Today, Saturday October 5 2024, has already sign-posted a major turning point in the politics of Rivers State which in recent times has featured significant twists and turns, courtesy of the face-off between the incumbent Governor Siminalayi Fubara and the immediate past governor and now Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike. The issue at stake is who dominates in the game changing local government polls which is scheduled for today across the 23 LGAs of Rivers State. The winner of the contest effectively dominates the politics of the oil rich-state, as well as much of same for the country.
Among the circumstance that accentuated the strategic significance of the polls is the desperation of Wike to control the politics of the state, of which the last batch of elected LGA officials who were largely loyal to him, exited office, and thereby, left him bereft of the political structure which they represented while in office. They left office in June 2024, at the effluxion of their tenures. Openly encouraged by Wike, they had tried several measures in futility to extend their tenures, including seeking reliefs in court.
In the ongoing tussle for control of the state which was initially launched through proxies by Wike against Fubara in October 2023, today’s polls constitute a make or break exercise for the former, in the context of his undisguised agenda of retaining control of the state.
Against the backdrop to the polls’ strategic significance, the build-up to the exercise has featured several tendencies which include efforts by the Rivers State government to replace the current unelected caretaker committees in compliance with a Supreme Court ruling that disqualifies any unelected local government across the country from accessing allocations from the federation account. This is just as the build-up also featured a boycott of the polls by the PDP along with a faction of the APC in the state.
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Meanwhile, in an earlier development which featured the conduct of local government and state congresses by the PDP in the state, Wike effectively cornered the party structure and placed his loyalists in strategic positions in the Rivers State PDP structure. This followed the withdrawal of Fubara and his camp from participating in the polls, in compliance with an earlier court order stopping the congresses.
With the PDP structure in the state falling into the hands of Wike, Fubara had withdrawn direct participation by his loyalists in PDP, and rather encouraged aspirants from different political parties to contest for offices at the polls. This twist has initiated another game change in the politics of the state. In the circumstances, without the dominance of the polls by the big parties such as PDP and a faction of the APC, the stage is now left for the cluster of hitherto mushroom parties to rise to the challenge of contesting and winning offices during the polls.
Meanwhile, as if to counter the Rivers State government on the conduct of the polls, the state chapter of the PDP along with a faction of the APC staged a protest two days preceding the polls as they assembled at the office of the PDP for the purpose. However, their enterprise failed as they were dispersed by a torrential rain that soaked them.
The foregoing notwithstanding, in the course of the convolution of plots and schemes with respect to the local government polls, remains as a matter of grave concern, the role of the federal government, especially the disposition of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in respect of the political conundrum playing out in Rivers State under his watch. Apart from the much touted initiative of intervention by President Tinubu last year December, as a gesture of settling the Fubara – Wike tangle, much of public take-on it was that it was a farce.
Meanwhile, in terms of public perception of the Wike inspired tussle for control of Rivers State, a large cross-section of Nigerians largely see it as being executed in connivance with the powers that be. Deriving from that consideration is the growing perception in the public domain that the goal is to render Rivers State ungovernable, pursuant to the declaration of a state of emergency there. In any case, the prevailing socio-political circumstances raging across the country make such a contemplation a disservice to the country that requires whosoever indulges in such a mindset to have a rethink.
Among the factors that discredit such a mindset are the following. First is that Nigeria cannot afford a prolonged political turbulence in Rivers State, given its status as the hub of the critical oil and gas sector of the country. Given the misgivings by the Nigerian public on the administration’s inability to even deliver on its own promises to Nigerians, it suffers a credibility crisis which the recent waves of nationwide protests have simply accentuated.
Second is the fact that with the approach of Wike to the political terrain of River State a significant measure of de-marketing had been inflicted on the Tinubu presidency, with invariably proportionate consequences awaiting the president on any occasion of soliciting for votes in the state.
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