Fubara May Not Return As Rivers Governor

These are not the best of times for Mr Siminalayi Fubara who has been suspended from office as governor of Rivers State. So much are being said about the constitutionality or otherwise of his removal through a proclamation of a state of emergency. But analysts have so far paid very little attention to his vulnerability in the face of the loss of constitutional immunity that comes with his removal from office. Now, what if the forces that conspired to remove him from office decide to prosecute him in court? What if they succeed in convicting him for the infractions he was baited into committing while in office?

Having been stripped of the immunity he enjoyed by virtue of Section 308 of the Nigerian constitution, Fubara has been left in the cold, naked. While in office, did he commit offences, civil and criminal, that could warrant his arraignment and trial before courts of competent jurisdiction? If the answer is yes, then his chances of being returned to office are quite slim. If his removal from office through a proclamation of emergency rule could be achieved with such ease, then his eventual trial and possible conviction cannot be ruled out.

Going by Section 137 of the Nigerian constitution, Fubara cannot return to office if they succeed in getting him convicted. If the powers that sacked him from office are really bent on roasting him, then his trial, and possibly, his conviction, may be concluded within the shortest time possible. On March 19, a day after President Tinubu declared emergency rule in Rivers, his Attorney General, Lateef Fagbemi, justified the president’s action. In a media chat with State House correspondents, Fagbemi said Tinubu had to intervene because governance in Rivers State had broken down irretrievably. Reading through the Attorney General’s submission, it became clear that the Supreme Court, through its pronouncement, actually laid the foundation for the emergency rule proclamation.

In Fagbemi’s own words, “But don’t forget, the whole thing started or crystallised with the judgment of the Supreme Court that was handed down on the 28th day of February 2025 in which the Supreme Court, that’s the highest court in the land, made a categorical pronouncement after making very profound findings of breaches of the Constitution by the parties involved, particularly the governor of Rivers State, concluded that he was acting like a despot and that, as the situation is in Rivers State, there is no government.

These are very serious and very weighty allegations that only an irresponsible head of state or leader will fold his arms and ignore.” It’s quite sad that “solutions” to the Rivers crisis may as well put an end to Fubara’s turbulent tenure as governor. For the suspended governor, the so called solutions to the crisis have become his real nemesis.

In the first place, the resort to emergency rule proclamation was an alternative plan, an afterthought. The original plan was to get the governor impeached. What stood in their way was the state’s Chief Judge, Semeon Amadi whose endorsement is crucial to the impeachment process. Amadi was on Fubara’s side and it was obvious he would have truncated the process midway. But those baying for Fubara’s blood have not gone to sleep yet. Fears about his potential prosecution, as stated earlier in this piece, are mere conjectures anyway. The warring parties may as well settle for political solutions, or what has come to be known as “doctrine of necessity.”

The constitutionality of the emergency rule imposed on the state by President Bola Tinubu is still being debated. The procedural flaws in the ratification of the emergency rule by the National Assembly have also triggered a barrage of questions bordering on constitutional breaches.
Similarly, the Supreme Court’s verdict in the Rivers conundrum, which set the stage for the botched impeachment and the subsequent emergency declaration, has also come under intense fire.

To wave the complicity and liability of the leadership of the three arms of government in the escalation of the Rivers political crisis is to speak tongue in cheek. In functional democracies, these public institutions operate independently for the purposes of strengthening the principles of separation of powers while maintaining the necessary checks and balances. This interrelationship, where it is well nurtured, forms the basic pillar of the entire governance superstructure, ensuring its functionality and stability for the good of all. But we have a situation where these public institutions appear to be in conspiratorial consociation.

The reigning Kafkaesque in Rivers is the sour harvest from the dysfunctional leadership model currently in place. The Rivers imbroglio is a disaster long foretold, the end of which no one can safely predict. The emergency rule, imposed by the government at the centre, is not a cure for the elite instigated political crisis in Rivers. It’s a mere placebo. The effects will ultimately wear off, leaving the instigators with ashes of a pyrrhic victory. They can’t set Rivers in the reverse in perpetuity. It’s hubris, in courtship with nemesis.

In the days and months ahead, commentators may have to learn to write analyses on the modus operandi of this administration in ciphers, and communicate same with sign language to avoid running into trouble. Or how else can anyone keep pace with cascades of wrong-headed policy options that have far reaching consequences on the stability of the nation. And while right thinking Nigerians can’t contain their grief over the abberation in Rivers, 27 puppet state legislators are celebrating the loss of their mandates.
They are the ones loyal to ex Rivers governor and now Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike. Some persons will eat soaked diapers if their godfather so instructs.

In retrospect, what Godfather Wike passed on to Fubara on May 29, 2023, was a crown of thorns. He also handed him a horse with clay feet and a sword made of straw. The symbolisms being that he was put in office and not in power. Sim Fubara was meant to hold the office in trust for the godfather and not for the Rivers people. No one is sure if he got his brief right.

Provoked by the 27 irritants in the state’s assembly, Fubara went to battle against his godfather. A crown of thorns, a clay horse and a straw sword formed his armoury. It was a battle he was destined to lose.
Fubara fell into the waiting hands of a host of foes. And his fall was proclaimed in far away Abuja on March 18.

Fubara has found himself in a political Garden of Gethsemane. It’s a lonely place of agony that imposes deep reflection and introspection. Christians describe Gethsemane as a gateway to Golgotha, a place of no return. A period in Gethsemane should offer the suspended governor enough time to reflect and learn the right table manners when godsons sit at dinner with their political godfathers. In Nigerian politics, to dine with a godfather is to eat with Beelzebub. The godfather only, decides what you eat and the much you eat. Table manners 101. Fubara broke the golden rule. The suspended governor may have to spend his time in Gethsemane learning the rules guiding godfather-godson relationship in Nigerian politics.

For starters, let him take a trip to Kwara and take some tutorials from ex governor Abdulfatah Ahmed. Ahmed was careful not to stray away from the shadow of his godfather for the eight years he served as governor. From Abdulfatah Ahmed, Sim Fubara will learn “how to govern” without breaking the rules set by a godfather. It’s quite instructive that the ex Kwara governor’s political godfather, Bukola Saraki, in the shadow of whom the young man served out his eight-year tenure, has not uttered a word concerning the Wike-Fubara brouhaha. Esprit de corps? Then Fubara will need another trip to Lagos, to look out for another ex governor, Akinwumi Ambode.

From Ambode, he will learn “how not to govern” when you are in the shadow of a godfather. But does Fubara deserve anyone’s tears? He ought to have known the kind of deal he was going into. How did he emerge the candidate of his party in the first place? Was the nomination process that produced him as governorship candidate free and fair to all? What was the nature of his relationship with Wike that earned him the ticket

You can’t play lickspittle to get something and then turn around to play smart after getting it. The Yoruba caution that you don’t join anyone in a dinner of cockroaches if you don’t have the recipe for nausea. It’s apparent he got the ticket and the seat through deception, which must have riled his godfather when the veil fell off. Serves godfather and godson right anyway.

The suspended governor is now at the mercy of the government appointed Sole Administrator, Ibok-Ete Ibas. If Ibas carries out what his appointers must have whispered into his ears behind closed doors, then Fubara’s goose is cooked. What may play out in the interim, is that Fubara may be compelled by his captors to trade his seat for his freedom. He may not be able to defend some of his past actions in court, especially if the Sole Administrator chooses not to spare the details.

Nigerians may never get to know details of the indignities Fubara must have suffered at the hands of his tormentors before the emergency rule declaration. Let’s recall a similar but more pathetic case in Anambra State way back in July 2003. Then sitting governor, Dr Chris Ngige, got abducted on the orders of his then political godfather. The story was told of how Ngige got locked up in a toilet for hours. This writer ran into him the day he managed to escape from his abductors in Anambra and found his way to the Abuja residence of Chief Audu Ogbeh, then PDP national chairman. Dr Ngige presented a pitiable sight that night. His visit to Ogbeh coincided with that of Globacom chairman, Dr Mike Adenuga who also came to see Chief Ogbeh, obviously for different reasons.

The visibly frightened Ngige had a crumpled jacket on, with the collar of his inner shirt caked in sweat and dust. He narrated to his host how he escaped from his captors in Anambra and how he managed to reach Abuja by some unconventional routes. Chief Ogbeh looked completely nonplussed. That must have prompted him to write to then President Olusegun Obasanjo calling for his urgent intervention in the Anambra imbroglio. Ogbeh released copies of his letter to the media, a development that got the ex president flying off the handle. That letter got Ogbeh into trouble as Obasanjo removed him as PDP chairman – at gun point. Yes. At gun point. Those who abducted Ngige were Obasanjo’s minions.

The godfather and his gang members accused Ngige of reneging on an agreement he signed with them. According to them, the agreement was for Ngige to resign a few weeks after assuming office so that one of the gang members would replace him. Curiously, Obasanjo, privately, justified the criminal abduction of a sitting governor. His actions and body language at the time indicated so. He was said to have argued, privately too, that agreements ought to be respected.

In retaliation, the godfather and his gang members who stole the Anambra ballot for Ngige, sang like canaries when the matter eventually got to court. The courts rightly sacked Ngige from office and returned the mandate to Mr Peter Obi from whom they stole it. Nigerian politics has really thrown up interesting dramas over the years.

The dramas have featured godfathers at war with recalcitrant godsons. Godfathers are shrewd political investors. You toy with their investments at your peril. It’s no joy dealing with a brusquely irascible one that takes no prisoners. The Rivers case has thrown up a number of posers: Will this cup pass over Fubara? Will he ever return as governor? Can he ever escape from Sobibor? Or is it game over for humpty-dumpty Simi Fubara? If at all he returns, he will return a broken and contrite man. A potential returnee Governor Fubara will be sentenced to operating in the shadow of a superior force for the remainder of his chequered tenure. Heads or tails, things can never be the same for Sir Amaopusenibo Siminalayi Fubara.