By Sam Akpe
It is becoming realistically difficult to determine where the loyalty of the elected members of the Rivers State House of Assembly lies. Who exactly is controlling their conscience!
By the 1999 Constitution, a state legislature —comprising elected members— is an arm of a state government, just as the executive and the judiciary.
This explains why members of the legislature earn salaries from the government purse, drive exotic cars, and live in befitting mansions built or paid for by the tax payers.
Without any doubt, the loyalty of every lawmaker is to his constituents —the people he represents— and to the constitution that regulates the conduct and activities of the government he is a part of.
It is also elementary knowledge that the primary function of every lawmaker is law-making for the peace and growth of the country or state.
Quite logical! You cannot be called a lawmaker, or be treated as one, when you do not perform the functions of that office as prescribed by the Constitution, which constitute your primary assignment.
Globally, at any point that lawmakers depart from law-making, especially in the passage of an Appropriation Bill, they lose that identity and the right to be called lawmakers. There is no difficulty in understanding this.
By way of explanation, an appropriation bill is the most important legislative instrument in any democracy. A refusal to pass that bill into law means shutting down government operations through which the socio-economic needs of the people are provided, thus opening doors to anarchy.
However, Rivers State has been home to constitutional deformity for almost three years. The man elected to run the affairs of the state has been incapacitated by the very institution created by law to empower him in that office.
The State House of Assembly, with constitutionally elected members, seems to be under the direct command of an individual —not the serving governor, but a self-appointed political godfather, who neither belongs to the ruling political party, nor the opposition party in the state.
This godfather tells the elected members what to do and what not to do, no matter what the 1999 Constitutions says —the same constitution they all swore to uphold and defend.
Within the period under review, Rivers State political atmosphere has been gridlocked and rendered toxic through some unconventional political underhand maneuvers egoistically masterminded by a few power wielders.
Those outside this circle have become victims of brash political stunts audaciously aimed at diminishing the sitting governor’s authority to perform his constitutional functions.
It all started over a certain mysterious agreement supposedly enacted between the sitting governor, Siminilaye Joseph Fubara, and his influential predecessor and supposed godfather, Minister Nyesom Wike.
Daily, avoidable unpleasant events keep surfacing. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has already imposed and lifted a state of emergency —one of the ultimate constitutional requirements that was expected to call everyone to order.
That does not seem to have worked. The general perception is that the state of emergency was executed to appease Minister Wike whose hostility towards Governor Fubara is assumed to have a silent presidential endorsement.
Though no one has presented any evidence to back this claim, it is a case of asking: if a child dies the morning after the evil bird cried at night, is it still in doubt who killed the child? I personally have no proof of who killed the child!
However, despite the earth-quaking protests and threats, the state of emergency was enforced, backed by legislative validation. Wike was assumed to have won the war. Unknown to him, the battle was not yet over.
Months after the state of emergency was imposed and later lifted, Minister Wike has refused to relax his knee pressing on Fubara’s neck.
Governor Fubara himself has repudiated death. His staying power should constitute a course of study on political survival in our universities. Like a cat with nine lives,he has managed to survive all political darts thrown at him.
The ongoing impeachment attempt has two sides to it. First, Fubara is gaining unpredictable political momentum following his cross-over to the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) —a move that has almost secured for him the 2027 gubernatorial ticket for his second term.
If that move took Wike by surprise, his next manoeuvre clearly demonstrates that his bag of political tricks is still loaded. Give it to him, Wike thrives better in crisis. Even if he loses in a fight, he does so boldly and unashamedly.
Second, it is becoming clear that despite denying him a budget to pay bills and execute projects for Rivers people, Fubara does not seem to be bothered. He is booming in confidence and gaining political weight daily.
So, how do you stop an unsmiling phenomenon called Fubara —difficult to destroy, impossible to ignore— almost written off, but still marching on!
How do you control a storm petrel called Wike —a man whose loaded political profile and strategies are counterweight to that of Fubara.
Wike is unwriting the rules of political godfatherism with such ease! His politics has no rule book. He is the rule. He offers no option to opponents. He is the option! You either align or perish.
However, it is doubtless that if left in APC or any other functional political party, Fubara will roar back to power in 2027 —and by every calculation, that would unarguably end Wike’s political influence in Rivers State and consign him to the dump site of political history.
Can Fubara be re-elected under the present atmosphere in Rivers State? Sure! He can! He would! It has happened again and again in the same Rivers State.
Between 1999 and today, no political hostility mounted by anybody has stopped a first term governor in Rivers State from getting re-elected!
The late Chief Marshall Harry and other heavyweights in Rivers politics tried it with Dr Peter Odili in 2003, it did not work. Instead, Odili thundered back victoriously —more powerful, and influentially re-energised.
After leaving office in 2007, Governor Odili came under preventable, though expected, hostility generated by Rotimi Amaechi who succeeded him as governor.
Amaechi felt bad that after serving Odili as a domestic staff for several years, and providing a political covering fire for him as Speaker of the state legislature for eight years, Odili could not make him a governor.
On the day of the traditional flag presentation to the gubernatorial candidate in Port Harcourt, then President Olusegun Obasanjo, citing a contrived political jargon called K-Leg, devalued the people’s choice, by announcing Amaechi’s disqualification from the race.
Whether the action was initiated by Odili or by circumstances beyond his control is still hypothetical. Amaechi fought back through the courts and ultimately became the governor of the state.
He thought it natural to attempt to keep Odili, his former boss, at arms’ length. The atmosphere became not only nauseating, but quite embarrassing to the senior statesman who nurtured Amaechi in politics.
On assumption of office, Amaechi appointed Wike as his Chief of Staff. In any democracy, the Chief of Staff is the closest administrative and political —or even domestic—aide to either a president or governor.
The chief of staff controls what Stephen Ambrose calls “the innermost circle of power” within a political environment. That was the exclusive role assigned by Amaechi to Wike —a position of supreme trust.
Wike enjoyed that position until his appointment as Minister of State, Education, by President Goodluck Jonathan, based on Amaechi’s recommendation.
Then something happened. Bad politics set in. Wike and his emerging political godfather, Amaechi, fell out —almost violently. It was unbelievable!
When Wike later succeeded Ameachi as Rivers State Governor, no one needed a prophet to be told that it was going to be war without end.
At this point, Wike quietly moved towards the comfort of Odili’s friendship —a confirmation that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
I recall my only visit as a reporter to Amaechi when he served under the late President Muhammadu Buhari as minister. I advised him to leave Wike alone and concentrate on his job as minister.
Amaechi looked at me straight in the face and declared that that was not going to happen.
He said something like: Sam, you don’t understand politics. I cannot allow Wike to rubbish me. Well, they kept warring—and they still are.
How did Fubara become the Governor of Rivers State? I have no details worth a discussion here. I personally have not met Fubara before. But I like his stubborn demeanour. Deadpan, when he coughs, Wike develops a headache.
So many suppositions have been bandied by political jobbers on why Wike and Fubara have not agreed on anything since Wike took Fubara to Rivers State Government House.
All we have heard from Wike is that ‘agreement is agreement!’ What agreement? For whose interest? What exactly constitutes the mysterious agreement remains a secret between the two of them. But one is sure, it cannot be in the interest of Rivers people.
Wike’s ambition, it seems, is to control the political hardware in Rivers State. This is contrary to his open declaration while in office that once he completes his tenure he would be done for good with any attempt to levers of governance in the state. Unfortunately, his attempt to renege on his pledge has seen Fubara become his gate of brass —the impregnable iron bar and the crooked path against that ambitious agenda.
In fact, the only thing that would ignite a smile when Wike wakes up tomorrow morning would be the breaking news that Fubara has resigned his office. Guess what? That’s not going to happen!
The unanswered question is: whose cause is Wike fighting, and whose interest is Fubara protecting? Most importantly, what is prompting the lawmakers to play the roles they are playing?
Truly, history favours Fubara —even if political realities cast dangerous, long shadows over him. He may be judged as being politically naïve, but that has nothing to do with his mental sophistication.
An attempt to impeach Fubara sounds like a huge joke —that’s actually what it is! Fortunately, it is Wike’s last trick in his bottomless bag of political pranks.
My thinking, however, is that this stand-off can be resolved if both parties decide to do so. Nobody needs to die because of political power. Rivers people must not be left to suffer because of personal ambitions.
A war becomes an option whenever disagreements defy the round table, and in almost all cases, every war ends when the combatants return to the same roundtable. This cannot be an exception.
Wike, Fubara, and the elected lawmakers must consider what history will say about them. Or what labels they would carry a few years from now. Will they be called heroes or villains? Patriots or vandals?
Every memoir tries to answer several questions, but most importantly: where were you and what did you do when the house started burning?
Memoirs on Rivers State will raise these questions against today’s political combatants. It’s time to return to the roundtable.
Akpe, a journalist, wrote from Abuja
