Names, everywhere and especially in Africa, are not just for identification and signification. They carry with them momentous weight of spiritual blueprint, signposting foreshadowed events carefully enveloped on the path of destiny fulfillment in the journey of life. Many say they are the labels that help to reveal and subsequently unveil the bearer’s destiny. Biblical account has it that ‘Job was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil….and there was none like him in his time …. Then the travails and multidimensional tribulations that were unleashed on him before the very end where it was recorded thus…So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning. I have also followed rather curiously to note that not many religious people will readily name their children Job no matter how compensatory and blessed his end turned out to have been. Reason is that they are not willing to readily appropriate to themselves, their children or families the unmitigated suffering Job went through in the hands of the devil while God reportedly watched with an injunction ‘ only do not touch his soul’. Not many Christians of this time and age are comfortable with the travail that befell Job in a bid to prove his faith in a contest that was neither initiated nor endorsed by him. Well, the focus today is not theology but contemporary Nigerian Politics and our case study or if you like protagonist is not Job in the Land of Uz but the Governor of Rivers State, Nigeria, Siminalayi Fubara.
Fubara is a name from Nigeria’s Ijaw ethnic group, particularly Kalabari, meaning ‘God loves me’ or ‘God’s love’. It expresses divine favour, gratitude and ease of accomplishment as God takes over one’s battles. In contemporary Nigerian politics however, the name Fubara means so many things to different segments of society. To the average citizen of Nigeria residing in the oil rich Rivers State, he is on a liberation mission to free the State from the despotic stranglehold of one man desperately desirous of pocketing the future of the State to the diabolic detriment of the people. To his political godfather he is a mistake, an unrepentant ingrate and serial betrayer that must be corrected, a rebel that must be taught some basic lessons on the high cost of squaring up against a godfather. To the legislators in the State Assembly, he is a political misnomer who must be humiliated out of the government house on account of betraying, not necessarily the people of Rivers State, but an enigmatic godfather who ‘made’ him politically. To some others, he is tactless, ungrateful and cannot honestly be called a politician, especially in the Nigerian context where that word assumes an extensional meaning of a ‘politrickian’. To some political watchers, he rode on the tiger’s back to power and should not be pitied if he eventually ends up in the belly of that same tiger. They say it is double standard for Fubara to be crying foul now to the people of Rivers State and indeed Nigeria when he was sure that democratic due processes were breached, political protocol broken for him to emerge as governor.
In all however, Fubara appears to be living out his name as God keeps fighting for him through several political godfathers, especially the newly adopted ones in the APC, while he cautiously holds his peace. He is dialectically torn between two positions; to remain in the political apron string of an overbearing godfather, adhere to whatever existing agreements, no matter how obnoxious and impossible, and have some form of regulated peace in the State or to be guided by the tenets of the social contract he entered into with the people of the State by virtue of the oath of office taken and be ready to weather the stormy political backlash of contrivances and tempestuous adversaries from Wike’s camp especially the stooges that still go by the appellation, legislators and honourable members of the State House of Assembly.
From one crisis to the other, from declaration of state of emergency and six months’ suspension from office, Fubara has gone from one politically instigated turmoil to another. Since 2023, there is hardly any single month that has passed without the governor being enmeshed in one major political turmoil or the other. In all these travails there appears to be a divine injunction on the account of his name…’only do not touch his soul’. I have at a personal level wondered what time he has got left for the administration of the State which should translate to development and the eagerly expected dividends of democracy for the people. The political crisis in the State, again, took a dramatic dimension last week Thursday as the House of Assembly began impeachment proceedings against Fubara and his deputy, Ngozi Oduh. The crisis, this time around has intriguing elements of suspense and promises a surprise ending. At the point of declaration of State of emergency, Fubara was on the political platform of the PDP which rendered him more of an orphan in the light of the current political configuration in the country. Today, as an APC governor, he has become part of a political party structure that can offer some level of protection. While the APC national Working Committee is offering him the ticket for a second term in office as governor and recognition as the leader of the party in the State, his godfather who currently is not a member of any formally registered political party would not want any of those for an estranged political son.
The political crisis in Rivers State with Fubara and Nyesom Wike at the center can therefore be said to be a complex interplay of personality clashes, power struggles for control and appropriation of the resources of the State, contrived constitutional questions, and ethno-regional sensitivities laying bare the fragility of Nigeria’s democratic institutions and the complexities of political loyalty. Rivers State has therefore been seen as a metaphor of the deep seated problems mitigating against the development of democracy across the country. As at the time of putting this column together there were reports to the effect that President Bola Tinubu has waded in, asking that the impeachment process be halted and all grievances referred to the National Working Committee of the APC. This will enable the party to deploy its internal dispute resolution organs to stem the tide of crisis in State. This obviously will not go down well with the Wike camp.
At a plenary session presided over by Martins Amaewhule as speaker, Major Jack as majority leader, notice of allegations and gross misconduct against the governor had been formally presented. The notice, endorsed by 26 lawmakers, accused Fubara of actions alleged to be in violation of the Nigerian constitution. As at the weekend, the leadership of the State Assembly remained insistent that the impeachment notice will be followed up on until Fubara is humiliated out of office. They kept on citing a Supreme Court indictment of the Governor as having breached the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
The leadership of APC in Rivers State has had good reason to condemn the current crisis in the State describing it as a needless carry-over from the strives in the PDP which should not be allowed to stifle the operations of the APC.
The party recalled that during the period of emergency rule, an appropriation bill was transmitted to the National Assembly in May 2025.
The budget, which totalled N1.485 trillion, was approved by the Senate on 25 June 2025, and by the House of Representatives on 22 July 2025.
That particular budget was designed to run for one year until August 2026 .
The constitution also allows a six-month spending window into a new fiscal year by a state governor. The Rivers State Assembly is however not disposed to hear any of these arguments or informed positions.
The current impeachment notice is said to be the third of its kind since the governor took office in 2023. At the core of the present crisis is the Governor’s defection to the APC which gives him some political leverage over the FCT minister, Nyesom Wike. The impeachment move has also been triggered by disagreement over a supplementary budget that Wike’s allies allegedly pushed for in the State House of Assembly. Fubara had insisted that the budget signed during the emergency rule was enough for his administration.
Amaewhule on the other hand has maintained that what is playing out in Rivers is not about personalities but rather a constitutional question. ‘The governor is not fighting with any individual, rather, he is fighting against the Constitution’.
As the probe unfolds, attention remains firmly fixed on both the Assembly and the governor’s camp, with many awaiting the next development in what has become one of the most dramatic political crises in Rivers State’s recent history. In all these, the major casualties remain the people of Rivers State as resources for development are diverted into crisis management and attempts at resolutions.
