Chief Festus Ogwuche is a political analyst and human rights lawyer. In this interview, he speaks on the new peace deal brokered by President Bola Tinubu between Governor Siminalayi Fubara of Rivers State and the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike. ANAYO EZUGWU reports
What’s your reaction to this latest development around the crisis in Rivers State and what message does this send to you from a constitutional standpoint?
To me, it’s rather incredible that a thing like this is happening. We’re all familiar with constitutional principles, with democratic traditions, with the practice of democracy in Nigeria and it is quite much that a non-party member is bequeathed with the authority of the undisputed leader of the party within the state. But these things happen and Rivers State happens to be a theatre where anything can go.
But then you won’t blame anybody for that because Governor Siminalyi Fubara miscalculated his steps and fell into this little quagmire. Now he’s faced with a cold sack, it will be very difficult, maybe probably for him to get some reprieve.
It is definitely showing that they seriously want to put him where they think he belongs to. I think at the end of the day, the constitution is kept at bay for now because it is rather strange that even though we don’t have anything like a political leader of states or political leader anywhere in the constitution, but the tradition appears to be broken and this will open a flood gate surrounding it.
Fubara’s supporters had not been very supportive of the romance he started to have with Nyesom Wike and President Bola Tinubu upon the suspension of democratic governance in the state, and they warned him to that effect. Now, he finds himself in this quagmire that may not likely be the appropriate decision for him to follow pre-2027.
The president’s intervention is being sold as conflict resolution. At what point in your assessments does peace brokering become undue interference in the autonomy of an elected state government?
The extent to which some additional frameworks, where you have a governor hold office at the instance of federal power brokers and where state assemblies are subordinate to the President and where officialdom or governance at state level is subject to the veto power of state actors and godfathers, it’s a very serious problem really because it contradicts everything that you can find in the constitution.
Even though I would say that Fubara fell into it directly, failing to listen to wise counsel that politics is a game played frontally into the hands of the opponents, you take it beat by beat one after the other. So, it’s subject to whatever the party says and we thought that that could have provided him some shade of protection.
But then we have a situation where the state arrangement is being subsumed into the federal arrangement, sort of creating a unitary system that the presidency can determine who gets what and who gets to be the undisputed leader of a state. We also have a situation where political power revolves not around the governor, but it revolves again around godfathers, but particularly the presidency, which has now come to give us the impression that godfatherism be recognized as part of our national or democratic framework.
It sets a very dangerous pattern, particularly for those of us who believe that we are practicing a federal system of government and that federalism should be much more pronounced rather than in weakening the power and strength of the states and lessening the power of this diversity for more inclusiveness and for more generative power in the component structure of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
If the same approach were applied in a less politically strategic state, do you believe the presidency would intervene in the same way or is Rivers being treated differently?
I will say that Rivers is being treated differently. The Supreme Court put a note on these actions of the President. The thing is that it has become the norm now. It’s been normalised that the President can intervene in the affairs of states. It’s also normalised that he can appoint anybody to be the political leader of a state; whether he’s a member of a ruling political party or not, is immaterial.
It has also been normalised that the House of Assembly of a state can be commanded or commandeered by the presidency or by a particular process that is inclusive to them. It’s something that you say is not exclusive to Rivers State, and that is the fear some of us have expressed.
It could be a threat to democracy when such a variety of powers are given to the president to do and undo, particularly to tell the members of the House of Assembly what to do in an impeachment process, which the Supreme Court had in several cases said that nobody can interfere with.
The President’s order has nothing to do with what the House of Assembly of Rivers State is doing. If they want to impeach the governor, the President has virtually no authority or power to intervene. So, we now see a situation, where we have the institutions of governance in the state kowtowing, bowing and obsequiously trying to please or buy the heart of the President.
That’s the situation we find here. Just like somebody who’s there as a king and everybody is subject to his whims and caprices, which is very unhealthy for democracy. So, anything can happen to anybody, anywhere and anytime. Apparently, that’s why all the governors of the states ran to the ruling political party for safety and for security of their tenure in 2027, probably to ensure that no state of emergency or removal of democratic structure is affected in their states.
Fubara has also run to the APC, but that doesn’t appear to have completely ended his problems. Do you think that the President has now managed to freeze that conflict in such a way that it won’t muddy the waters for him in 2027 or do you think that the Rivers State crisis could end up being Tinubu’s greatest challenge, especially as 2027 draws near?
I said earlier that if Fubara had known, he should have been a little more calculative and diplomatic. That he is going through what he’s going through now suggests that he doesn’t quite understand the depth of the relationship between Wike and Tinubu.
It goes beyond godfather-godson relationship at the first level. It goes deeper into certain undercurrents that you and I may not be able to fathom here. At the end of the day, it’s very clear that the President will hold Wike, even at the first stage, the second stage, and even this it has been extraordinary measures to place Wike at a very vantage position.
Looking at the impeachment process from a legal and constitutional perspective, does halting impeachment through political instruction rather than due legislative process weaken the doctrine of the separation of powers or does it simply expose how fragile it already is?
Impeachment is purely a constitutional thing and it’s within the capacity of the legislature. Section 188 of the Constitution is quite straightforward and unambiguous to that effect. You don’t invoke impeachment processes anyhow. And for you to do that, it must be on very strong ground. The Supreme Court has stated that in an avalanche of judicial authorities.
We have a situation where the impeachment process has become a tool for victimization and a model for name calling. And maybe, it’s not actually a legislative process meant to remove the governor, but meant to get things done the way they want. But like I said, the constitutional process is like a flyer to tell him that, look, we have your balls in our hands and anything can happen.
What precedents do you think this is setting for future disputes between governors and their political benefactors?
We are drifting from a legal constitutionalism to constitutionalism that is not justified by law. It tells us that the power belongs to people who can bend institutions to their own will, not necessarily people who hold political office. It also tells us that there’s possible fragmentation within state structures because people may not agree with that brand of democracy.
It tells us also that the people are ignored totally and completely and there’s no points conducting elections, because the credibility of the process will stand challenged at any time, any day, for its transparency, where you have this kind of situation rolling by. The fact remains that the constitutional framework that we have is not quite faulty. I think it’s the manner we operate it. But not much has been done to take care of issues of this nature.
And now that it appears that godfatherism has become a new entrant into our political dictionary and our political tradition, we are going to see that it’s going to corrode constitutionalism. It is also going to corrode democracy; it’s going to corrode the principles upon which our democratic system is anchored.
