As usual, Nigerians, it seems, have put the issue of Rivers State political crisis aside and moved on. Everything is, once again, hunky-dory. The state of emergency has been graciously lifted by an ever-benevolent president. The governor has been restored to his position and has offered effusive thanks. Peace has returned and the streets are quiet, as Governor Siminalayi Fubara would want Nigerians to believe.
No problem! But is Fubara still the governor of Rivers State? Technically speaking, he is not since he cannot exercise the functions of that office without looking over his shoulder. Yet, the tragedy is that while the man who parades him as the chief executive may well be the Brick House – Rivers State’s seat of government – chief tenant and fully apprised of his powers, he cannot exercise same because ultimate power resides elsewhere. I will come back to this.
In trying to understand the bizarre conduct of Fubara after serving out a six-month suspension slammed on him by the headmaster of Nigeria’s democracy, President Bola Tinubu, and his class captain, Nyesom Wike, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), I have had to take a second look at the term “Stockholm syndrome.”
An AI overview of the phrase explains that in August 1973, four employees at the Kreditbanken Bank in Stockholm, Sweden, were held hostage by a robber named Jan-Erik Olsson and his accomplice, Clark Olofsson, for six days. During the standoff, the hostages developed an emotional connection with their captors and became afraid of the police. One of the hostages, Kristin Enmark, famously stated during a call with the Swedish Prime Minister that she trusted her captors but feared the police.
Following the saga, Nils Johan Bejerot, a Swedish psychiatrist and criminologist, who died on November 29, 1988, coined the phrase Stockholm syndrome in explaining the unexpected behaviour of the hostages, who displayed sympathy and formed an affinity with their captors.
It was strange and inexplicable to the Swedes at the time just as Fubara’s conduct 52 years after has left a lot of people scratching their heads in disbelief. But truth be told, Fubara is as much a hostage as the Stockholm quartet.
Here is a man who, though thoroughly humiliated and stripped of all powers, is still grateful to his tormentors for their ‘kindness and benevolence.’ But do you blame him? After all, allowing him to prefix, once again, his name with the phrase, “His Excellency” and driven around in siren blaring convoys with security details to boot is, indeed, a privilege in his circumstance.
After all, didn’t his tormentor-in-chief, Wike, say on Channels Television that he could have prolonged the emergency rule if he so desired? “If we didn’t want this state of emergency to be lifted, we would have done one or two things to ensure that it continues,” were his exact words.
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So, why won’t Fubara, who knows this fact, be grateful that Wike, his lord and personal saviour, was magnanimous enough not to travel that route but instead chose to deliver him from the throes of sudden political death even if he attaches the most stringent strings ever?
It is obvious that the six-month quarantine period was used to purge Fubara of any iota of self-worth and sense of grandeur that the exalted office of governor imbues in occupants. First, his traducers ensuring there was no triumphant entry for him after he was restored to office, kept him away.
Of course, Wike, who apparently knew his whereabouts said no law required him to resume work immediately. “Do you know whether he is in Abuja doing one or two things? Do you know whether he is in Lagos?” he queried, wondering why the longsuffering people of Rivers State should be privileged to know the whereabouts of Fubara.
Even the limited reception that was accorded the returnee governor on September 19, at the Port Harcourt International Airport was counted against him as an egregious breach of the agreement of surrender he signed with his tormentors.
That was the point Bright Amaewhule, President General of the Grassroots Development Initiative (GDI), and an unabashed Wike underling, made when he took umbrage at Fubara’s supporters for the airport reception. Expressing surprise that Fubara allowed such a gathering and questioning the logic behind welcoming him while ignoring members of the State House of Assembly, Amaewhule said it would further widen the rift between his supporters and those loyal to Wike.
That is how untenable Tinubu and Wike have made Fubara’s position. He is a fair game to all comers and he is helpless because any response from him is considered a breach of the agreement of surrender he willingly signed with his oppressors, which explains why despite vowing not to take President Tinubu’s kindness for granted and the fulsome praises he heaped on his “political leader,” Wike, Fubara still dashed off to Abuja the next day not only to see Mr. President and tell him that he was back and resumed his responsibility as the governor of Rivers State but also to seek his guidance on how to avoid future political crises.
“It is a father-and-son discussion, telling him thank you and seeking his guidance so we don’t find ourselves in any situation that will bring crisis again. He (Tinubu) advised me on what to do and how to go in the right direction,” Fubara told journalists at the Aso Rock Villa after meeting with Tinubu, a classic case of the Stockholm syndrome.
In all this effulgent trauma bonding drama of Fubara, he has not bothered to spare a thought for those who stuck out their necks for him. Of course, doing so will be counted as another breach of the agreement.
Understandably, well-meaning Nigerians are angry with Fubara and have called him unprintable names, but there is a need to moderate such judgments. As sickening as his conduct and public utterances may be, Fubara, a creation of Wike, is only but a pawn on the Tinubu-Wike political chessboard. He deserves pity because truth be told, he has never been allowed to be a governor in the real sense of the word.
In fact, it was his pretense at being one that led to the brouhaha. In Fubara’s first coming, of the more than 25 commissioners in the state, the only one that came through him was Joe Johnson, who was saddled with the information portfolio. Even at that, he pleaded with Wike to be granted that concession, a plea that was rejected. That was the beginning of the crisis. As a governor, Fubara would seek permission to be allowed to attend meetings of the PDP Governors Forum. He must also get clearance from Abuja before anyone could visit him in Port Harcourt. His wife was not even allowed to attend meetings of governors’ wives.
Now, back to the issue of whether Fubara is technically the governor of Rivers State. It is difficult to say if his positive feelings toward his abusers is a survival strategy to help reduce the threat of further harm, but the question is: what more harm – politically and psychologically – can be inflicted on him that will be worse than the kitchen sink thrown at him by Wike and his surrogates from the outset?
Fubara is in government but Wike is in power, effectively in charge. For instance all the 23 local government chairmen, their deputies and 319 councillors in the state owe their allegiance to Wike. The 32 members of the Rivers State House of Assembly are beholden to him. In Fubara’s second coming, he will not be given the privilege of appointing any state official, not even his personal staff, not to talk of commissioners. And whatever Appropriation Bill he presents to the Assembly will be vetted by the strongman in Abuja. In any case, Fubara has also reportedly signed off on an agreement that forbids him from seeking reelection in 2027. No governor in Nigerian history has been so besmirched.
So, he is a man to be pitied, a man whose understanding of what peace entails is fundamentally flawed. In throwing all well-meaning people of Rivers under the grinding wheels of Wike’s locomotive engine, Fubara said peace has returned to the state. But in doing that, did he spare a thought for the Chijioke Ihunwos of Rivers State who staked their all to save his political skin but who he has sacrificed on Wike’s fiendish political altar? That is not leadership. The biggest disservice Fubara is doing not only to the state but the entire country is the fact that he is destroying, by his acquiescence and puerile interpretation of peace, the constitutional significance of the office of governor.
But while it may be right to say that all this has happened because Fubara is a creation of Wike, the question is: how do Rivers people ensure that come 2027, the man who will emerge governor will be a creation of their collective electoral will?
