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The political conflict between Chief Nyesom Wike, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), and his political godson, Siminalayi Fubara, is causing concern among political observers in Rivers State.

According to ZINGTIE, it didn’t take long after Rivers State’s 2023 governorship election and inauguration before Governor Fubara had a falling out with Wike, his benefactor and the state’s most recent governor.

While some Nigerians and political observers view Wike as controlling or overbearing, others believe that the governor’s disloyalty to the political system and leadership that gave him power is already a betrayal of trust because, in their opinion, loyalty is still one of the most obvious indicators 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.

The political conflict between Chief Nyesom Wike, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), and his political godson, Siminalayi Fubara, is causing concern among political observers in Rivers State.

According to ZINGTIE, it didn’t take long after Rivers State’s 2023 governorship election and inauguration before Governor Fubara had a falling out with Wike, his benefactor and the state’s most recent governor.

While some Nigerians and political observers view Wike as controlling or overbearing, others believe that the governor’s disloyalty to the political system and leadership that gave him power is already a betrayal of trust because, in their opinion, loyalty is still one of the most obvious indicators of character.

Governor Fubara was accused of bombing the assembly complex, holding local government elections against a court order, and presenting the budget to a three-person assembly while ignoring 27 elected members of the state assembly. These accusations served as the basis for the earlier attempt to remove him from office.

Regardless of who is right or wrong in this political dispute between Wike and Fubara, Nigerians are worried that it is causing serious instability in Rivers State, which might lead to conflicts within the administration and possible interruptions in governance.

As Wike and Fubara fight for control of Rivers State ahead of the 2027 elections, the conflict may be more lethal, erode public confidence, and spark more political problems.

Another school of thought holds that Wike and Fubara are fighting over who would give it to President Tinubu as a political offering, and that the oil-rich state is not collapsing by accident.

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 bemoaned the fact that the decent people of Rivers State are the true losers in this power war.

He said, “Your state has been permanently under siege,” citing the deterioration of democratic institutions, the disruption of governance, and the diversion of funds and attention from vital development requirements to never-ending political intrigues.

When asked if the ongoing political conflict has had any detrimental effects on the populace, Rivers stakeholder Barr. Chizi Enyi told ZINGTIE that the conflict has severely hampered the state’s infrastructure development.

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.”

When asked how Rivers State’s people and development have been harmed by the ongoing political crisis, Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, or APC, Eze Chukwuemeka Eze stated, “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.”

Rumor has it that President Bola Tinubu intervened to halt the state assembly’s attempt to impeach the governor, and several House members have also pulled out of the proceedings.

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