This time last year, Governor Fubara said Rivers State had been liberated. People trooped to churches to thank God for setting them free. According to Fubara, the state, its people and resources, had been in the clutches of a rapacious and gluttonous politician. That fellow decided who was what. Every month that fellow dipped his hands into the treasury and seized a fat chunk of the state’s revenues. The man had wanted a third term through the backdoor and had foisted a fitting lackey in Fubara over the people as his puppet. But Fubara broke the strings and cut the shackles that bound the state, and the masses rejoiced.

Now, one year later, Fubara has chickened out. 

Indeed, a lot of water has passed under the bridge since the liberation of Rivers. The Supreme Court has validated the expired Rivers lawmakers, saying that the seats of defecting lawmakers can’t be declared vacant by any court even if the speaker of the assembly defied the law by not declaring it vacant. A preposterous decision. The lawmakers loyal to the Fubara’s estranged godfather have served him an impeachment notice. Tinubu has dismantled democracy in Rivers, claiming he did it to forestall a breakdown of law and order. Fubara has not contested the unconstitutional declaration that removed him and imposed a military sole administrator on the state. The National Assembly has sabotaged the constitution and approved Tinubu’s perfidy. So Fubara perhaps knows that the liberation has been effectively ambushed. 

Following the removal of Fubara and the hijacking of Rivers, the people have been restive. They have protested against the total capture of their state. They have poured opprobrium and curses on a certain Nebuchadnezzar and his highly-placed enablers. Some states have approached the Supreme Court to nullify the obnoxious declaration of a state of emergency and arbitrary suspension of democratic structures as an abuse of power by our presumptuous president. The Supreme Court has been dragging its feet, perhaps unmindful that that which has crippled a state legislature might someday banish the supreme court. But it’s now known that Fubara, who had been resilient, has succumbed to the intimidation. Probably the televised boast by his godfather that an impeachment was his preferred option did the trick. Perhaps it was the suggestive outlandishly magisterial comportment of the illegal Sole Administrator and the rife insinuation that the state of emergency would be extended that weakened Fubara’s knees. 

In truth, Fubara has never pretended to be a lion. In the beginning, he was a dove or a sheep. Nearly all his commissioners were appointed for him without a whimper from him.  Then, he was the figure of a mistreated goat. His state’s resources were being siphoned daily and he could only watch. When it appeared the leash would be put on his scrotum and tied to a tree in the backyard to publicize his servitude and prevent him from fathering independent ideas, he broke loose like an indignant ram. That was all. The masses did the rest. Fubara is not a dog of war. And nobody expects him to grow canines overnight. But why would expect a liberated people to return with him to sheepishness?

Fubara has visited his godfather perhaps to plead for mercy. The details are still sketchy. We don’t know if he knelt or prostrated before his former political deity. Before long, the garrulous deity will organize a media chat to describe in full  Fubara’s countenance on that occasion. But we know Fubara went to London to see the president. He has never ceased to pledge his loyalty to the president who dismantled democracy in Rivers. We can’t deny the reality that Fubara is cornered. His options are few. He can’t but negotiate with people from whom he had liberated the state. Since trust is shattered and he appears trapped, and his spirit is fretful, and his opponents are ruthless and capricious, he has to be pitied. These people are cold political entrepreneurs. It’s inconceivable that any reconciliation mediated by those who masterminded or enabled his travails would let him off the hook without restoring the strings of the puppeteer. The secret meetings can only yield a naked return to servitude. So how can Fubara avoid a brutal checkmate without surrendering the state? 

Some might say a politician must do what a politician has to do to retain power. And that politics involves dirty compromises. In other words, Fubara can return to his strings and surrender the state and its resources to remain governor. But is Fubara free to re-mortgage the state to save his position? Was the liberation a ruse? 

A few days ago, Fubara was in church. The priest came down hard on the politicians who were desperate to capture the state and its resources. Perhaps the priest didn’t realize that  Fubara was already tired of liberation. When it was Fubara’s turn to speak, he cautioned people for speaking loudly against his opponents. He no longer wanted anyone to say that God should punish the oppressors of the state.  He admonished persons fighting for liberation to seek approval from him before speaking. Perhaps Fubara now thinks he owns the liberation. 

It would be a tragedy for  Fubara to believe that the struggle for the liberation of Rivers was about him. And that it must end if he returns to his supercilious godfather like a craven prodigal son. Hopefully, this cowardly sermon was a political offering intended to soften the minds of the people who masterminded the usurpation of democracy in the state. But Fubara has to be circumpect. Condemning those speaking forcefully against the evil in Rivers as damaging his peace efforts is childish naivety. Hopefully, Fubara was speaking tongue in cheek. But going forward, he must forgo ambivalence. Rivers is being raped. He must step up or step aside. 

Rivers is being raped. Fubara can’t continue fumbling around like a frightened chicken. He can’t continue clandestine negotiations that will legitimize state capture under any guise. He is free to resume his duties as a puppet but he must know that will make him reprobate. He shouldn’t count on the people to return with him to servitude. Although his position is precarious and he has no easy escape routes, he can’t be forgetful. He must insist on mediation by a committee of impartial national statesmen so that even if Pharoah gets something for his hungry throat, the people are not forced back into captivity in Egypt. Otherwise, he can voice his frustration and quit honourably. Fubara said his spirit had left the seat of power. Perhaps that was his way of saying he wasn’t desperate to be governor. However, he must never forget that the people stood and still stand by him. He owes them a moral duty to stand by them. They don’t want to return to being the slaves of that Nebuchadnezzar 

Peace is good. But slavery is not peace.