Fire and the ballot revolution in Rivers state

There is a fire and ballot revolution in Rivers state and the main victim that I can see for now in the burning fire is Nyesom Wike, former governor of the state and the incumbent minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) who is on record as having boasted garrulously that if anybody, a politician from any other part of the country thinks that he or she can support Governor Sim Fubara, his successor, to take the political structure away from him, he would put fire in that person’s state.

Wike is also on record as having said that there is no politician in the country today that is bigger than him. Wike was so strong a week ago that when he was hosted by a group of Ijaws, supposedly Fubara’s kinsmen, he even repeated his claim that he was effectively in charge of Rivers state. At that occasion, Seyi Makinde, Governor of Oyo, begged Wike not to bring fire to his own state.

Heineken Lokpobiri, minister of state for petroleum, publicly confessed that Wike is indeed the godfather of Niger Delta politics. Wike may never have heard of Percy Shelley’s Ozymandias. But what has happened in our reckoning on October 5, with the conduct of the local government elections in Rivers state is better described as Wike’s Ozymandias moment.

It was a moment when Sim Fubara who was brought to power, by Wike as Wike and his allies claim, and who has suffered for so long in their hands decided that enough was enough and that Wike’s dictatorial hold over Rivers state must end. On Saturday, October 5, Fubara the godson, decided that it was time he became the father of the father, and produced his own sons. It was the moment he decided that his own godfather must be beheaded, so that the son could become the man. He proved the point that godfathers do not live forever, particularly in Nigerian politics, and that the answer to godfatherism is political patricide, given the circumstances.

It will be recalled that Minister Nyesom Wike has never hidden the fact that he made Sim Fubara governor on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Fubara was indeed Wike’s chief accountant (2020–2022). Wike decided that Fubara would be his preferred successor. So, he bought the form for his nomination. He told the people of Rivers that Fubara would be their next governor. He bankrolled the campaign so he claims. He has told us that he did everything possible to make Fubara the governor. And that came to pass. And that was where the problem began.

It was not enough that Wike had been rewarded with a ministerial appointment by President Bola Tinubu of the rival, now ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) in compensation for Wike’s treachery against his own party, the PDP, we were faced with a curious situation whereby Wike decided that he would remain in control of governance in Rivers. He was shameless in defending the amphibian nature of his politics, a man who betrayed his party at the national level insisting that he would also hold on to how politics is played in his home state.

His critics alleged that he chose all the political appointees in Fubara’s administration with the exception of maybe one or two. Members of the house of assembly were majorly Wike’s men. Key commissioners in the administration treated the governor shabbily because they reported directly to the godfather in Abuja. Fubara’s wife was not even allowed to attend any event without Wike’s approval. Fubara himself was under close watch. He was a captive in the position that he occupied, a prisoner of the godfather’s goodwill. But there is a limit to which some people can be pushed to the wall. In May 2024, a frustrated, humiliated Governor Fubara felt compelled to speak up. He said “the jungle has matured.”

What he meant then was that he was tired of the former governor, wearing the toga of the godfather riding roughshod over him, breathing down his neck. He threatened to set up a panel of inquiry to investigate the past administration. He sacked or frustrated out of his government Wike’s acolytes who spied on him and treated him as if he did not matter. He faced the house of assembly members head-long and began to stare them down. His larynx suddenly opened up and he began to talk. He transformed from the timid godson who begged for peace to the godson who had developed fangs.

He had the support of the elders and youths of the community who felt Wike should allow Fubara to have his turn as governor. He wanted to suspend local government chairmen. He was told he could not do it. The people of Rivers had now become divided, pro-Wike, pro-Fubara, both parties threatening fire and brimstone. The majority stood by Fubara. In December 2023, Fubara sacked local government chairmen who served under Wike. He also removed the chairman of the supreme council of traditional rulers, another Wike ally. He threatened to demolish both the Rivers state house of assembly and the state legislative quarters.

On October 5, 2024 the jungle had finally matured. It was the day when local council elections were held in 23 local councils of Rivers state. Before the election, Wike’s loyalists in the PDP and the APC staged a protest on the streets. The PDP in Rivers, the sitting governor’s own party, even went ahead to boycott the elections. Boycott has never been a potent political weapon.

It may raise questions of legitimacy after the fact but the election would have been won and lost. There were court cases, with the Rivers state high court and the federal high court giving conflicting judgments. In the end, Governor Fubara insisted that the elections would proceed as scheduled on the strength of a July 11, 2024 supreme court ruling that only democratically elected persons could be chairpersons of local councils in Nigeria, the Rivers high court ruling, Section 197 of the 1999 Constitution which creates State Independent Electoral Commissions and Section 59 of the Rivers State Electoral Commission Law No. 2 of 2018.

Pro-Wike objectors to the election relied on a federal high court ruling which ordered that even the police must not provide security during the elections. There were skirmishes about the police carting away election materials and the governor having to visit the headquarters of the RSIEC, as the state electoral body is known, to challenge the police. Nonetheless, the governor insisted that the elections will take place.

And so it was, that on Saturday October 5, in 23 local governments, 6, 866 polling units in 319 wards in Rivers, local government elections were conducted, superintended by Justice Adolphus Enebeli (rtd), and his staff at RSIEC, with 18 political parties out of 19, participating. The people of Rivers turned out in large numbers.

They defied the rain. And they voted in a process witnessed by journalists, observers, members of the Nigerian Bar Association and party agents. In the end, Justice Enebeli (rtd) declared the Action Peoples Party (APP), Fubara’s proxy party, since his own PDP boycotted the elections having been hijacked by Wike, as winner in 22 LGAs and 314 councillorship positions.

Etche local government where results had been suspended was finally declared for the Action Alliance. The remaining councillorship seats were won by the APC (in Ward 3), the Social Democratic Party, the Boot Party and the Young People’s Party (YPP). Without much ado, the newly elected chairmen were quickly sworn in and given their certificates of return on Sunday, October 6 at a government house ceremony where Governor Fubara proclaimed that desperate situations require desperate measures.

Truly, the situation in Rivers last Saturday was a desperate one. For me, the following are the quick takeaways. One, Fubara, the godson had become the father. This is in line with an aspect of the wisdom of Silenus which says that ultimately the son becomes the father in the process of Being-ness. Charles Kettering once said that “Every father should remember one day his son will follow his example, not his advice.” Whatever advice Wike may have given Fubara, what we witnessed on Saturday in Rivers state was a case of Fubara following Wike’s example.

In 2016, one of the first things Wike did upon the assumption of office as governor was to sack some of the local government caretaker committee chairmen appointed by Governor Rotimi Amaechi, his predecessor. Wike would soon elect his own local council chairmen. And he seized control of the political structure in Rivers. He beheaded his own godfather. The same destiny has now caught up with him. Nemesis. Hubris. What a man sows he reaps. Karma. What goes around comes around. Fubara is now the new godfather in Rivers politics and he sounded so as he admonished the new local council chairmen on Sunday to serve the people and not their stomachs.

Two, Wike had promised to put fire in other people’s states should they interfere in the politics of Rivers. The fire that he talked about has been lit in his own very backyard. Should he be allowed to put fire in Rivers? The biggest fear in Rivers today is the fear of violence and the breakdown of law and order. On election day, there was violence in Ogunabali area of Port Harcourt where voters were attacked and election materials were destroyed. In Ward 19, Elekahia, policemen were said to have invaded the polling unit and obstructed the voting process. On Monday, that is yesterday, after the police announced that they had unsealed the local council secretariats, hoodlums attacked the local councils in Ikwerre, Emohua, Ahoada East and Eleme and set them on fire. Elsewhere, anti-Fubara groups tried to prevent the local government chairmen from taking office.

Each one of those locations must be treated as crime scenes. The police may have unsealed the secretariats but their role in the Rivers crisis is deplorable. The Nigeria Police Force has a constitutional role under Sections 214 – 216 of the 1999 Constitution, and Section 4 of the Police Act to protect lives and property. It is one of those strange things in Nigeria’s democratic process that a court of law would give an order that the Police must not provide security in any part of Nigeria and the police hierarchy would claim it is bound by that order, rather than challenge it immediately.

The elections in Rivers took place without the police providing security. It is unfortunate that the Nigeria Police unwittingly exposed its own creeping irrelevance in election matters. The people of Rivers did not need 35, 000 policemen deployed in the Edo gubernatorial elections last month. When the people are determined, they will safeguard the peace and make their own choices. President Tinubu after the fact, and fire that has erupted in Rivers State has now ordered the police to provide security in that state. Must the president wait for the blow-out before intervening?

Three, the president must go a step further. He must call the main gladiators in Rivers state to order. He must put a stop to the money business whereby Wike and his allies come to see him in the morning, and Fubara sneaks in later in the day, both parties carrying tales about who is right and who is wrong. Before the burning of local council headquarters began in Rivers, President Goodluck Jonathan had warned that the desperate situation in Rivers should be handled with caution. He was right. It was precisely an election and the craziness of the political actors that set the Western Region on fire in 1965. Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa thought it was a problem of the Yoruba people, so Awolowo should worry about it.

The Western Region soon became the “Wild Wild West”, and the fires that time consumed not just the Western region but the entire country and Nigeria’s democracy at its infancy. Tinubu says he is on a working vacation abroad, even when such an oxymoron as a working vacation is most strange. We need him to call Fubara and make it clear that he needs to put Rivers in order, otherwise he risks the possibility of a state of emergency being declared in that state.

As for Wike, he must be told eyeball to eyeball that if there is no peace in Rivers, he will lose his ministerial position in the proposed cabinet reshuffle. Fubara and his allies have made it clear that Wike is not so much of a political asset to Tinubu after all. He is not bound to be the man that will deliver Rivers state to Tinubu in 2027. The people of Rivers have shown that they are done with him. It remains for Wike to learn from Sir Peter Odili, and Rotimi Amaechi, former Rivers governors who have chosen peace by staying in a position of respect and dignity.

Four, the judiciary showed up wrongly in the Rivers election. Can you imagine a court of law forbidding the security agencies from carrying out their constitutional duties to provide security? This is against the spirit and letter of the constitution. Can you imagine courts of equal and co-ordinate jurisdiction issuing conflicting orders, allowing political actors to shop for forum from Port Harcourt to Abuja?

There is a new sheriff in the judiciary who has promised to put an end to such conduct. We urge Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, CJN, to begin with the example of Rivers. The various gladiators have announced that the courts will be their next battle ground. His Lordship must call the judex to order and put a stop to the continued denigration of the role of the judiciary in Nigeria’s electoral processes.

Five, something has to be done about the local council election process, which in virtually every state simply ends up producing the ruling party in the state or the proxy party of the Governor as the victor. The Governors have seized control of the local government process. In the last week of September in Anambra State, the ruling All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) was declared winner by the ANSIEC in the state’s 21 local government councils and 326 wards. In Rivers, the Governor’s proxy party, the APP took 22 out of 23 local councils and 314 wards out of 319.

They “donated” just one local council to another party – the Action Alliance. We witnessed the same scenario in Akwa Ibom state over the weekend where the ruling PDP took 30 councils out of 31. One council, Essien Udim was “donated” to the APC. Senator Godswill Akpabio comes from that local government! The Governor had to spare Essien Udim in recognition of Akpabio’s political relevance. Local council elections were also held in Benue on Saturday, October 5.

The governor of Benue state is a Catholic priest in politics, Fr. Hyacinth Alia. His party followed the familiar pattern winning all 23 chairmanship positions and all 276 councillorship seats. We need to rethink, review and reconsider our local council/state election system that serves only the interest of the incumbent Governor.