*Photo: Kehinde Yusuf*
Not long after the 29 May, 2023 inauguration of Governor Siminalayi Fubara, whose access to the exalted office in Rivers State was enabled by his immediate predecessor who is the current Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, Barrister Nyesom Wike, crisis developed in the governance of the state.
Some believe that the crisis was instigated by Wike’s desire to exercise undue influence on the governor, while others believed that it was caused by Fubara’s desire to cause the Speaker of the House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Martins Amaewhule, who is also Wike’s protégé, to be replaced as a way of asserting himself as the incumbent governor. Wike believed that Fubara was trying to destroy the structure on which he rode to become governor, and that this amounted to an act of ingratitude and treachery.
In response to appeals, especially from Rivers State, for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to mediate in the crisis between Governor Siminalayi Fubara, on one hand, and the state’s House of Assembly on the other, the President invited both of the feuding parties and their respective supporters to the Presidential Villa in Abuja, on 18 December, 2023.
At the reconciliation meeting, eight resolutions were reached. These include the following, among others: “(1) ALL matters instituted by the Governor of Rivers State, Sir Fubara, and his team in respect of the political crisis in Rivers State, shall be withdrawn IMMEDIATELY. (2) ALL impeachment proceedings initiated against the Governor of Rivers State by the Rivers State House of Assembly should be dropped immediately.”
Others include: “(3) The leadership of the Rivers State House of Assembly as led by the Rt. Hon. Martin Amaewhule shall be recognized alongside the 27 members who resigned from the PDP. (4) The remunerations and benefits of ALL members of the Rivers State House of Assembly and their staff must be reinstated immediately and the Governor of Rivers State shall henceforth not interfere with the full funding of the Rivers State House of Assembly. (5) The Governor of Rivers State, Sir Fubara, shall re-present the state budget to a properly constituted Rivers State House of Assembly.”
Both sides agreed to and signed the 8-point terms of settlement. However, on 19 December, 2023, elder statesman Chief (Dr.) Edwin Clark addressed a press conference which he opened as follows: “Firstly, I wish to commend President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for heeding the various calls, including our own, to mediate in the on-going crisis rocking Rivers State … However, the terms of settlement as contained in the Communique issued at the end of the reconciliatory meeting is what is baffling, appalling and unacceptable to the people, especially, the Ijaw ethnic nationality.”
Chief Clark continued: “From the terms of settlement, it is obvious that President Tinubu sees his role as a mediator, to once again, show gratitude to the current Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), for ‘delivering’ Rivers State to him during the past Presidential elections, having first … gratified him by making him the Minister of FCT. … The 8 resolutions reached are the most unconstitutional, absurd and obnoxious resolutions at settling feuding parties that I have ever witnessed in my life. … It is obvious that Governor Siminalayi Fubara was ambushed and intimidated into submission. … From all that transpired at the meeting, the laws of the land have not been obeyed. President Tinubu simply sat over a meeting where the Constitution, which is the fulcrum of his office as President and which he swore to uphold and abide by, was truncated and desecrated.”
Chief Clark continued: “On his part, the Executive Governor of Rivers State, Siminalayi Fubara, … has shown feebleness of character, by agreeing and appending his signature on a document containing such absurdity. He has betrayed the people who elected him as Governor and those who stood behind him in this cause. Mr Fubara has shown naivety in his actions; by signing that document, he has signed his death warrant … As Governor of a State and as the Chief Security Officer of the State, he has shown tremendous lack of courage and competence.”
Chief Clark then concluded: “I, Senator Edwin Kiagbodo Clark, as leader of the Ijaw nation, and as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Ijaw National Congress (INC), decided to hold this emergency Press Conference with the full authority of my people. We are prepared to face any consequences that may result in the political crisis in Rivers State. We will resist any attempt subtle, subterranean, covert, overt, to make an elected Ijaw son, Siminialayi Fubara, … a servant, a stooge to Nyesom Wike … Like I said, we will go to go court to resist this oppressive action.”
On 22 December, 2023, Vanguard reported as follows: “The political crisis in Rivers State has assumed a new twist, as six elders have dragged President Bola Tinubu to the Federal High Court in Abuja, for allegedly compelling Governor Siminalayi Fubara to enter into an unconstitutional agreement. The plaintiffs, led by a member of the Rivers State House of Assembly representing Bonny State Constituency, Victor Jumbo, are Senator Bennett Birabi, Senator Andrew Uchendu, Rear Admiral O. P. Fingesi, Ann Kio Briggs and Emmanuel Deinma. … Meanwhile, President Tinubu was cited as the first defendant in the suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1718/2023. Others are the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Governor Fubara, the Rivers Assembly, Speaker of the Rivers State Assembly, and the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu.”
Interestingly, Governor Fubara, on 25 December, 2023, said: “I have taken some time to study the terms therein and have come to the conclusion that the Peace Pact is not as bad as it might be portrayed by those genuinely opposed to it. It is, certainly, not a death sentence. It affords some way towards a lasting peace and stability in our dear State. … Accordingly, I reaffirm my acceptance of the Presidential Peace Proclamation and my commitment to implementing both the spirit and letter of the declaration.” However, probably due to pressure from the Ijaw elders, Fubara remarked contrariwise on 6 May, 2024: “There was nothing in that peace accord that is a constitutional issue.”
Ironically, as reported by the Vanguard of 25 June, 2024, Chief Edwin Clark wrote a letter to President Tinubu in which he remarked: “As one old enough to be your father, … I advise again, let this small fire in Rivers State be quenched immediately and not allowed to conflagrate further. Specifically, I am calling on you to tread the path of great honour as a self-professed democrat in bringing the very troubling situation in Rivers State to an immediate end. This is because not doing so will appear as the proverbial Caesar sitting on his oars when Rome was burning. Let me remind you that the situation in Rivers State is like a banana peel and if nothing is done early, could engulf everywhere.”
On 11 March, 2025, after the Supreme Court judgement of 28 February, 2025, President Tinubu met with the Pan-Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF). In his speech to them, he said: “Particularly concerning Rivers State, I’ve been on it for quite some time. … I foresaw this crisis festering for too long, before I entered into it. We reached an agreement, written agreement; both parties signed. Some leaders thought the governor of Rivers State was wrong to have signed; [so] they didn’t implement [it]. … This is a nation of rule of law. … I have total confidence in our judiciary. … When we say Supreme Court has spoken, that’s it. Please go back home and help him implement those recommendations within the shortest possible time. … Both privately, openly, I have intervened, counselled the governor. Only yesterday, I told him again, pursue the path of peace, and stoop to conquer.”
On their return to Rivers State, the feedback the President got from PANDEF to these appeals was to request the President to suspend Wike from office as the Minister of the FCT. This obsession with Wike is strange, because, though Wike is a major stakeholder in the affairs of Rivers State, he has not been a major factor in the matter of law. This is why none of the cases that went to the Supreme Court listed him as either a plaintiff or a defendant. Accordingly, he was not mentioned in any part of the Court’s judgements. In fact, even in the case which the Ijaw elders instituted in December 2023, Wike wasn’t listed. With respect to the performance of the ministerial job he has been given by President Tinubu, as far as public perception is concerned, Wike has not been found wanting. So, on what basis would he have been suspended or sacked?
One of the main reasons for President Tinubu’s declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers State on 18 March, 2025, was to stem the destruction of a critical pillar of democracy – the legislature – and check the growth of executive despotism in the state. As William Shakespeare reasons, desperate diseases are by desperate means cured. If a surgery was required in Rivers State, the ailing parts to be surgically treated are the Governor’s office and the House of Assembly. And the treatment their desperate situation required was the suspension of those structures. After all, it’s the way a bird flies that dictates the way it’s stoned.
Another major reason for the state of emergency was the potential and demonstrated threat to national assets as manifested in the bombing of oil pipelines in the state. This dastardly action was presaged by the ominous directive Governor Fubara gave to some youth, on 3 March, 2025, to await “instruction”, after the Supreme Court judgement. The directive made him a legitimate suspect as an enabler of the subsequent pipeline bombings. Meanwhile, Section 5(3)(b) of the 1999 Constitution states: “The executive powers vested in a State under subsection (2) of this section shall be so exercised as not to:- … endanger any asset or investment of the Government of the Federation in that State.” Legal luminary Jeleel Abiodun Owonikoko, SAN, has articulated the implications of this provision exquisitely in an interview with Arise News on 22 March, 2025.
Some argue that the bombings were too few to warrant the declaration of a state of emergency. This raises three questions: Does a stitch in time no more save nine? Do symptoms no more have value as justification for the treatment or removal of causative factors? Is being proactive no more a virtue?
All said and done, as a leader on whose head the crown uneasily lies, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has shown from the declaration of the state of emergency and the suspension of Governor Fubara that the abuse of constitutional immunity is not untameable.