By Vitus Ozoke
There is an ever-present temptation – especially in Nigerian politics – to confuse motive with merit. Just because an action is driven by bad actors does not automatically make the action itself wrong. This is the critical distinction missing from much of the noise surrounding the ongoing impeachment proceedings against Rivers State governor, Siminalayi Fubara.
Yes, the Rivers State House of Assembly’s move is inseparable from the poisonous feud between Fubara and his estranged godfather, Nyesom Wike. Yes, Wike’s criminal fingerprints – real or perceived – litter every political crisis in Rivers like a bad stench that refuses to dissipate. But none of that rescues Fubara from his own catastrophic failure of character and leadership.
So, personally, and politics aside, I support Gov. Fubara’s impeachment. Fubara is a disgrace and an embarrassment to his state. He has shown himself to be too desperate for the crumbs of power. He has no moral compass. He would eat crap for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if that would keep him in office. He’s too morally weak and compromised to continue serving as governor.
Again, politics aside, Governor Fubara has proven himself unfit for office. This is not about party loyalty, factional warfare, or elite rivalry. It is about moral vacancy. Fubara’s tenure has been defined by desperation, the kind that bends spines, erodes judgment, and reduces governance to survival. He has clung to office not with principle but with pliancy, not with courage but with capitulation. Power, to him, appears not as a trust but as crumbs to be scavenged at any cost.
A governor who will swallow any humiliation, betray any mandate, and align with any force – no matter how corrupt and corrosive – simply to remain seated is not governing. He is squatting. If impeachment is meant to be a constitutional remedy against gross misconduct, then the moral cowardice of this scale surely qualifies.
Yes, Fubara should be impeached. But let us be clear: Fubara is not alone. Across Nigeria, a shameless cohort of governors who rode into office on the back of popular mandates have casually dumped the parties – and the voters – that elected them, migrating to the ruling APC in search of federal protection and personal insulation. This wave of mass defection is not a political strategy; it is electoral fraud by other means. It is the theft of voter intent after the ballot has been cast.
If the Rivers House of Assembly truly wishes to anchor impeachment on principle, this betrayal of mandate should be front and center. Not just in Rivers, but nationwide. Nigeria cannot pretend to be a democracy while tolerating this political prostitution. The Bill of Indictment should not be convoluted – just the simple fact of betraying his constituents is sufficient.
As for Nyesom Wike, I believe his cup may finally be full – and running over. What has kept Wike in Abuja these past couple of years, despite his criminal recklessness, is Tinubu’s fear of Wike’s retributive story. That blackmail has hung over Tinubu like the sword of Damocles. It is no secret that Wike helped Tinubu rig Rivers State in the 2023 presidential election. All evidence indicates that Peter Obi won Rivers. Whether or not this belief can ever be proven in court is almost beside the point; its persistence speaks to a deeper crisis of credibility.
My suspicion is that the Rivers story has a rotten backend that goes well beyond Wike and Tinubu rigging the votes as an electoral matter. Wike might have more damaging predicate crimes behind that rigging. Elections of that scale do not bend without pressure. They do not tilt without consequences. And they certainly do not shift without crossing lines. You don’t just rig a whole state election without breaking some bones. No one makes an omelette without breaking some eggs.
For almost three years, Wike has walked the corridors of Abuja with the swagger and dominance of a man who believes himself immune and untouchable. His continued relevance in the federal capital, despite a long trail of controversy, has fed widespread suspicion that his political survival rests not on innocence but on leverage – the blackmailer’s leverage. Many Nigerians believe – rightly or wrongly – that Wike knows too much and that what he knows has purchased him time.
But power recalculates. It is entirely plausible that Bola Tinubu, himself no stranger to political storms, has concluded that no revelation remains capable of seriously harming or sinking him. I think Tinubu has reached a point where Wike’s story matters no more. In that calculus, Wike’s value diminishes. Blackmail expires the moment its threats lose potency. And when that happens, the blackmailer often discovers how lonely the wilderness can be.
Wike may soon find out that it’s dangerously cold out there in Nigeria’s political homelessness. Estranged from the PDP, distrusted by the APC, and unwanted in the ADC and elsewhere, Nyesom Wike needs socks, sweaters, and blankets. Should the instruments of state power now turn their gaze toward him, few would be surprised. Least of all Wike himself.
Nyesom Wike is headed for the EFCC, except that the EFCC is not an initialism for a political party. If anything, it is an initialism for a political weapon and a tool of the ruling party. The EFCC has never pretended to be blind – only selective. Nyesom has been selected, and hitherto barely hidden crimes are about to be officially announced and charged. Welcome to Kuje!
You see, Nigeria’s tragedy is not that villains exist in politics. It is that moral weakness is so often rewarded while courage is punished. Fubara’s possible impeachment should not be mourned as a democratic failure if it is, in fact, a reckoning with incompetence and character collapse. Nor should Wike’s potential fall be mistaken for justice if it is merely power settling scores.
What Rivers State – and Nigeria – desperately need is not new godfathers, new bargains, or new scandals. They need leaders with spines. They need politics without kneeling. Rivers State needs power without shame. Until then, impeachments will feel less like accountability and more like symptoms of a system that devours itself.
So, welcome to Kuje, Mr. Wike! Unlike Madiba Nelson Mandela’s ‘Long Walk to Freedom,’ yours will be a short walk to prison; after all, Kuje is just down the street from your sprawling Abuja mansion. But please, do not be rehabilitated. Nigeria needs you to remain your ever-recidivist self. Nigeria needs you to name names, if that is the only patriotic value you can offer the country you have taken so much from. You know where all the bodies are buried. Do not go down alone. Name names, Wike, name names!
Dr. Vitus Ozoke is a lawyer, human rights activist, and public affairs analyst based in the United States. He writes on politics, governance, and the moral costs of leadership failure in Africa.
Views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Ikengaonline.
