The political environment in Rivers State was once stable. Throughout the reign of former Governor Nyesom Wike, who is now the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Rivers had a defined political colour.
The state was mainly divided into two political groups, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC). While the PDP dominated the government at all levels, the APC grappled with the prolonged internal crisis caused by the egotistical grandstanding of some key leaders.
At least, then Rivers was referred to as a PDP state, and rightly so because since the rebirth of democracy in 1999, the oil-rich state has been governed by the PDP with other political parties making little or no impact. The political grandmaster, Dr. Peter Odili, who held the state together from 1999 to 2007 was a product of the PDP.
His successor and former Transport Minister, Rotimi Amaechi was produced from the same political platform from 2007 to 2015. He only jumped ship to the APC towards the end of his administration and created some political storm in the state.
But Wike was one of the strongest governors produced by the PDP from 2015 till 2023. The former governor ensured that the PDP was in control of Rivers. In all the Presidential elections held before 2023 during his tenure as a governor, the ruling APC could not score the constitutionally required 25 per cent votes despite having Amaechi as the leader of the APC.
Rivers was an example of a unified political colour. The political family was united and PDP, the umbrella, was the only acceptable logo.
But now Rivers wears a confusing political rainbow. There is no unified colour and the logos of the elephant, umbrella, and broom are clashing making the environment fluid and unstable. The once-united PDP political family has collapsed into different undefined structures.
The Genesis
Public analysts refer to the build up to the 2023 Presidential election as the beginning of the political confusion in the state. The state PDP under former governor Wike fell apart with the party’s leadership at the national level. The choice of former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar as the party’s presidential candidate for the election fueled the crisis.
Wike, having lost out of the race for the presidential ticket of the PDP and betrayed in the power play to produce Atiku’s running mate, demanded the fulfilment of the promise made by the former National Chairman of the PDP, Dr. Iyorcha Ayu. The former chairman was said to have agreed that he would step down and yield his position to the South if, after the Presidential primaries, a northerner emerged as the party’s candidate.
His refusal to bow out of office after the emergence of Atiku infuriated some party bigwigs including Wike. The former Rivers governor, who commanded political influence and material affluence decided that in the interest of equity, justice and integrity, no northerner should aspire to become the President after the eight-year reign of another northerner, Muhammadu Buhari.
Wike, who formed the G-5 comprising former governors of Enugu State, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi; Abia, Ikpeazu; Oyo, Seyi Makinde; Benue, Samuel Ortom and himself as well as other notable PDP leaders across the country nursed a different party orientation ahead of the presidential election and campaigned against Atiku.
Wike was vocal in his rejection of Atiku’s candidacy. Rivers was the capital of the anti-Atiku campaign. Out of the frontline presidential candidates, the former governor held marathon meetings with the PDP stakeholders in the state and they unanimously agreed to support and work for the victory of the APC presidential candidate, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Therefore, the full structures of the PDP and a faction of the APC all coordinated by Wike teamed up for the first time defying their party leanings and orientations to work for the emergence of Tinubu. But while they voted for Tinubu, they voted for PDP candidates in other elections in the state. It was a political jigsaw, a risky political chess game, which Wike gambled with but later succeeded.
The former governor singlehandedly developed the strategies that gave the APC Tinubu victory ensuring that his party’s presidential candidate for the first time since he resigned as a governor did not get up to the required 25 percent votes. But all his other candidates in the PDP won across the state from the governorship to the National Assembly.
Incidentally, the same party merger occurred in the Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi-led APC structures in the state. Amaechi, an erstwhile governor and former Transport Minister, reportedly directed his supporters in the APC to vote for Atiku for President and Chief Tonye Cole, his political son, for governor. He, however, lost out because the Wike’s force overwhelmed him.
In fact, Wike after his resounding victory and rare courage to dare his national PDP leadership began to seriously hobnob with the APC leaders across the country. He won the confidence of President Tinubu and became a force to reckon with in his administration. The Rivers henchman became the Minister of the FCT and has been the brains behind the appointments of Rivers people across party lines in Tinubu’s administration.
Apart from being the PDP strongman, Wike oversees the faction of the APC led by Chief Tony Okocha, who is the caretaker committee chairman of the party in the state. Most notable APC leaders in Rivers rally around him including the Southsouth leadership structure of the party. They all refer to him as their leader and follow him to events.
In March during the special thanksgiving organized in Rivers by the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, Kingsley Chinda, Wike said the APC and PDP were united in the state.
He said: “In Rivers you have seen APC and PDP. We want our state to be united. We want our state to see what we can get from the government of Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Our support for him, he has been reciprocating by giving us federal positions. We will continue to support and he will continue to find us something”.
Wike-Fubara rift
The ongoing political rift between Wike and his estranged political godson, Sir Siminialayi Fubara, has further created a political party identity crisis. Wike has tactically maintained his stronghold on all PDP structures in the state leaving Fubara and his supporters, who are mainly members of the PDP to operate without structures.
Fubara was so frustrated that he once lamented that the PDP had failed them adding that they were no longer a party but a movement in the state. Despite the visit of the PDP Board of Trustees members led by Senator Adolphus Wabara and all promises made to the governor, Wike and his loyalists continue to hold tenaciously to the PDP structures. Wike’s camp took advantage of the congresses to cement their ownership of the PDP.
The PDP state congress
For the first time in a long while, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Secretariat located along the popular Aba Road in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, came alive recently.
The atmosphere was electrifying as hundreds of party faithful and delegates converged on the facility to elect members of the Rivers State, PDP Working Committee (SWC).
It was a grand finale of the state’s PDP congresses, which started with the ward congress on July 27th and that of the local government on August 11th.
However, the state congress was the largest of the three events. PDP leaders elected as delegates and their foot soldiers from the 23 local government areas of the state were in attendance.
Decked in uniform made of mix-coloured fabric, the party leaders cast their votes for members of the new SWC that will pilot the affairs of the party in the next four years.
Wike, was the cynosure of all eyes. His entry into the facility was triumphant as the delegates received him with aplomb. He is the political apple of their eyes.
Though the event was peaceful, it emphasised the deepening political crisis rocking the state and the irreparable chasm between two camps in a once united and thriving political family.
While Wike and his loyalists partook in the crucial exercise, Fubara and his supporters were conspicuously absent. It was indeed a day to realise that the political differences, which snowballed into crisis and started like a joke in October 2023, have wrecked relationships and created unimaginable enmity.
Why was Fubara and his team absent from the event, which handed over a fresh party structure to Wike and his camp?
In fact, Fubara and his camp had never participated in any of the congresses. On July 16, Fubara’s camp approached the state High Court sitting in Port Harcourt and obtained an order restraining the party from conducting the congresses. The court issued the order in a suit filed by 11 applicants against the PDP, the National Chairman of the PDP, the party’s Financial Secretary, and the Organising Secretary.
The Presiding Judge, Justice Sobere Biambo, issued an order of interim injunction restraining the defendants from carrying out the PDP congress on July 27th or any other day or location rescheduled for the event.
The court also stopped the PDP from holding the Congress in Rivers on any day at all pending the determination of the suit.
The court further stopped the PDP from taking any decision or giving any directive to further extend the already expired tenure of the ward, local government and state executive officers of the party.
Fubara and his camp boycotted all the congresses following the court order. But why did the NWC of the PDP go ahead with the congresses despite the order?
The camp of Wike on July 23 obtained a counter order from the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja mandating the PDP to go ahead with the congresses.
Justice Peter Lifu of the Federal High Court, Abuja, restrained the Department of State Service (DSS), police, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), and seven others from stopping or disrupting the conduct of congresses forwards and local governments of the PDP in the state.
The ex-parte application was filed by six members of the PDP in the state. Justice Lifu ordered the PDP, the Acting National Chairman of the party, Iliya Damagum; National Secretary, Samuel Anyanwu and National Organizing Secretary, Umar Bature, to proceed with the conduct of the congresses as scheduled by PDP.
In a state already enmeshed in legal conundrum, the two camps chose the court orders to obey. Wike’s camp relied on Justice Lifu’s pronouncement to massively partake in the congresses and took over all the structures of the PDP in the state. Fubara and his camp embraced Justice Biambo’s directive and stayed away from all the events thereby risking being axed from the PDP.
Indeed, the event showed that the central leadership of the PDP is in limbo. The party has failed woefully to unite the warring camps in Rivers. Various arms of the party seem to have taken sides in the crisis. Some have continued to make fake promises to the governor.
Recently, Senator Adolphus Wabara-led Board of Trustees (BoT) was in Port Harcourt and held a meeting with the governor and key members of his political camp.
They said they were on a fact-finding mission and promised to visit the rival camp insisting that “there is always two sides to a coin.”
Wabara said they visited as the conscience of the party in search of peace and unity following what he described as the ungodly tension in recent times that had threatened the PDP in Rivers. Wabara, a former Senate President, said the PDP was scared of losing Rivers State and vowed that the BoT would seek constitutional resolution to the crisis.
But the BoT’s visit and their assurances seem to have ended in politics. Wike first rubbished their mission as a nullity. There was no intervention of Wabara and his team to compel postponement of the state Congress to allow for the resolutions of the crisis in the state.
Few days after the BoT’s visit, the the PDP’s Governors’ Forum held its meeting in Bauchi State and brought Fubara’s dilemma to the front burner for discussion.
The governors restated their support for Fubara.
The governors assured their readiness to engage the NWC of the party to revisit the congresses and insisted that Fubara must be allowed to take his rightful leadership position of the party in the state.
Like the toothless bulldog, the PDP governors failed to fulfill their promises to their colleagues. They were unable to help Fubara. The Local Government Congress was neither revisited nor canceled. Amidst the revisiting promise, the NWC sent a delegation to conduct the state congress, which settled the question of PDP leadership in Rivers.
Wike seized the opportunity of the state Congress to send a stern warning to the PDP’s Governors’ Forum. He told the governors to steer clear of the PDP structure in the state.
The former governor, whose speech was intermittently interrupted with applauses and solidarity chants by the crowd of delegates and other party members, vowed to ignite political crisis in states of governors dabbling in Rivers PDP affairs.
While issuing the stern warning, Wike assured his camp in the Rivers PDP that nobody would take away the party structures from them.
Apparently referring to the Bauchi State Governor, Wike said he would not give a damn insisting that any governor trying to hand over the structures of the PDP to Fubara would not sleep well in his state.
He said: “Let me assure all of you that not while we live, anybody will take away the structure of PDP from us. Let me tell people, I hear that there are some governors, who said they would take away the structure and give it to somebody.
“I pity those governors because I will put fire in their state. When God has given you peace, you say you don’t want peace, then whatever you see you take. I don’t understand. I don’t understand simply because I heard they got some money and their heads are getting big that you put hand in my own state.
“Prepare because I have the capacity to also do the same thing in your own state. Whether you are from Bauchi I don’t give a damn. Whichever state you come from, as far as I know that you are trying to put your hands in Rivers State, your hand will get burnt and you will never sleep in your state.
“You will never do governorship again, you will see a political crisis as far as PDP is concerned. I have told them while you have started, when I start, don’t say I am the one that destroyed PDP. Allow Rivers State to conduct the affairs of the party.”
The FCT Minister said they had done their part by electing a governor but that they had resolved to move forward since Fubara said they were no longer part of his plans.
Wike encouraged the PDP loyalists to liken their rejection and maltreatment by the governor as a bad business insisting that not everybody business would yield the desired profit.
He said they remained the party members and that they had taken over the affairs of their party praying that God would help them repeat the 2023 victory in 2027. The FCT Minister has clarified the hullabaloo generated by his warning that he would put fire in the state of any PDP governor, who tried to meddle with Rivers PDP affairs. His camp has also gone to court to secure an injunction debarring anybody from tampering with the current structures of PDP in Rivers.
Observers believe that the entire organs of the national PDP have failed Fubara and his team. They opined that the governor and his loyalists should have summoned the courage to participate in the congresses and attempt to divide the various leadership of the party in the state.
Instead of obtaining a court order, which may not invalidate the congresses, they should have created factions in the state and initiated endless court processes.
By all indications, Fubara has lost out of the battle to control the PDP in Rivers State. As the governor earlier said, the PDP has failed him and his people. The governor seems to have started reviewing his status in the party. His rumoured defection to the All Peoples Party (APP) to chart a new political journey for himself and his team seems to have regained traction.
Undoubtedly, APP has been thrown into the mix to further confuse the political identity of Rivers. The unfolding events show that the little known APP with its logo, the elephant, is the coveted political destination of Fubara and his camp.
The Rivers Local Government Election and PDP’s boycott
While Wike is carrying the PDP and a faction of the APC, Fubara has been left to shop for another political identity. Despite still being a member of the PDP, Fubara has no control of any PDP structures in the state. Though the governor scheduled October 5 for controversial governorship elections, he could not use the structures to prepare for the elections.
Without mincing words, while Fubara is still in PDP, his political family has chosen the APP to contest the October 5th local government elections. They were said to have unofficially defected to the APP to enable them to contest the poll.
Governor’s loyalists and social media aides are promoting the activities of the APP making the little-known party to gain popularity within the state. The camp published the final list of the chosen chairmanship and councillorship candidates under the APP. Most of the local government caretaker committees’ chairmen emerged as chairmanship candidates.
Known Fubara’s loyalists, who emerged as chairmanship candidates of the APP are Abua/Odua, Vincent Reuben Obu; Ahoada-East, Chibudom Ezu; Ahoada-West, Mr. Iyekor Ikporo; Akuku-Toru, Mrs. Tonye Oniyide; Emohua, David Omereji; Obio/Akpor, Amb. Chijioke Ihunwo; Omuma, Promise Reginald; Opobo/Nkoro, Enyiada Cookey-Gam; Port Harcourt, Ezebunwo Ichemati, among others.
The APP Secretariat located at the new GRA in Port Harcourt has become a beehive of political activities as Fubara’s supporters are trooping in and out of the building.
The state Chairman of APP, Sunny Wokekoro, handed over the flag of the party to Fubara’s local government chairmanship candidates vowing that his party would cripple the structures of the PDP and other parties in the state.
Wokekoro said the nation would take the party seriously after the local council elections and the state 2027 poll describing the APP as a veritable destination for everybody in Rivers.
The Chairman said that the candidates were carefully selected based on their track record of leadership and capacity assuring that they would deliver the dividends of grassroots leadership.
He said: “By the time we are done with the local council election, everybody from local, state, and national will take APP seriously. This will be made possible because the people are behind the APP. God is on our side, to use us as a tool to liberate Rivers State”.
Fubara’s loyalists and APP’s candidates had since launched their electioneering campaigns in all the senatorial Districts of the state. They are all over the place parading the insignia of the APP; wearing the party’s outfit and dancing the popular Igbo elephant’ songs.
Their campaigns were first inaugurated at the Rivers South-East Senatorial District comprising seven local government areas of Andoni, Oyigbo, Opobo Nkoro, Eleme, Tai, Khana and Gokana. The APP gathered party faithful, residents and loyalists of the governor to kick off its campaign in Bori.
A party loyalist, who attended the event said: “The event drew an unprecedented crowd, reflecting the community’s eagerness for change and good governance.
“For many, this moment has been long anticipated, symbolizing hope for a brighter future. Residents gathered in large numbers, united by their desire for effective leadership and meaningful progress.
“The atmosphere was charged with enthusiasm as local leaders and party officials outlined their vision for the district, promising transparency, development, and engagement with the people.
“As the APP sets the stage for its campaign, the turnout marks the urgent need for responsive governance and the collective aspiration for a better tomorrow in Rivers State.
“This epoch-making event marks not just the beginning of a campaign, but also a renewed commitment to addressing the pressing needs of the community down to the grassroots.”
The PDP officially announced its decision to boycott the October 5 local government election in the state. The state Chairman of the party, Aaron Chukwuemeka, who spoke at the PDP secretariat in Port Harcourt, said the party was waiting for the court verdict on the election in the case instituted by the All Progressives Congress (APC). Chukwuemeka urged members of the party to stay away from any activities connected with the election.
He said: “As a law-abiding party in the state, we will not be part of the purported local government election that they have slated on 5th October. That is the resolution of the party. All the stakeholders met and we resolved that we won’t be part of that election.
“The reason is that a few months ago there was a suit instituted by the APC. We are not part of the suit but as a law-abiding party, we heard that an order was issued by the court restraining INEC from releasing voters register to RISIEC.
“What elections are we going to have when the voter register is not released to RISIEC and security agencies are not going to be part of the election?
“Based on that the party said we would not be part of it because we believe in the rule of law. All the major stakeholders of our party were in the meeting when we took the resolution. It was a collective decision of our party”.
Undoubtedly, Rivers has an undefined political party identity. The state governor has not officially resigned from the PDP, but for political survival, his loyalists, who were once members of the PDP, are currently in APP contesting the local government elections. The state government is a mixture of the elephant, the PDP’s logo and umbrella, and the PDP’s identity.
On the other hand, Wike is a PDP strongman. Most of his loyalists are in PDP controlling the party’s structures in the state. But the former governor controls a significant faction of the APC and has a strong political alliance with notable APC leaders in the state.
For Amaechi, though he has been quiet, his loyalists and a faction he controls, are hobnobbing with Fubara in the PDP. But some analysts believed that the recent uncommon political formations are not sustainable and will collapse in due time. They opined that if Fubara succeeds with his political experiment in the APP, he will surely depart for the APP while disagreements ahead of the 2027 governorship election can break Wike’s hold in PDP and APC.
