Rivers state: The revolt of the disinherited

“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps the end of the beginning” – Winston Churchill, November 10, 1942.

“This is the lesson: Never give in, never give in, never, never, never – in anything, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.” – Winston Churchill, October 28, 1941. Harrow School.

“Do not let us speak of darker days: Let us speak rather of sterner days. These are not the dark days; these are the great days – the greatest days our country ever lived; and we must thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to his stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race”. – Winston Churchill. October 28, 1941. Harrow School.

“No one’s political ambition is worth the blood of any citizen” – Goodluck Jonathan. President of Nigeria. 2010-2015.

I choose to start this article with my favourite four quotes on earth. Three of them are from Winston Churchill, the British wartime Prime Minister who lived from 1874 to 1965. He was 68 years old at the time he made those speeches at Harrow School, his alma mater in 1942, 12 years older than the current minister of the Federal Capital Territory and former governor of Rivers state, Nyesom Wike, and twenty 20 years older than Sim Fubara, a former Wike protege and current executive governor of Rivers state. (Our politicians rarely visit their alma mater these days whether it be elementary, secondary or tertiary.)

Winston Churchill made those speeches in the heat of the Second World War in 1941/41, a few years after the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, and the Declaration of War on Germany by the United Kingdom and France two days later on September 3, 1939.

While Rivers state is not in a World War situation, and neither Wike nor Fubara can be considered a Winston, what happened in Rivers state a few days ago, the invasion and eventual burning down of the Rivers State House of Assembly Complex, which houses the legislative arm of the Rivers state government, amounts to an abuse of power and an assault on democracy, and I could very well call it, a war on democracy.

Should Rivers state be allowed a quick descent into ‘Failed State’ status because two members of a collegiate political structure can not put their priorities together and manage their egos even if for the sake of the state?

Relying solely on elevated rhetoric, each political camp has been unyielding in attempting to convince us that their motive was at best, in the interest of Rivers state and Rivers people.

The purpose of this writing is not to separate a fight, as I do not have the might. The purpose rather is to seek what is right so that Rivers state and Rivers people, at our various stations, can arise and be alive to our responsibility in this conversation on the future of our collective patrimony.

Should Rivers state and Rivers people continue to be subject to the whims and caprices of political leaders who exploit the rampaging poverty in the land to misuse the abundant human capital in the land to further their politics and ambitions?

Is it fair that our people are being sacrificed at the altar of egos, guns and flimsy shekels?

In his book, ‘Failed States: The Abuse of Power and The Assault on Democracy’, Noam Chomsky writes that “failed states are those that are unable to protect their citizens from violence and perhaps even destruction” and “regard themselves as beyond the reach of domestic law”. He notes that though they may have democratic forms, failed states suffer from a serious “democratic deficit” that deprives their democratic institutions of real substance.

While Rivers state is not a failed state, what happened in Rivers state amounts to an abuse of power and an assault on democracy. These are typical hallmarks of failed states, run aground by leaders with a penchant and propensity for dictatorial inclinations.

All is not well with Nyesom Wike and Sim Fubara is no longer news. That ordinary Rivers people are once again being made pawns in a new ego and power game should cause no new fuse. The point of ponder has been, why so soon?

Why has this democratic failure occurred barely five months into Fubara’s inauguration as the executive governor of Rivers state? His cabinet is still incomplete. He has yet to even appoint board members for any government parastatal and associated agencies.

What brought about this ‘democratic deficit’ that would warrant an irate arsonist mob to desecrate the multi-billion naira chambers of the legislative arm of the government of Rivers state? Who will bear the cost for the reconstruction of the Rivers state house of assembly? Is it Rivers people?

What could Fubara have done wrong to attract the wrath of his godfather(s) so soon? What could Wike have done to provoke Fubara to such a measure of defiance and retaliatory rebellion?

Did Fubara refuse to give pocket money to Nyesom Wike? Did Fubara award contracts to people whom Wike and his political block (or structure) consider as ‘enemies’? People who fought him/them to a near standstill throughout his eight years as governor? Did Fubara appoint ‘enemies’ into positions of authority in Rivers State? Should Fubara inherit the enemies of his ‘god-father’ or his ‘god-structure’?

These are the questions I have been bombarded with in the past days of this unfortunate development. And for these questions, I have continued to ponder, even as I tried hard for my thoughts not to go yonder. For the whole thing is a wonder.

It baffles me that this was allowed to degenerate to this level. Did Governor Sim Fubara refuse initial entreaties and deliberately allow the situation to deteriorate into what has become of it today? Does Sim Fubara consider the body of elders conscripted by Wike as a democratic deficit?

The truth is that, from 1999, with the turn of every political cycle in Rivers State, a breakage in the linkage of political structures always happens. It started before Wike, and I doubt it will end with Fubara.

It is not an unusual political algorithm. Especially for an ecosystem such as ours, where each new leader dangles his own carrots of prosperity, opportunity and power to the new set of followers he is able to politically acquire, capture, and keep.

Since his inauguration as the executive governor of Rivers state on May 29, 2023, Siminalayi (Sim) Fubara has been called and nearly perpetually tagged a stooge, a lapdog and a political lackey of Nyesom Wike who will be spoon-fed for four years. Methinks he has grown tired of the many ‘vagarious’ nomenclatures and would just like to be allowed to breathe a little, on his own.

They labelled him a remote-controlled appendage of the FCT Minister and someone who has no mind of his own and I think the guy is revulsing to all that. And the revolt may have just begun.

Has he decided to break loose from Nyesom Wike’s political ‘structure’? Or does he just want them to allow him to breathe?

I have heard Sim Fubara say publicly that under his leadership, he will not focus only on roads, and that Rivers people will not just wake up to new roads, but new hope.

I urge him to continue to give priority to roads and road improvement, especially as part of poverty alleviation programmes and economic plans. Good roads are crucial to the economic growth of Rivers state. I also urge him to do more in other areas required for human capital development and achievement.

Between 1995 and 1998, China partnered with the World Bank and developed a bespoke Programme for Road Improvement & Poverty Alleviation across China. Rural road improvements were integrated with major highway projects. These improvements were called, “Road Improvement for Poverty Alleviation (RIPA), ” and were linked to ongoing poverty alleviation programmes. RIPA concentrated on linking rural villages and townships which did not have basic all-weather access to the existing road networks of a higher order.

Thanks to RIPA and others like it, China was able to lift more than 150 million people from people in four years. We can do the same for Rivers if we begin to pattern road construction as a strategic part of ongoing poverty alleviation programmes.

Those are the kind of conversations I expected from anyone who would take over.

I have heard Fubara publicly talk about aggressively improving agriculture across Rivers state by attending to the unique capabilities of each of the 23 local governments in Rivers state. I have heard him talk about drawing a new roadmap for educational improvement in Rivers state. I have heard the governor talk about health improvement projects to be deployed across each of the 23 local governments of Rivers state so that local people can quickly access basic healthcare needs from anywhere they are located in the state as most of the healthcare centres across the state are at various levels of dilapidation.

I have heard Fubara talk extensively about job creation and youth empowerment. I have heard Fubara talk about extensively improving the quality of welfare available for civil servants, teachers and students.

There is a lot that Sim Fubara has talked about and I have been fervently looking forward to all of that.

I wonder whether he will still be able to do all that he talked about with all that is going on around him today.

Can Fubara succeed without toeing the line of the political structure he emerged from? Or will he, like Wike before him, set out to roll out his own structure for the achievement of his own kind of vision for Rivers state and Rivers people?

That is what I do not know even as I look forward to a radical change in governance far different from what many expected from the Sim Fubara who was inaugurated as the governor of Rivers state on May 29, 2023.

Like Winston Churchill’s speech at Harrow School, these are not the dark days.

True. These are not the ‘dark days’ or dark years when PDP states like Rivers state had to build a survivalist collegiate political power system to protect themselves from a vindictive and deeply vengeful Buhari regime and insulate themselves from the divisiveness and confusion that had pervaded the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) at the federal level.

Instead, these are sterner days. The days we must place a sterner focus on Rivers state first!

A much stronger focus on improving the quality of life in Rivers state and ensuring that Rivers people are empowered with the tools they need to access healthy, productive and prosperous lives.

Rivers state and Rivers people demand governance that will address sternly, the eradication of poverty and squalor in Rivers state.

I call on those who have chosen to put an ethnic colouration into this to back off! They are not doing Rivers people any good. This is a struggle for collegiate political power in Rivers state and reducing it to an Ijaw/Ikwerre political supremacy battle is Satanic!

It was a benevolent convergence of ethnic groups that aided and abetted the process of ‘breaking the kernel’ from which Sim Fubara emerged, first as flag-bearer of his party PDP, and then governor of Rivers state.

Ethnic jingoists, conflict entrepreneurs and benefit captors should please not compound the matter for us.

We look forward to not just managing it, but making the most of it for the growth of Rivers State and Rivers People.

Again, like Winston Churchill in his speech, it behoves all of us, each according to his station, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of Rivers State.

As Executive Governor of Rivers State, Fubara’s first mandate should be to Rivers people. Including those who did not vote for him. He must work hard to provide for all Rivers people so that Rivers people will be happier at the end of his tenure.

That will count because that is how he will be remembered at the end of his time in power.

Power is transient. The recent days have shown that. Our democracy is nascent. A lot of good can happen in Rivers State if a good and humane human is Governor of Rivers State. Therefore, governance, even if it be by accident, must never be allowed to go into descent. Under no circumstances will Rivers State be allowed to be a failed state.

Rivers people at our various stations, like me, look forward to a tenure that will be far better than the former, largely because the latter learnt from the mistakes of the former and chose to be better. So that Rivers state and Rivers people will be better for it.

Governor Fubara should please re-start the Free School Bus Scheme started by former Governor Peter Odili. Electric & CNG buses could come in handy at this time, in 2023. Who says NLNG cannot foot the entire bill? For the sake of our dear Rivers’ children, who will grow up to be our leaders of tomorrow.

Kerley is president of Enterprise Delta and writes from Port Harcourt.