Ann-Kio Briggs is a human rights activist and an environmentalist. In this interview, she speaks on the face-off between Governor Sim Fubara of Rivers State and his predecessor, Nyesom Wike, and the implication of the crisis on the people of the state, ANAYO EZUGWU writes

With the ruling of the Supreme Court; is this a path to peace, or is this just the beginning of a new fight for the soul of Rivers State?

I wouldn’t say it’s the beginning of a fight for the soul of Rivers State. We’ve been fighting for the soul of Rivers State since October 2023. We are not aware because we’ve not heard from Governor Sim Fubara or the Minister of Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, as to exactly what the issues were about or are about that led to the threat of impeachment and attack on the governor in October 2023, barely five months into the government of Fubara. Rivers people have endured a lot since that day in October 2023 till today.

We know very well, going by the judgements and counterjudgements and court cases and delivering of judgement that seems completely off the wall. When, for instance, this last judgement that led to where the governor is inviting the lawmakers. I call them exlawmakers because if you go by the law or other people cases of exactly similar instances, then the lawmakers defected to All Progressives Congress (APC).

They stood on the floor of the House and read their letter themselves. And we also saw on television where they were received by dignitaries and high-ranking members of the APC in Rivers State. It was a life programme where they were welcomed into the APC by the people that came in from Abuja to welcome them.

Now, if the judgement of the Supreme Court had said that the governor of Rivers State should do this or that, and the governor is saying that he will do those things, the first thing he would do is wait to see what the judgement says, which he did. And based on that, he decided to invite them but the refused to attend the meeting with the governor.

I’ve heard so many things, and I’ve watched so many of them refer to how disrespectful it is for the governor to invite them. The governor is the number one citizen of Rivers State. So, I don’t see how that is disrespectful when this very group of Rivers sons and daughters have done nothing since last year but disrespect, insult and abuse a sitting governor.

This is something that the past governor will never have tolerated as a governor of Rivers State. We also must be reminded that the past governor of Rivers State is known to have presented a budget to six members of the Assembly when he was governor.

So, it baffles the people of Rivers State why some Rivers sons and daughters are determined to hurt Rivers people. The judiciary has now become part of the problem of Rivers State by the judgements they give.

And the Federal Government seems to be taking sides in the case of Rivers State to the extent that when Rivers people and maybe Niger Delta people as a whole get to raise the issues of their concerns in anything to do with Niger Delta, they are seen as troublemakers. They are seen as threat makers.

That is most unfair because the politics of Niger Delta is very different from any other regional politics or zonal politics in the South-South. And then the politics of River State is very complex. It is a politics of upland and riverine dichotomy. We cannot and we will not run away from these issues as a people.

In all of this, what do you think will be an eventual settlement, and what do you make of the threats by some groups to destabilize the state if the governor is impeached?

First of all, the issue of what the governor will do or should do or will not do or should not do, in my take, will depend on the people of Rivers State because the only support base that the governor can boast of is the support base of the people of Rivers State.

Therefore, the governor has to tread carefully as to what he does. If, as in the past, when he attended the meeting with the president, if you recall, where Dr. Peter Odili and many other PDP elders were in the villa with him and he had a handful of people, people like David Briggs, where he signed that document, which is unconstitutional. You saw that there was resistance against him having to sign that document.

But then it shows the character of his person. He is a peaceful person, and he has stated over and over again that he will not run afoul of the law.

Fubara has demonstrated that he’s a peaceful man. He’s doing things that some of us ordinarily are objecting to, but he has accepted that he’s willing to do those things

So far, we have to be fair to him, he has not purposefully disobeyed any court ruling. That does not and should not give the impression that either he’s a weak person or that the people of Rivers State do not know what they want.

The fact that the governor had invited the lawmakers and they refused to go is also a sign of disrespect. Irrespective of whether they are claiming that he wrote the letter through the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), he has a right on that directive to write such a letter.

So, some of these arguments are very petty and should not be the issues that will make Rivers people to suffer. So, the judgement is determined to make Rivers people suffer. When it comes to threats, if you recall, I said at the beginning that Rivers State and Niger Delta as a whole, when we make complains, we are seen as troublemakers. There is no threat.

There is anger and frustration amongst the people of Rivers State, amongst the people of Niger Delta. Let no one make the mistake of thinking that this will only happen in Rivers State. It won’t. If it succeeds in Rivers State, it will go everywhere. It will go to other zones.

The president today experienced such a thing and he did not accept it. Why should the people of Rivers State accept it? I do not believe in godfatherism. And that’s why I brought in the issue of the political dichotomy of Rivers people, which is upland and riverine dichotomy.

That was what threw the governor, Sim Fubara, into the political arena. Fubara, before this time, if you know him, you know that he was never thinking to be a politician to be the governor of Rivers State, like Jonathan was not planning to be the president of Nigeria.

But when you are thrown into this situation, it does not then mean that you are enslaved by a handful of persons or a person, then taking advantage and saying, I put you there.

How do we end godfatherism and do you think that the governor is at the mercy of Wile at this point?

First of all, I don’t believe that Governor Sim Fubara is at the mercy or should be at the mercy of the past governor of Rivers State, because the past governor himself has admitted publicly that he would not have become a local government chairman if Dr. Peter Odili had not stepped in.

And when he was local government chairman, I don’t recall the Odili telling him when to sleep and when to wake up. The other thing is that it is Rivers’ people who will demand that they don’t want godfatherism in Rivers State.

If you aim to come and be a godfather, please sit down in your house or take care of your godchildren that God has given to you through the church, because all of us, one time or the other, if you’re a Christian, you’re either a godchild or a godfather. And those are the ones that I respect because of my beliefs. Now, not political godfatherism, look at where godfatherism has brought us.

And if it is okay in a place like Lagos State, where it is very clear that that pattern of choosing leadership is what happens, then we, the people of Rivers State, should reject it. Now, in the issue of the sufferings of Rivers State, when that judgment is given, lawyers have said that the issue of paying Rivers State its rightful and due allocation is a right, a constitutional right.

And unless the court is now recognized as unturning the unturnable, which is a constitution of Nigeria, without going to the Senate, then I think the judiciary is beginning already to chew even more than it can ever swallow. Taking Rivers State along this path is very dangerous. Everybody in Nigeria knows this. When you do this to Rivers State, you’re doing it to Niger Delta because it has a ripple effect. It will trickle down.

The first thing it will affect is the economy. It’s not a threat. It’s a fact. And so, if we’re realistic, we have two sets of elders in Rivers State. We have political elders who, some of them are in their 40s, but they are elders. And then we have elders in Rivers State who are not elders by their political affiliation, but elders by their political party.

And now we’re beginning to hear we want peace. If there is a body language that is showing that peace is what people are beginning to talk about, I think Fubara has demonstrated that he’s a peaceful man.

He’s doing things that some of us ordinarily are objecting to but he has accepted that he’s willing to do these things. If as our governor, we are in support of him and he does have about 90 per cent, if not more, of the support of Rivers State people.

That’s a huge percentage of support, and so no one should take that for granted. The threats that are seen as threats are born out of frustration and anger because for two years, this governor has not been allowed to govern at all, and he has two years left to go before his next election comes up.

All this threat about he cannot run again; they are not the ones who will decide that he cannot run again. It’s the people of Rivers State, who will decide whether he will run again or whether they will vote for him or not or not vote for him. For me, I believe that the only rightful way to take is the way of doing what is right for Rivers State and not for a group of persons or a particular person.