Like Job’s friends who chose the worst moments of his grief to berate him, pouring insults and scorn on him in the name of moral support, the suspended governor of Rivers State, Sir Siminalayi Fubara, has never been short of  supporters and so-called friends who have been either screaming on roof tops or whispering their kind of wisdom nuggets into his ears.

These are political sharks and household vultures who had opposed his emergence as governor but became fast friends with him the moment he decided to turn against his ‘destiny helper’ and bit to the marrow the fingers that fed him. No matter how we rail against godfatherism in politics, Nyesom Wike, Fubara’s predecessor in office as governor of Rivers State and current Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, was Sim Fubara’s foster father in politics. Without him there would not have been a Governor Fubara. 

Wike’s intention was to extend his influence through Fubara by making him his stooge in the Governor’s Lodge like most politicians, former governors and presidents, do. Wike was to a lesser or greater extent a product of such political surrogacy before he broke loose and declared his freedom. Turning on their benefactor and breaking free is the preferred way out of peonage for many politicians.

Most of them who rise into political prominence through the help of godfathers and sooner or later turn against them often have to bid their time before making their move. They wait for the most opportune moment to strike. ‘To be thus is nothing’, says Shakespeare’s Macbeth but ‘to be safely thus’. It’s not enough for a political neophyte who wanted to be free to have ascended into power, they must ensure they have the wherewithal to stand to their godparent before going for the godparent’s jugular. Siminalayi Fubara was not a strategist in this regard. 

He showed his hand too early in the day. He was just about three months into his governorship before turning against Nyesom Wike. He misjudged his abilities and having made that error that has proven consequential to his ability to remain in office, things have never remained the same between him and Wike. Not until the latest detente brokered by President Bola Tinubu. It’s likely this would stand as the governor appears to have come to the realisation that he stands no chance after weighing the forces ranged against him. He could have avoided the entire fiasco of a drama that has stalled governance in Rivers State for two full years. It culminated with his suspension as governor and with that the collapse of the democratic structures in the state after the imposition of emergency rule on the state in March. 

This also followed the real possibility of the governor being impeached by the State legislators, products of Wike’s godfatherism, that had locked horns with him. Out of fear the governor had ordered the demolition of the House of Assembly. Sim Fubara had set the stage for the face-off after he decided to replace the local government chairmen with caretaker officers that were to fill the gap until the emergence of new chairmen in an election he was to midwife. The chairmen, all Wike loyalists also, were the same people Wike had used in their different localities to win the election that brought Fubara into office. That he would turn around so soon after to replace them with his own appointees speaks volumes about his sense of loyalty. Granted that everyone demands loyalty in politics, not many care to show it in their conduct. What counts for most is interest. But if a politician, indeed a godson, must be disloyal, shouldn’t they acknowledge by way of some payback the favours they have enjoyed from their benefactor? 

Sim Fubara was in a hurry to be his own man and was blinded to the fact that Wike was still firmly in control of the political structures in the state? Fubara’s action had all the imprints of immaturity stamped on it. He lacked the basic wisdom that guides political contest and the struggle for power: never strike when the forces of victory are ranged against you. It was the same ineptness, expressed by way of verbal diarrhea, that led to him saying his ‘boys’ would move, implying they would make the state ungovernable, once he gave them the signal to. When a day or two later oil pipelines went up in flames in some parts of the state, it was all the excuse the Tinubu administration needed to declare emergency rule. No government would sit back and watch things slide into chaos as Sim Fubara’s words suggested. Goaded by power mongers, Sim Fubara swelled up with borrowed courage. His shoulders literally rose an inch or two as he went around the state boasting of his control of the red pen with which a governor signs off on documents and with threats to sanction his opponents. 

All of this until March 18 when the President declared a state of emergency in Rivers. The opposition kicked and railed in defiance but nobody could deny that for the first time a sense of calm descended on the State. The appointment of a retired Rear Admiral and a former Chief of Naval Staff, Ibok Ete-Ibas, as Sole Administrator, rubbed in the fact that Fubara had been temporarily dethroned. After three months out of power, reason is beginning to prevail, perhaps, on terms some claim are detrimental to Fubara. Sim Fubara is a naive political player that has been forced to eat the humble pie. He, like Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan or even Peter Obi are hostages of supporters, veritable Job’s comforters, who dictate the terms of their political engagement. They have mounted the back of a tiger and dare not dismount without being eaten alive. Left for them, they would have gladly made peace with their political rivals but having risen on the crest of popular acclaim, they cannot look in a different direction. They are trapped between a rock and a hard place. 

Now we are being told Fubara may no longer enjoy a second term or freely make appointments When he looked back in the height of his suspension, there was nobody to hail him. His supporters had disappeared. Just as Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan now has to make the rounds of court rooms without her battery of supporters, the Oby Ezekwesili’s and their band of expired activists. It’s the same story for Peter Obi who has in desperation for power given up on his right to a second term in office even before he has been adopted as a presidential candidate not to mention win a presidential election. This always is the fate of those who traded political gravitas for cheap populism. They end up on the cold floor.