Democracy Bade Rivers State Farewell!

Yes, democratic rule bade the people of Rivers State, South-South Nigeria, farewell yesterday, October 5, 2024, after a ruptured historic, local government election in the oil rich state.

A young opportunistic Governor Siminalayi Fubara hastened the demise of the so-called government of the people, by the people and for the people with his comic local government election in the State where he took the relevant oaths to preserve the sanctity of his office as governor.

Fubara lost his honour and lost a great opportunity of becoming a rare harbinger of democratic hope in a nation that has sadly defied all known ethical values of the ballot box.

Fubara had the greatest opportunity in Nigeria’s democratic history to stand unbowed and unapologetic too, to show his young generation that the end must not always justify the means. Fubara missed being an unrepentant champion of hope and change for his younger folks.

In all ways, Fubara role in the conduct of the October 5 charade local government election in Rivers State, is a repudiation of those that trusted him to raise political expectations and change the tone of politics in the state.

Winston S. Churchill was damn right when he said: “Democracy leads ultimately to tyranny,” as we are witnessing occurring before our eyes today in Fubara’s Rivers State. Tyranny should have no place in deciding who should govern the people.

Even in medieval times, law had a supremacy of constitution above the king. Howbeit democratic ‘kings’ like Fubara and irks can easily overrun the orders of Nigerian courts?

A king is under the law, in regard of some coercive limitations; because, there is no absolute power given to him to do what he lists, as a man. Society becomes the jungle without the law, as Rivers State has gradually degenerated into, to the consternation of well meaning Nigerians.

Law was made to protect our general safety, and ensure our rights as citizens against abuses by other people, by organizations, and by the government itself, inclusive of governors. The people must rise at all times to resist any Niccolò Machiavelli’s ‘Prince’; because the end should not justify the behaviour, especially among politicians.

Now that Fubara has won, he has taught a greater number of young politicians in his state to become political deviants who must win elections by all means possible.

A ready excuse for Fubara’s naked dance last Saturday would be the contrived excessive overbearing control attitude of Mr. Ezenwo Nyesom Wike, the relative young 56 years old former governor of River State, who ostensibly coronated his former Accountant General as his successor. But Fubara should know too that, there is no greater fraud than a promise not kept.

Wike on the other hand, should realise that, just because a lizard nods its head does not mean it is in agreement. Perhaps, more instructive, the Federal Capital Territory Minister should have known also, that the lizard had the tree in mind before challenging the dog to a fight.

Now, that the Chief Electoral Officer of the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission, Justice Adolphus Enebeli has pronounced Fubara’s proxy Action Peoples Party (APP) winner of all 22 local government areas, he has won a Pyrrhic Victory. He may have won his political battle, but sadly lost the war to become a champion of democracy and role model for younger politicians!