In many political quarters in Rivers State, frustration, disillusionment , betrayal and anger define the mood of the people.
The atmosphere to some is like one under the Intensive Care Unit, ICU in a medical facility who suddenly lost a source of oxygen.
Governor Siminalayi Fubara, the Opobo born helmsman of Rivers State on Wednesday shook the political firmament of the state very vigorously.
Performing the groundbreaking ceremony of a pharmaceutical firm in the state, the governor sounded cranky, forcing his IQ on a scale for strict valuation.
At the ceremony attended by usually the mammoth supporters of the governor who have remained his source of strength since he became entrapped in a cauldron of persecution by the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Minister, Nyesom Wike and the forces loyal to him, Fubara unapologetically told the loyal supporters that he has ‘ditched’ them for his Persecutor in chief, Nyesom Wike.
The governor said that he has returned to his original political family where the FCT Minister is their ‘Jagaban’
Hear Fubara: “We have made peace in the state and I am supporting our Rainbow Coalition. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is our president, and is the one we are supporting. OK Chinda is the governorship candidate that I am supporting and anybody who believes in me will support him and every other candidate that is under the Rainbow Coalition.
” I’ve gone back to our family. So, please, whoever you are, give your total support to the Rainbow Coalition. We need to move forward. The time of war is over. It is time for peace and this peace is taking us to another level.
“I want this to be made clear to everybody. So, don’t go anywhere and say you’re supporting Fubara …. No. No. No. My position is this: I have said it here and clearly for everyone to hear. If you’re not hearing we’ll use cotton wool to clean your ears and let it enter well. I’m not party to anything that will bring any form of disunity in this state. I’ve done what I need to do and we are moving forward,” the governor said in a rather sarcastic tone!
Invariably, Governor Fubara is asking his supporters to transfer whatever love they have for him to Wike and everything the minister stands for willy-nilly, and that he ( Fubara) has become a political nonentity. Phew!
What a nonsensical political calculation! Informed observers say Fubara has only succeeded in fooling Rivers people especially those who plunged themselves headlong into the crisis stoked by the governor without being abreast of the details of the pact the governor apparently had ab-initio with Wike before becoming governor.
The governor amply demonstrated that he is not politically savvy the moment he contemplated engaging Wike in a political fight even when what would be the outcome was obvious to every politically conscious person.
Was Fubara expecting any heavenly salvation when he was well aware that all 32 members of the House of Assembly came from Wike’s political loins, even key commissioners down to even the governor’s chief of staff.
If the governor wanted a showdown with Wike or a break away from the political family for whatever reason or as he puts it, for the interest of the state, he ought to have known that the first step was to have a commanding influence in the House of Assembly made up of the minister’s core loyalists. And until he does that he had to tolerate Wike even if it takes him the whole of his first tenure to make reasonable in road into the legislature.
Even the Bible admonished that before one decides to engage an adversary in a war, one has to evaluate ones strength vis a vis the strength of the adversary to avoid any catastrophe.That is a well known war strategy which Fubara failed to consider before plunging himself into the conflict with Wike which has not only consumed him, but equally inflicting unimaginable collateral damage on others who followed him.
While some may argue that the governor is a victim of circumstances, yet others say how he navigates even the circumstances also matters a lot. The governor once vowed that he would never offer his kidneys and liver to the demands of the Wike political family, meaning that what the political family wanted of him was humanly impossible. He also boasted that he cannot govern Rivers State on his knees.
But now, he has not only offered his kidneys and liver, he is also lying prostrate on his stomach, not even bending on his knees and wants all his supporters to do likewise.
In the midst of the standoff with Wike and his associates, Fubara remained the darling of Rivers people and the support was palpable. His Peoples First slogan became an icing on the cake. The women of the state in furtherance to their overwhelming support formed the Rivers Women Unite For Sim, (RIVWUS) and were very vocal in preaching the message of Fubara. No governor of the state since 1999 has commanded the amount of love and loyalty Rivers people showed to Fubara because they saw a genuine commitment to serve in him.
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All that was expected of the governor was to remain steadfast with the people bearing in mind that there is a greater tomorrow. In the heat of the crisis, the governor said that the scramble to corner the resources of the state by a few was one of the sore points that put a wedge between him and Wike.
By returning to the family that allegedly wanted to control the resources of the state, Fubara is invariably telling Rivers people that he has thrown the purse of the state over to cannibals.
By all standards, what Fubara has done with his loyalists and supporters by his latest decision is akin to a General taking a battalion to a war front and not only losing the war, but lost all the battalion members to the enemy except himself.
In a saner clime, the General is not expected to come back with the tale of the catastrophe, but likewise, gallantry take his own life in solidarity with the battalion he led to perdition.
If only Fubara had thought of the fate of the likes of Edison Ehie,Victor Oko-Jumbo and his colleagues who are still excommunicated from the rest of the members of the House of Assembly who offered themselves as canon fodders for his sake as well as many others whom he took to Golgotha and abandoned, may be he would have done better.
However, the verdict of analysts in the state is common: The governor has killed and buried his political career.
