RIVERS CRISIS: WHOM THE GODS WOULD DESTROY, THEY FIRST MAKE MAD

 RIVERS CRISIS: WHOM THE GODS WOULD DESTROY, THEY FIRST MAKE MAD

 

By Aniekan Udofia 

The latin concept, "Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat," which literally means in English: Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first deprives of reason, captures the political situation in Rivers State. 

When the crisis began in Rivers State, there were those who knew that the battle was only dictated by the former governor Nyesom Wike because the current governor had not found his footing. In what many laughed at, it was an act of scorn by former governor of Ekiti State  Ayodele Fayose to look an incoming governor in the face and warned him not to try his predecessor that he would crush him. The likes of Fayose and some others have extolled Wike to the point that the former governor of Rivers State saw himself larger than life.

Like an emperor, Wike reigned supreme in Rivers State and, in his own word, singlehandedly bought the forms for all the elected political office holders in Rivers State  in 2023. Therefore, none of them must have the courage to challenge the Lord of the Manor. A governor who could supervise the election of the same day to record landslide victory in the Presidential Election for APC and a landslide victory for the National Assembly members on the platform of the PDP is certainly a miracle worker.

At the climax of the crisis President Bola Tinubu superintended over a peace meeting that reached an agreement to jettison the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria he took an oath to defend in the name of a political solution to a crisis.  Many observed that the peace accord was tantamount to a peace of graveyard and was impracticable in all sense. 

The drafters of the peace accord showed their depth of ignorance and low intelligence in coming up with such 8 point agreement. The agreement smelt of the pride and ego of Wike and looked like an elementary school child writing to his parents his wishes as a birthday gift. Everything Wike would have wished as a ground for settlement was inputed into the agreement and the President in the manner he was declared winner of the 2023 election also declared the peace accord and requested the signatures of the parties involved.

Governor Siminalayi Fubara would have been walking against the run of play in the political space of Rivers State with a legislature that was against him and loyal to the former governor, Wike. Fubara, with most council chairmen in State that were loyal to Wike, would have been walking a tight rope. Fubara, with a former governor who is now Minister and has the ears of the President, would have been a mere figurehead.

As Fubara's influence and powers seemed to be diminishing, the governor patiently waited on the people of Rivers State to give him the steam to move against his adversaries. Fubara began to draw public sympathy.

With all the powers of the Rivers State House of Assembly lawmakers against Fubara and the might of Wike, providence drove these people towards madness. How could 27 lawmakers elected on the platform of the PDP defect on the same day to another party the APC without a crisis in their political party.

In just one day, these 27 lawmakers packed themselves in a coaster bus and wore similar cap chanting like touts, "On your mandate, we shall stand." Announcing their defection to the APC. This action of the lawmakers brought immediate respite to the governor. What in greek mythology is referred to as "Deus ex machina". The lawmakers suddenly, in the eyes of the law, became floating impostors and lost the power to control the governor.

Wike was granting several interviews lambasting the governor, and instead of gathering steam, Wike was looking more like a drowning man in the face of Rivers State politics. 

The tenure of the local government Chairmen was coming to an end in Rivers State, and the 27 impostors in the guise of legislators sat in the theatre of the absurd to extend their tenures. The men who once held the yam and the knife in the battle of supremacy in the Rivers State political crisis had suddenly been made mad by the gods of politics for them to be easily destroyed. 

The end is near for the crisis in Rivers State. The governor has taken the driver's seat and will easily crush the former lawmakers.

Wike with his band of supporters and loyalists have swallowed the bitter pill of politics in Rivers State, and like the saying goes, "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad".