By Patrick Wemambu
With the Thursday 26th June 2025 meeting convened by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the Presidential Villa to reconcile the major dramatis personae in the treasure base of the nation’s political crisis – indications are rife that the storm may have ended. And peace returned to Rivers State.
Speaking to journalists after the meeting, Barr Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, expressed gratitude to God for the breakthrough.
Said he; “I want to give God the glory that today is the 26th of June 2025, that peace has finally returned to the state. We all agreed to work together with the governor, and the governor also agreed to work together with all of us. We are members of the same political family.”
He acknowledged that disagreements are part of politics but emphasised that the resolution marked a fresh start for the state.
“Just like humans, you have disagreements, and then you also have a time to also settle your disagreements, and that has been finally concluded today, and we have come to report to Mr President that is what we have agreed.
“So for me, everything is over, and I enjoin everybody to work together with everybody. There is no more acrimony; there is nothing to say. We have disagreed; we have all agreed on everything, so thank God. For me, it’s a day we have to thank Almighty God,” the first runner-up to Atiku Abubakar in the 2023 Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential election primary enthused.
On his part, embattled Governor Siminalayi Fubara, who also spoke to journalists, said the return of peace is crucial to the state’s development.
His words; “For me, it’s very important that this day has come to be. What we need for the progress of Rivers State is peace, and by the special grace of God this night, with the help of Mr President and the agreement of the leaders of the state, peace has returned to Rivers State.”
Fubara pledged to do everything within his power to sustain the peace, describing it as a step toward lasting stability and governance in the oil-rich state.
Both leaders attended the epoch-making meeting with other stakeholders.
Chairman of the Rivers State Chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Tony Okocha, has affirmed that the feuding parties in the political dispute in the state have embraced peace.
Okocha, who was part of the meeting told a national daily on Friday, “Peace has returned to Rivers State. All the parties agreed to some resolutions reached in front of the President. We were the one that invited the President; it wasn’t the President that invited them.”
Also speaking in an interview with another publication, a former member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Ogbonna Nwuke, said both parties have agreed to bury the hatchet on the intervention of the President.
“Peace has returned. What it means is that both parties have agreed on the intervention of the President and the roadmap they agree upon is for progress of Rivers State,” Nwuke averred.
Coming after months of political tension in the state with exchange of brickbats among the hitherto warring parties, reports have it that the reconciliation is laced with conditionalities.
For starters, it is said that Fubara will be reinstated to complete his four-year tenure but must not seek a second term in 2027.
Likewise, FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike is to be allowed to nominate all the local government chairpersons across the 23 local governments in the state.
Additionally, Fubara is to pay all outstanding allowances and entitlements owed the 27 lawmakers loyal to the FCT Minister, the lawmakers were before now suspended from the state assembly.
Moreover, the lawmakers are not expected to initiate any impeachment proceedings against Fubara when reinstated by President Tinubu.
Pundits have even surmised that it would not be surprising if the governor joins the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) after the said truce.
Former National Legal Adviser of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mark Jacob, could not agree more.
Reacting to the presidential meeting and citing the recent gale of defections to the APC, the ex-PDP legal adviser in a television programme said it would not be surprising to see Fubara join the ruling party.
“So if they dangle a carrot to Siminalayi and tell him to come over to APC so that he can reclaim his seat, I will not be shocked if he agrees, because it’s all about me. ‘What will I gain,” he asked.
However, the ex-PDP legal adviser argued that while their posture after the meeting may suggest reconciliation, suspending elected government officials is anti-democratic.
Is the storm in the political arena of Rivers State really over? Many analysts inquire. They point to last January when Tinubu hosted Ogoni leaders in Abuja with Wike and Fubara in attendance. There were speculations then that the president used the occasion to mediate in the political impasse between the political godfather in question and his estranged god-son. Yet, what became of the rapprochement efforts?
Which is why this second attempt at truce-making is sparking controversies, some stakeholders have alluded to a situation of surrender on the part of the suspended governor – citing imbalance in representation of delegates at the meeting. Whereas Wike’s supporters are said to be celebrating the truce as victory, Fubara’s followers express skepticism – believing their principal was coerced into submission.
Going down the memory boulevard, it would be recalled that on 18 March 2025, President Bola Tinubu declared a state of emergency in Rivers State, giving him the extraordinary powers as provided by the Nigerian Constitution, to suspend Fubara, his deputy Ngozi Odu, and members of the state’s house of assembly. The Nigerian President cited months of ‘intense political instability’ and ‘crisis’ in the state, which he said had “paralysed governance” and “threatened national stability.”
Tinubu said during a national broadcast; “𝐁𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐨𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐑𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞, 𝐌𝐫 𝐒𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐢 𝐅𝐮𝐛𝐚𝐫𝐚, 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐩𝐮𝐭𝐲, 𝐌𝐫𝐬 𝐍𝐠𝐨𝐳𝐢 𝐎𝐝𝐮, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐀𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐑𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐛𝐲 𝐬𝐮𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐧 𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐬𝐢𝐱 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡𝐬.”
The president, following the suspension, appointed a former Chief of Naval Staff, Ibok Ekwe Ibas, as the Sole Administrator of the state for the period.
Section 305 of the Nigerian Constitution permits the President to declare a state of emergency in all or part of the country given some exigent conditions, allowing him to exercise extraordinary powers.
Following Tinubu’s action, seven state governments, led by governors from the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), sued him at the Supreme Court, challenging his decision to suspend Rivers State’s democratically elected officials.
The plaintiffs argued that the president had no powers to suspend a democratically elected governor and deputy governor, and that the National Assembly’s approval of the state of emergency was invalid. They urged the court to declare the president’s actions as unconstitutional and nullify the appointment of a sole administrator to oversee Rivers State.
Notwithstanding all the back and forth, in the final analysis, a few questions require urgent attention. Will the governor after reinstatement be allowed to take full charge of the state? Shall the interests of Rivers people still be considered paramount in the scheme of things? How will the Uche Secondus, Peter Odilis, Asari Dokubos, Ann-Kio Briggs and others who stood by Fubara when the going was rough and tough feel? Betrayed? What becomes of the vestiges of the sole administrator, Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ekwe Ibas?
