When you have been a combatant or supporter in a conflict, there is no doubt that it can be difficult to be the one to call for reconciliation and restoration of relationship, especially if you were and perhaps are convinced of the rightness of your position.
I have been on the side of Governor Siminilayi Fubara in the crisis that rocked Rivers State due to his disagreement with his political father, my professional colleague and ethnic compatriot, the immediate past Governor of the State and current Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Chief Nyesom Ezenwo Wike.
I had not received any favour nor had I ever met Governor Fubara when my dear senior friend, Dr. Obidinma and I filed an action in the High Court of Rivers State praying for Rt. Hon. Martins Amaewhule, our compatriot and representative, to vacate his seat as member of the House of Assembly upon his defection and because in seeking to impeach the Governor, which was the trigger of the crisis, he was doing what we had not sent him to do.
As a matter of fact, I had just led an epic litigation battle against Fubara’s election as Governor at the Governorship Election Tribunal and the Court of Appeal against the wave of support of Wike and his followers. Later, by what I can only ascribe to God’s mysterious way of performing His wonders, Governor Fubara appointed me into the 14th Governing Council of the Rivers State University from which the 13th Council, headed by the man I can describe as my father in legal practice, peremptorily removed me as a senior lecturer.
Less than two weeks after the disagreement between Governor Fubara and Minister Wike blew open, Wike paid me a sort of respect I do not remember ever receiving from any government official in Nigeria. In front of the St. Cyprian’s Anglican Church, Port Harcourt, in the presence of judges and lawyers, he came down from his official FCT 001 limousine shook my hand and that of another colleague, entered his car and zoomed off. It means I could easily have fought on his side. But I did not. I fought on the side of Governor Fubara with conviction. In the end, we ‘lost’. No regrets.
Many, if not most, Rivers persons would share in my view and pain that we lost. And for good cause, whether personal or altruistic. Altruistically, I believe that Wike was wrong on his rage against Fubara.
On a personal ground, Fubara not only appointed me to the 14th Council of RSU, through the instrumentality of Chijioke Ihunwo, but also approved my reinstatement as a senior lecturer. The least I could do to show appreciation was to support him politically. I did and would still do.
It is now the time to show that support. Support of a political leader I have come to learn is measured not in the view of the supporter but the leader.
The greatest and Eternal Political Leader, Jesus Christ, the Righteous, taught it when He said that one cannot be His follower if he is not ready to hate and deny, father, mother, even oneself to follow Him. What a supporter would always pray is that the leader leads him not into a path of eternal regret.
That is the challenge of Rivers people today, especially Governor Fubara’s teeming supporters. I know we are praying that he should lead us along the right path. I think we can trust him to do so. The crisis that erupted between Fubara and Wike has had one salutary effect: it enabled Rivers people to know Fubara for whom he truly is.
We did not have the opportunity to see or hear him closely in the lead-up to the 2023 election. He was a mystery figure, and all sorts of myths were spun against and of him. Like the breaking of an incubated egg by hatching, the crisis brought him out. It revealed the great qualities that his ‘mother hen’ saw but wanted it only to serve her.
We saw the qualities we thought could not be found in anything coming from ‘Nazareth’. The crisis, which turned out to have a dimension neither the mother hen, the chick nor the people imagined, only revealed one thing: all the parties and those concerned have to find the best way to manage our expectations to make Rivers State no more a State known for the wrong reasons but for ability to emerge from the ashes to a great society.
We have seen perhaps, and hopefully so, the worst we can see; we have been to the pit of shame and embarrassment. We have fallen. We can now tell our detractors, ‘rejoice not over me oh my enemy, when I fall, because I shall rise again’. It is time to rise from the dung.
The crisis did not do harm only to Fubara or Wike or members of the House of Assembly led by Rt. Hon. Martins Amaewhule. It hurt their families, communities, relationships, and, of course, the whole of Rivers State in unimagined and unimaginable ways. We can make a choice: to continue in acrimony, claiming to have won or lost, or decide to dust ourselves, embrace each other and go to the Ecumenical Centre to call on God to forgive all of us as we forgive each other.
Understandably, the former Sole Administrator went there for Thanksgiving. Rivers people should return to the Centre for repentance, reconciliation, and restoration. He that tried us as silver is tried, allowed us to pass through fire and water and ‘caused’ men to ride over our heads can in mercy bring us to the place of peace and abundance again.
My people of Oroigwe, Ward I, Obio/Akpor Local Government Area, were unwittingly thrown up to the centre of the crisis: Rt. Hon. Martins Amaewhule, Chief (Amabassador) Chijioke Ihunwo, Dr. Obidinma Obidinma and Dr. Chukwuma A.J. Chinwo each played well his part.
From the same Oroigwe is coming this call for 3Rs – Repentance, Reconciliation and Restoration. It may be hackneyed and self-deceptive to say, ‘no victor, no vanquished’, as there were victory and vanquish, but it is edifying for all to return and rebuild.
The best place to start rebuilding is where the crisis started. I am old enough to advise the governor, Wike, and all the current political gladiators in the state.
I counsel that Chief Nyesom Wike and Governor Fubara should, notwithstanding whatever they may have agreed before the election and after the crisis, if they have not done so, take a retreat in the spirit of grace (may God give them when they ask) to find out where each went wrong, where each offended the other, where each offended the others’ followers and where they offended the corporate interest of the State, blessed by God and now ravaged by men, and seek to let the right things be done.
It can be a difficult task with human beings. So the fewer, humans, if any, are involved the better. But it is easy with God. So God should be at the centre of such a meeting, and the participants should fear him.
To the House of Assembly of Rivers State, I would like to proffer this gratuitous counsel: The House of Assembly, the legislature in any society not only makes the law, it provides the platform for the people of the State to be heard in the running of the affairs of the State. We have suffered for the past 10 years in having a House of Assembly that seemed absent.
My brother always says that when a dumb man is forced to speak, his utterance may be too forceful for comfort. I, and I am sure most persons in Rivers State, want the House to be seen and heard.
But we do not want a House that acts as a trade union and not a representative of different persons and communities with varied needs. We do not want a House that appears deaf and dumb to the cries and afflictions of the people they represent. Irrespective of how the members emerged, it is crucial that each should know that he is there in the name and for the interest of his people as claimed. A representative is a proxy for his constituents and for no other, not even his sponsor.
While every member of the RSHA must stand up for and on the interest of his constituents, he should see himself or herself as a co-builder of the State. While he should appreciate the support and sponsorship of any person for getting into the House, he should realise that his obligation is first and foremost to the State and his people. While he should not be an executive stooge or rubber stamp or anybody’s tool, he should for the sake of the people cooperate with the other arms of government. Real democracy can only be seen through the legislature.
Governance is not about ego trips. Neither the Governor nor the FCT Minister should allow any group in the open or in secret to fan their egos by sycophancy, backbiting, genuflection, spying, and reporting. They have caused the state enough pain and stress and held us down. We can only be free when the truth reigns. The good thing is that every political leader, especially Chief Wike and Governor Fubara, can easily identify the real from the pretentious supporters. They know who is seeking for themselves and who is seeking for the interest of all. Everyone’s antecedent goes before him to proclaim what sort of person he or she is, especially with a leader that is not ready to be deceived.
There must be a determination to allow the people to have their say and democratically have their way. Our state has become one in which everything and anything goes because there is the perpetual thought of seeing each other as from not just different but enemy ethnic groups for absolutely little or no cause. The Rivers person seems eager to rather let an outside take everything than allow his compatriot of any other ethnic group to have a bite! That is why I join Club 401 to urge that this state is in urgent need of a state conference of ethnic nationalities. We can not continue to allow the State to be run like a territory conquered by a few opportune men and women and expect it to develop.
Dr. C.A.J. Chinwo wrote in from Port Harcourt
