By Caleb fubara
It was on October 30, 2023 that Rivers people trooped out in their numbers to resist an impeachment attempt on Gov. Siminalayi Fubara. The governor was barely five months in office when an implosion within the Wike political household came for his head. But the people who were on red alert vehemently stood their ground and, consequently waded off a state Assembly that was pretty much at the beck and call of one man, as it were.
Former Governor Wike, now the FCT Minister, was accused of holding Gov. Fubara by the jugular. And once the latter tried to extricate himself from his stranglehold, Wike, in a heartbeat, ordered for his impeachment. It took God’s intervention and the people’s resistance to stop the governor from drinking from his ex-boss’ poisoned chalice.
Wike didn’t see it coming. But by some divine impulse, a people, unduly predisposed to docility in the face of political intimidation, suddenly found their voice and resoundingly said enough is enough. For once, they chose not to stand idly by and watch things go the Wike’s way. They objected to him asphyxiating life out of the man he reinvented the wheel to make his successor.
Wike, it would appear, took Gov. Fubara and the people of Rivers State for granted. He forgot that the governor hit the grounds running from the get go; a strategy that instantly earned him a place in the people’s heart. Their trust, support and acceptance was therefore spontaneous and total on the day of the jackals.
And for once, Wike was trounced in the Rivers political arena. Wike was alarmed beyond belief. It hasn’t been so since his days as the Chief of Staff to Gov. Rotimi Amachi. As a matter of fact, Wike, has for two decades now bestrode the Rivers political turf like the proverbial cat with nine lives. His back would not touch the ground. But the unexpected happened.
The people may have made a botch of the impeachment; but the onslaught has since remained a watershed in the life of Gov. Fubara’s administration. It has birthed more lawsuits than any singular political altercation in the anal of Nigerian politics. And for a moment, the Nigerian judicature appeared helpless; with the courts conducting themselves in a manner unbecoming of them that are called to dispense justice.
Things got so messy that the president of the Court of Appeal felt constrained to apply the doctrine of necessity as it were. She had to save the court of law from itself, as the temple of justice was fast turning into a sepulchre of interest. I dare say, her intervention only diffused the confusion that had become all too obvious and embarrassing. The courts are still to come clean in the Wike/Fubara palaver.
The people may have succeeded to keep Wike at bay, but it’s still not Uhuru for Gov. Fubara’s kith and kin. Those who joined forces to chase away the giant wolf are now face to face with an inland taipan. And that which the gladiators and their privies carefully held back in the heat of the crisis, has come to haunt those who genuinely dreaded Wike breathing down the governor’s neck.
It would appear that Gov. Fubara had hardly assumed office when it dawned on Wike that he has a contender to the governor’s loyalty; a figure that had been crouching behind the veil of innocence. Perhaps, Wike wouldn’t have been so astounded and troubled had the figure turned out to be one of his political opponents. But the figure behind the veil turned out to be a woman with little or no political milestone.
Wike’s uncharacteristic restraint in alluding to the woman behind the veil in the heat of war remains befuddling to say the least. We didn’t hear of the woman he vehemently refused her appointment as the governor’s Chief of Staff. Neither Wike nor his protégées can be said to have sufficiently alluded to the woman behind the veil throughout the verbal exchanges.
It is surprising how the godfather is now fall guy simply because of his inability to ‘whip’ the governor into shape, but rather chose to stand with him. Again, could it be that Wike and his army cleverly avoided the woman behind the veil that the people may not know he lost the governor’s loyalty to a mere woman? Or was it just an infra dig? Time will tell.
Wike has said the governor and the people haven’t heard the last of him. Perhaps, when the time is right, Wike, as we know him, will let us in on the woman he is most likely to tag a femme fatale.
Wike and his menacing presence may have been dislodged. But his exit only emboldened the woman behind the veil. Unlike Wike, her strategy is serpentine. She is subtle, swift and deadly. The woman behind the veil has the ear of the governor and ensures she fills it with whispering-tales. She wouldn’t have the governor’s kith and kin come any close.
The woman behind the veil is without any official portfolio, yet she calls the shots within official quarters, looming larger than life. Even Lady Valerie Fubara seems to acknowledge her clout around her husband – the governor. And she seems to have duly adopted the “dey your dey, make I dey my dey” mantra. Only that her acceptance has since dimmed the anticipated radiation from her office as the first lady of the state.
The lady behind the veil has in the last one year acquired a couple of hypocorism. Prominent among the monikers are: “Madam”, “Sisi”, “Ada Opobo”, “Mama-uku”, “Joy Giver”, and quite recently, the “governor we see”. And she flaunts these names within and outside government circles. Even members of the state executive council, especially, one with identify crisis genuflect before the woman behind the veil.
The woman behind the veil randomly dispenses her handouts. But in doing so, she gives preference to them that call her the “governor we see”. Whereas it is her season for honours and accolades, methinks there is a thing about “Ada Opobo” that affronts the sensibility of a people who flaunt their socio/cultural essence like a badge of honour.
I begrudge not those who glorify the woman behind the veil as the “governor they see”, because that is how they see it. But a woman whose marriage seems perpetually on sabbatical, in my opinion, is bereft of the moral pedigree to be addressed as “Ada Opobo”. And I make haste to add that Opobo kingdom mustn’t lose its salt to the blinking of the moment.
Aside whisperings pernicious tales into the governor’s ear, the woman behind the veil is a coveter. She is also a thief of intellectual property. Her unbridled quest for money sets her on a path to covet as much as it is possible without scruple.
Many have had to ask how the woman behind the veil came by so much power and influence. But it seems the answer to the question is also behind the veil. It seems immaterial that those brothers and sisters who kept vigils for their brother to become governor did so because they knew Gov. Siminilayi Fubara’s antecedents. How about those who, in years, had nothing to do with the electoral process, but braced all inconveniences to grab voters and ensured they voted for their brother? Wasn’t it because they saw and heard what Wike did with power? What about those who switched political camps to support their own? Was it not because they know blood is thicker than water?
Why were a people teased as those whose time come just because they share a surname?
The answers to these questions aren’t farfetched. Gov. Sim Fubara had in time past shown that he could be a brother’s keeper even to a fault. So what went wrong now that he is the governor his kith and kin now seem condemned to howling and their brother utterly unconcerned. We had once blamed Wike for our ‘misfortune’. Now we have identified the woman behind veil. Tomorrow, we don’t know.
And since power corrupts, and absolute power, corrupts absolutely, the woman behind the veil comfortably plies her trade without qualm.
In part two of this article, I shall factually bring to bear, some of the atrocities of the woman behind the veil. How she has employed her influence to fence off the governor’s kith and kin from accessing the man they prayed, worked and fought so hard to be his own man.
