Rivers politics has entered a new phase following the reconciliation of Governor Siminalayi Fubara and his estranged predecessor, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike.
The truce ended months of hostilities that had plunged the oil-rich state into emergency rule.
Fubara, who was reinstated after President Bola Tinubu lifted the six-month emergency rule on 17 September, described the reconciliation as a turning point for stability.
The governor, on Monday, also said he was at peace with his principal, declaring that ‘proper peace’ had returned to the state after months of political tension.
He spoke with journalists after meeting the President at the Aso Rock Villa in Abuja.
The truce followed a bitter feud that erupted in March between Fubara and Wike’s loyalists in the House of Assembly, which spiralled into impeachment threats, budgetary blockades, and violent clashes.
President Tinubu, invoking Section 305 of the Constitution, suspended the governor, his deputy, and lawmakers, and appointed former Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Ibok-Étè Ibas (retd.), as sole administrator.
But even as Fubara mends fences with Wike, a fresh scramble for Rivers’ political structure has begun.
The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), buoyed by its landslide victory in the state’s August local government elections, has been openly wooing the governor to defect.
At the polls, the APC won 20 local government chairmanship seats and an overwhelming majority of councillorship positions, further weakening the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) dominance in a state once considered its stronghold.
The election, which recorded low voter turnout in several areas, was boycotted by sections of the opposition who alleged irregularities and intimidation by security operatives.
The clean sweep handed the APC unprecedented control of the grassroots, giving it leverage ahead of the 2027 general elections.
Speaking on Channels Television last week, the APC’s factional spokesman in Rivers, Darlington Nwauju, suggested that by defecting to the party, Fubara would automatically take over the structure of the party in the state.
‘If I were the governor of Rivers State, on my return on Thursday, I would announce my defection to the APC. I think the governor should join the APC, and we would gladly receive the governor into our party’.
The APC Deputy National Organising Secretary, Nze Chidi Duru, echoed the same sentiment in a phone chat with Sunday PUNCH.
He said, ‘We are not in any position to decide anything for the governor. If he considers that his interest will be better managed by our party, and he wants to come into the APC, it is for him to decide. And at the appropriate time, the APC will make a decision if he reaches out to the party.
‘The President, in his wisdom, had intervened, which was agreed by all the parties, to save the state and bring it from the depths that they were going to fall into. With this, what we’ll expect is that the governor would focus on governance, bring all the parties together, and ensure that proper governance is given to the people without distraction’.
But the Peoples Democratic Party cautioned Fubara against abandoning the platform on which he was elected.
PDP Deputy National Youth Leader, Timothy Osadolor, said the governor must resist the temptation.
‘On the APC-led organ, both at the state and national levels, trying to woo Fubara with a unified structure, let me say the Rivers people who freely elected and gave him their mandate to represent them as governor saw APC when they voted for Sim of the PDP.
‘Therefore, it means that today we are comfortable with not only Sim, but the platform on which he contested. Again, for Sim Fubara, he may think that for political correctness and survival, he may need to decamp. But I will tell him that if he defects, he will be throwing away his goodwill before the Rivers people.
‘What he owes the Rivers people today, to show appreciation for believing in him and for standing by him, is to deliver good governance more than ever before to the people of Rivers so that posterity will judge him and vindicate him’.
Osadolor also condemned President Tinubu’s intervention, insisting the introduction of a military administrator was an aberration.
‘The suspension of Governor Fubara was actually done by President Tinubu, who, instead of apologising to Nigerians, is trying to justify and rationalise the illegality perpetrated on Rivers people. That is a brazen rape of our constitution and a serious threat to our democracy’, he decried.
Meanwhile, Wike has dismissed insinuations that he is attempting to influence appointments in Fubara’s administration.
The FCT minister said, ‘I cannot go and impose anything on the governor. Why would I impose anything on the governor?… I have no candidate, and I will not’.
Fubara’s return, marked by jubilant scenes in Port Harcourt, may have closed one turbulent chapter in Rivers politics.
But with the APC and PDP already trading words over his loyalty, the governor faces the immediate task of balancing peace with political survival in a state long regarded as a kingmaker in national elections.
