By Sly Edaghese

Teaser

Rivers State is not collapsing by accident. It is being offered as a sacrifice. Two men, driven by fear of irrelevance and hunger for protection, have chosen spectacle over stewardship—setting fire to a whole people’s future just to prove who kneels better before power.

There comes a point when a political tragedy degenerates into farce, and the farce mutates into a curse. Rivers State has crossed that point. What is unfolding there is not governance, not even conflict—it is ritual madness, a grotesque contest in which two men are willing to burn an entire state just to be noticed by one man sitting far away in Abuja.

This is not ambition.

This is desperation wearing designer jacket.

At the center of this inferno stand two performers who have mistaken power for immortality and loyalty for slavery. One is a former god. The other is a former servant. Both are now reduced to naked dancers in a marketplace, grinding their teeth and tearing flesh to entertain Jagaban.

The first is Nyesom Wike—once feared, once untouchable, now frantic. A man whose political identity has collapsed into noise, threats, and recycled bravado. His ministerial appointment was never a validation of statesmanship; it was a severance package for betrayal. Tinubu did not elevate Wike because he admired him—he tolerated him because he was useful. And usefulness, in politics, is key, but it has an expiry date.

Wike governed Rivers State not as a public trust but as a private estate. He did not build institutions; he built dependencies. He did not groom leaders; he bred loyalists. Before leaving office, he salted the land with his men—lawmakers, commissioners, council chairmen—so that even in absence, Rivers State would still answer to his shadow. His obsession was simple and sick: if I cannot rule it, no one else must.

Enter Siminalayi Fubara—a man selected, not tested; installed, not trusted by the people but trusted by his maker. Fubara was meant to be an invisible power in a visible office—a breathing signature, a ceremonial governor whose only real duty was obedience.

But power has a way of awakening even the most timid occupant.

Fubara wanted to act like a governor. That single desire triggered a full-scale political assassination attempt—not with bullets, but with institutions twisted into weapons. A state of emergency was declared with obscene haste. The governor was suspended like a naughty schoolboy. His budget was butchered. His local government elections were annulled and replaced with a pre-arranged outcome favorable to his tormentor. Lawmakers who defected and lost their seats by constitutional law were resurrected like political zombies and crowned legitimate.

This was not law.

This was organized humiliation.

And when degradation alone failed, Wike went further—dragging Fubara into a room to sign an agreement that belonged more to a slave plantation than a democratic republic.

One clause alone exposed the rot:
👉 Fubara must never seek a second term.

In plain language: you may warm the chair, but you will never own it.

Then came the most revealing act of all—Wike leaked the agreement himself. A man so intoxicated by dominance that he thought publicizing oppression would strengthen his grip.

That leak was not strategy; it was confession. It told Nigerians that this was never about peace, order, or party discipline—it was about absolute control over another human being.

But history has a cruel sense of humor.

While Wike strutted like a victorious warlord and his loyal lawmakers sharpened new knives, Fubara did something dangerous: he adapted. He studied power where it truly resides. He learned Tinubu’s language—the language of survival, alignment, and betrayal without apology. Then he did what Nigerian politics rewards most:

He crossed over.

Not quietly. Not shamefully. But theatrically. He defected to the APC, raised a party card numbered 001 and crowned himself leader of the party in Rivers State. He pledged to deliver the same Rivers people to Tinubu just as Wike also has pledged.

That moment was not boldness.

It was cold-blooded realism.

And in one stroke, Wike’s myth collapsed.

The once-feared enforcer became a shouting relic—touring local governments like a prophet nobody believes anymore, issuing warnings that land on deaf ears, reminding Nigerians of favors that no longer matter. He threatened APC officials, cursed betrayal, and swore eternal vengeance. But vengeance without access is just noise.

Today, the humiliation is complete.

Fubara enters rooms Wike waits outside.

Presidential aides shake hands with the new alignment.

The old king rants in press conferences, sounding increasingly like a man arguing with a locked door.

And yet, the darkest truth remains: neither of these men cares about Rivers State.

One is fighting to remain relevant.

The other is fighting to remain protected.

The people—the markets, the schools, the roads, the civil servants—are expendable extras in a drama scripted far above their heads.

Some say Tinubu designed this blood sport—unable to discard Wike outright, he simply unleashed his creation against him. Whether genius or negligence, the effect is the same: Rivers State is being eaten alive by ambition.

This is what happens when politics loses shame.

This is what happens when loyalty replaces competence.

This is what happens when leaders treat states like bargaining chips and citizens like ashes.

Two monkeys are burning the village—not to save it, not to rule it—but to prove who can scream loudest while it burns.

And Jagaban watches, hands folded.

But when the fire dies down, when the music stops, when the applause fades, there will be nothing left to govern—only ruins, regret, and two exhausted dancers staring at the ashes, finally realizing that power does not clap forever.

Sly Edaghese sent in this piece from Wisconsin, USA.

By Pelumi Olajengbesi Esq.

Every student of politics should now be interested in what will be the end of Wike. Wike is one of those names that mean different things to different people within Nigeria’s political culture. To his admirers, he is courage and capacity, to his critics, he is disruption and excess, and to neutral observers like me, he is simply a fascinating case study in the mechanics of power.

In many ways, he was instrumental to the emergence of President Tinubu, and he has long sat like a lord over the politics of Rivers, having pushed aside nearly every person who once mattered in that space. He waged war against his party, the PDP, and drove it to the edge. Wike waged war against his successor and reduced him to submission. He fights anyone who stands in his way.

He is powerful, loved by many, and deeply irritating to many others. Yet for all his strength, one suspects that Wike does not enjoy peace of mind, because before he is done with one fight, another fight is already forming. From Rivers to Ibadan, Abuja to Imo, and across the country, he is the only right man in his own way. He is constantly in motion, constantly in battle, and constantly singing “agreement is agreement,” while forgetting that politics is merely negotiation and renegotiation.

To his credit, Wike may often be the smartest political planner in every room. He reads everybody’s next move and still creates a countermove. In that self image, Governor Fubara was meant to remain on a leash, manageable through pressure, inducement, and the suggestion that any disobedience would be framed as betrayal of the President and the new federal order.

But politics has a way of punishing anyone who believes control is permanent. The moment Fubara joined the APC, the battlefield shifted, and old tricks began to lose their edge. Whether by real alignment, perceived alignment, or even the mere possibility of a different alignment, once Fubara was no longer boxed into the corner Wike designed for him, Wike’s entire method required review. The fight may remain, but the terrain has changed. When terrain changes, power must either adapt or harden into miscalculation.

It is within this context that the gradually brewing crisis deserves careful attention, because what is emerging is not merely another loud exchange, but a visible clash with vital stakeholders within the Tinubu government and the wider ruling party environment. There is now a fixed showdown with the APC National Secretary, a man who is himself not allergic to confrontation, and who understands that a fight, if properly timed, can yield political advantage, institutional relevance, and bargaining power. When such a figure publicly demands that Nyesom Wike should resign as a minister in Tinubu’s cabinet, it is not a joke, It is about who is permitted to exercise influence, in what space, and on what terms. It is also about the anxiety that follows every coalition built on convenience rather than shared identity, because convenience has no constitution and gratitude is not a structure.

Wike embodies that anxiety in its most dramatic form. He is a man inside government, but not fully inside the party that controls government. He is a man whose usefulness to a winning project is undeniable, yet whose political style constantly reminds the winners that he is not naturally theirs. In every ruling party, there is a crucial difference between allies and stakeholders. Allies help you win, and stakeholders own the structure that decides who gets what after victory. Wike’s problem is that he has operated like both. His support for Tinubu, and his capacity to complicate the opposition’s arithmetic, gave him relevance at the centre. That relevance always tempts a man to behave like a co-owner.

Wike has built his political life on the logic of territorial command. He defines the space, polices the gate, punishes disloyalty, rewards submission, and keeps opponents permanently uncertain. That method is brutally effective when a man truly owns and controls the structure, because it produces fear, and fear produces compliance. This is why Wike insists on controlling the Rivers equation, even when that insistence conflicts with the preferences of the national centre.

The APC leadership is not reacting only to words. It is reacting to what the words represent. When a minister speaks as though a state chapter of the ruling party should be treated like a guest in that state’s politics, the party reads it as an attempt to subordinate its internal structure to an external will. Even where the party has tolerated Wike because of what he helped deliver, it cannot tolerate a situation where its own officials begin to look over their shoulders for permission from a man who is not formally one of them. Once a party believes its chain of command is being bypassed, it will choose institutional survival over interpersonal loyalty every time.

Wike’s predicament is the classic risk of power without full institutional belonging. Informal influence can be louder than formal power, but it is also more fragile because it depends on continuous tolerance from those who control formal instruments. These instruments include party hierarchy, candidate selection, and the legitimacy that comes with membership.

An outsider ally can be celebrated while he is useful, but the coalition that celebrates him can begin to step away the moment his methods create more cost than value. The cost is not only electoral, it can also be organisational. A ruling party approaching the next political cycle becomes sensitive to discipline, structure, and coherence. If the leadership suspects that one person’s shadow is creating factions, confusing loyalties, or humiliating party officials, it will attempt to cut that shadow down. It may not do so because it hates the person, but because it fears the disorder and the precedent.

So the question returns with greater urgency, what will be the end of Wike? If it comes, it may not come with fireworks. Strongmen often do not fall through one decisive attack. They are slowly redesigned out of relevance. The end can look like isolation, with quiet withdrawal of access, gradual loss of influence over appointments, and the emergence of new centres of power within the same territory he once treated as private estate. It can look like neutralisation, with Wike remaining in office, but watching the political value of the office drain because the presidency and the party no longer need his battles. It can look like forced realignment, with him compelled to fully submit to the ruling party structure, sacrificing the freedom of being an independent ally, or losing the cover that federal power provides.

Yet it is also possible that his story does not end in collapse, because Wike is not a novice. The same instinct that made him influential can also help him survive if he adapts. But adaptation would require a difficult shift. It would require a move from territorial warfare to coalition management. It would require a move from ruling by fear to ruling by accommodation. It would require a move from being merely feared to being structurally useful without becoming structurally threatening. Wike may be running out of time.

Pelumi Olajengbesi is a Legal Practitioner and Senior Partner at Law Corridor

By Chief Akinwumi Akinfenwa

Let us stop pretending.

Nigeria’s economic crisis is no longer about policy mistakes or reform pains. It is about official dishonesty — the deliberate promotion of a success story that millions of starving citizens know to be false.

This government is not merely out of touch.
It is talking down to a suffering population.

THE BIG CON: WHEN STATISTICS BECOME A WEAPON

Nigerians are told the economy is improving.

Who exactly is improving?

Certainly not the trader who can no longer restock goods.
Not the civil servant whose salary is dead on arrival.
Not the graduate roaming the streets jobless.
Not the family skipping meals.

Yet, government spokespersons speak with confidence — GDP growth, easing inflation, fiscal discipline — as if numbers alone can cancel hunger.

This is not leadership.
It is economic propaganda.

LET US BE CLEAR: POVERTY IS EXPLODING

The World Bank estimates that over 130 million Nigerians now live in poverty. That is more people than the population of many African countries combined.

The government’s response?
Denial. Dismissal. Deflection.

Instead of emergency action, Nigerians are given excuses.

Instead of accountability, they are given lectures about patience.

This is moral failure at scale.

REFORMS WITHOUT RELIEF ARE REFORMS AGAINST THE PEOPLE

Fuel subsidy removal.
Currency float.
New taxes.

All implemented with brutal speed — without safety nets, without wage protection, without food security.

The result?

Transport costs exploded

Food prices went out of control

Small businesses collapsed

Purchasing power evaporated

Yet government officials still have the audacity to say “the worst is over.”

Over for who?

For politicians on allowances?
For contractors paid in dollars?
For elites insulated from market prices?

TAXING POVERTY IS NOT GOVERNANCE — IT IS VIOLENCE

Only a government detached from reality would increase tax pressure in an economy where:

Real incomes are falling

Unemployment is endemic

Informal businesses are barely breathing

Taxation without prosperity is state-sanctioned extortion.

No serious nation taxes its way out of mass poverty.
You grow production.
You create jobs.
You protect citizens.

Nigeria is doing the opposite.

THE MOST DANGEROUS LIE: “SUFFERING IS NECESSARY”

Nigerians are told suffering is inevitable — that pain today guarantees prosperity tomorrow.

History disagrees.

There is no economic law that says reforms must destroy lives. There is no justification for policy brutality. There is no excuse for indifference to hunger.

When leaders ask citizens to suffer while they remain comfortable, the social contract is broken.

And broken contracts do not heal with speeches.

THIS IS WHY PEOPLE ARE ANGRY

Not because Nigerians “don’t understand economics.”

But because they understand injustice.

They understand when:

Markets say one thing

Kitchens say another

Government insists everyone is wrong except itself

Anger grows when truth is denied.

Silence should not be mistaken for acceptance.

A WARNING, NOT A THREAT

No society survives indefinitely on denial and deprivation.

When governments ignore hunger, hunger eventually speaks. When leaders dismiss pain, pain eventually organizes. When legitimacy collapses, statistics cannot save it.

Nigeria is approaching that edge.

THE BOTTOM LINE

An economy that looks good only in official narratives is not recovering.

A government that argues with poverty data instead of fighting poverty has lost moral authority.

A leadership that demands sacrifice without protection is unfit for trust.

Nigerians are not asking for miracles.
They are asking for honesty, empathy, and relief.

Until then, every talk of “turnaround” is an insult – and Nigerians are no longer in the mood to be insulted.

©️Chief Akinwumi Akinfenwa, Political Scientist, Public Policy Analyst, Social Commentator, and Advocate for Constitutional Decency lives in Ibadan