlier move to impeach Governor Fubara was rooted on the allegations that he bombed the assembly complex, conducted Local Government election in defiance of court order and presentation of budget to a three-man assembly while he side-lined 27 elected members of the state assembly.

No matter who is right or wrong in this political battle between Wike and Fubara, the concerns of Nigerians are that it is creating significant instability in Rivers State, leading to tensions within the government and potential disruptions in governance.

The battle could be more deadly and could undermine public trust and provoke further political crises as Wike and Fubara struggle for the control of Rivers State ahead of the 2027 elections.

There is also this school of thought that the oil rich state is not falling apart by happenstance but that both Wike and Fubara are struggling for who hands it to President Tinubu as a political offering.

As a former presidential candidate, Chief Peter Ameh puts it, “the two prominent figures, tormented by the shadow of irrelevance and consumed by the need for powerful patronage, have traded the mantle of responsible leadership for grand gestures of submission, willingly torching the collective destiny of millions [of Rivers people] in a shameful rivalry over who can bow lowest before the throne of Tinubu’s authority.”

In what he described as an orchestrated tragedy, Ameh pointed out that “the genuine sufferers remain the ordinary citizens of Rivers State, whose peace, prosperity, and democratic rights are being coldly exchanged for the fleeting security and to secure the personal survival of their leaders and preservation of individual relevance.”

Ameh lamented that the real losers in this power struggle are the good people of Rivers State.

“Your state has been permanently under siege,” he declared, pointing to the disruption of governance, erosion of democratic institutions, and the diversion of resources and attention from critical development needs to endless political intrigues.

Asked if there have been some negative impacts on the people as a result of the unending political battle, a Rivers stakeholder, Barr. Chizi Enyi, told DAILY POST that infrastructural development in the state has been seriously dealt a major blow by the fight.

According to him, “No doubt about that. The fight has stagnated development in the state as Wike promised sometime last year that he will stagnate development even if it’s certain he won’t win the fight.

“He has the power and backing from the President. Wike’s politics is the politics of power.

“Everything about Wike is power and one thing with Wike is that he adopts all strategies to win. For Wike failure is not an option. And when you’re close to any man who is of that source, you should be very conscious of such a person coming close to you. So the fight has stagnated development models, but the governor is still trying to see how he could impact the people.

“Wike is not just fighting the governor, he’s using the assembly to fight the government. Since the end of the emergency ruler, the assembly has refused to accept the budget.

“Now how can the assembly accept the nominees for commissioners when they’ve refused to attend to the budget. Rivers assembly does not have will of its own. The assembly members do not have any choice other than to do the dictates of Wike, who said he bought all their forms.

“Because he bought all their forms, hence he decides what they do, how to do it and when to do it, just like when he was doing the visit to Local Government Areas. He said he was doing thank you visits.

“He said the purpose was to thank the people for supporting Tinubu’s election but in all these thank you visits, the only thing you hear there is that ‘Sim did this. ‘Sim won’t go for a second term’. Is that thanking the people for the President? I don’t know. He finished saying that politics will start in January, and this January, politics has started with the impeachment of the governor.”

Asked how the unending political crisis has negatively affected development and people of Rivers State, Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, a Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC, said, “The unwarranted power tussle in Rivers State instigated by the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, in a grandiose facade of fighting for the public good, an irrational narrative frequently pushed to curry sympathy from the unsuspecting public, has in no small measures negatively impacted the governance of the State.

“First instance, before the declaration of the state of emergency by President Tinubu, the overall pace of governance and general administration of the state progressed steadily until the wheel of state was grounded to a halt by the removal of the Governor.

“The Ring-Road project, a multi-billion naira mega road project that connects several local government areas was abandoned for those months the emergency rule lasted.

“The stoppage altered the architectural timing of the legacy project. And there may be variations which may run into billions. Several other projects which were ongoing before the emergency rule were affected.

“The economy of the state was stifled. Investors were scared away. Jobs were lost, investment opportunities missed, IGR lost and the government found it difficult to pay salaries whereas billions were being looted into private purses.

“On a sincere note, the scuffle by Wike to scuttle the progress of Rivers State is a worse thing to do to one’s own state.

“Wike has been a reoccurring sad commentary so far as Rivers State Political history is concerned. While as Governor he destroyed all the projects that Amaechi initiated that were visioned to make Rivers State one of the best States in Nigeria. He destroyed the agricultural, educational, and security projects set up by Amaechi.

“He made Rivers State a war zone in order to ensure that the election of 2023 was rigged to satisfy his ego as the strongman of Rivers State politics.

“He nominated Fubara as Rivers State Governor and the people of the State voted for him and since then Rivers State had never had any atom of peace because he wanted to control everything and everyone.

“He can’t control his wife nor his son the way he wanted to control Fubara. All he wanted was for the Governor to be stocked like a piece of furniture and receive orders and prohibitions.

“He would arrange how the patrimony of the State is shared according to his dictates.

“The second output is to ensure peace erodes the State and based on this factor, most foreign and international companies would leave the State thereby causing much unemployment in the State and leaving the Governor with little or nothing to hold back on to campaign for a second term, and as a result the Governor’s only hope would be his usual rigging strategy.

“He didn’t want the Governor to work so that he doesn’t return for a second term on merit but on the rigging of Wike. This would make the Governor continue to see him as Lord,” he alleged.

Eze continued: “I commend the Governor for his foresight. However, since his return to office, the Governor is still battling to find his feet. The sabotage was massive and yet the distractions have continued though unnecessary.

“On a scale, the impact of the crisis on governance is huge and the state will grapple with recovery efforts for a long time.

“But I pray to God to empower the Governor with the wisdom to navigate the trials of the moment so that the state can bounce back quickly.”

Meanwhile, President Bola Tinubu is rumoured to have intervened and stopped the move by the state assembly to impeach the governor while some members of the House have also withdrawn from the process.