Following the polls of Saturday, October 5, 2024, which was conducted across the 23 local government areas of Rivers State, there have been different reactions from equally different interests and groups. The polls exercise which bore all the hallmarks of a winner-takes-all fight between the incumbent Governor Siminalayi Fubara, and his predecessor, Nyesom Wike, saw the former gaining the upper hand, as his allies won virtually all the seats that were up for contest in the polls. Out of the chairmen for the 23 LGAs, Fubara’s allies won 22 out rightly.
Such a scenario which manifested in sharp contrast to the backdrop of spirited waves of deleterious maneuvers by Wike to discomfit and even remove Fubara from office, has effectively diminished the electoral value of the former, especially with respect to the politics of 2027, over who delivers Rivers State to who, when the time comes. This is just as it has thrown up a deluge of reactions from sundry quarters, including permutations on the future course of developments in the politics of Rivers State.
For the Fubara camp it is not only a season of celebration of a major political victory of liberating both their principal and governor from the grip of Wike, who after ruling the state for eight years still manifested tendencies of extending his sway over his successor.
The dispensation also launches a new and perhaps more vicious cycle of attacks on the administration as the pride of Fubara’s traducers has been hurt. Not to be mistaken by the Fubara camp is the reality that Wike’s fight against him is not really for egoistic reasons, but for a bigger issue which is who dominates Rivers State politics from now until 2027 and beyond.
Hence while the victory at the polls opens new vistas for Fubara to collaborate with a wider field of political actors, who remain enamored by his new conquering status as the now undisputed champion of Rivers State politics, it has also deepened the resolve by the anti-Fubara forces to decimate his capacities and capabilities. This is the state in which Nigerian politics has degenerated into.
In the circumstances, not a few observers of Rivers State politics see Fubara’s victory as the play-out of poetic justice, wrought by providence to cage Wike’s proclivities.
For the Wike camp, the defeat at the polls has proved a most bitter pill to swallow as it heralds a definitive reappraisal of his political value by the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu camp, given his now questionable status as a deciding factor in the politics of Rivers State. To put the situation in Wike’s camp into context, this is an unfamiliar terrain for them, and comes up with its leading lights primed for destabilising the Fubara tenure with yet new tactics and strategies. Hence it is a return to the trenches with new twists and turns. Considering that their earlier antics have floundered, it is expected that this time around, a more vicious regime of anti-Fubara measures will be on show.
This is why it is not yet freedom for the Fubara camp, as every opportunity to destabilise his administration will be game. This is also why the governor’s camp needs to be most vigilant, as the price for keeping their victory at the polls. To expect anything better from the defeated camp is being unduly presumptuous in line with the cliché which says that he that is down needs fear no further fall.
This consideration falls into line given that soon after the results of the polls showed the misfortunes of Wike’s camp, there were several incidents of violence across the state with at least the LGA offices of Ikwerre, Emohua and Eleme actually burnt by arsonists.
That is why the setting up of a Judicial Commission of Enquiry into the spate of violence that followed the local government polls, is a step in the right direction. The point here is that the upswing in public acclaim for the Fubara administration needs to be sustained by demonstrating zero tolerance to such conduct driven by impunity of a few rascals who may claim to be untouchables.
The wave of public angst over the instances of arson has not spared the police, who are yet to commence action aimed at investigating and arresting suspects involved. For now, the message for the Fubara camp is to maintain vigilance even as the opposition remains more potent than before. The governor’s needs to know that his ultimate guarantee of sustaining the current public appeal is the enthronement of good governance. This is especially so at the grassroots tier – the local governments, who by the circumstances of the recent polls are now fully under his control.
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