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Wike and Fubara’s family of commotion

Ezenwo Nyesom Wike called what happened in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, on Monday, a “father and son problem”. Wike thereby dismissed the frightening street clashes that marred Port Harcourt’s Monday. He opened up on the matter and wants people to take it just like he has stated it – like the Federal Government telling us that we do not know the difference between a yacht and a naval boat! His submission when governors elected on the platform of his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) went to visit him following the crisis is a pointer to some form of acute delusion. Edmund Goose wrote about a religiously uncompromising father and his conciliatory son in his 1907 autobiography entitled: “Father and Son: A study of two temperaments”. His father, Philip Henry Goose, wanted his son to tow his hard religious views and take after him. But Edmund had different views and would have none of his illustrious father’s demands for a particular way of life.

Wike and his son, Governor Siminalayi Fubara, are a concise example of a study in two temperaments. Those who know Governor Fubara have contended that if not for his kind of mien; his calm and cool personality — add his not being a typical politician to the mix — they said he would have fallen out with Wike his father long before now. And we are only five months into the administration. Nearly all Nigerians can recognise Wike. His voice, his praise-singing ensemble, his perpetual live television shows and his ubiquitous ‘Rivers State angle’ to the 2023 presidential election stand him out. He is a known face and has carried his wikeness to his duties as the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory. But Siminalayi Fubara…? Well, Nigeria heard from him for the first time on Monday. And that was because Wike shoved more of his hand in his choking mouth.

His father-and-son imagery is not like the work of Edmund Goose who advised that people should write their memoirs early lest they forget many things. No, their ‘family affair’ is the spilling of their ugly family commotion on the streets of Port Harcourt. This ‘father and son problem’ cost the people of Rivers State some Sunday night sleep and their House of Assembly. The building housing the state legislature was gutted by willful fire. It is believed that the people who set the property of the people of Rivers State on fire are known to the members of their feuding family. So, what kind of family affair is that? What family would take its internal matters out of their family compound and bring their anger issues to desecrate the entire community? What kind of family breeds that kind of father and son?

What kind of family members would aim guns at one another and ask us to look away or face front? A family member is the governor of the state and members of his family shot directly at him. A soldier once said the gun given to him by the Federal Government of Nigeria was not to shoot at goats or sheep. If it is indeed a family issue, why would the state governor be shot at? Was he shot to test the efficacy of his governorship? Is it also family ‘play-play’ when water cannons were shot from manned police vehicles? The shots were aimed at a group of people that included Governor Siminalaye Fubara and his entourage. What kind of father shoots guns at his sons for fun? Were they not policemen who piloted the vehicles from which water cannons were shot? Even if the hardworking policemen did not know that Governor Fubara was among the civilians approaching the burning House of Assembly because he was not in uniform, is it normal to shoot at other security officials in uniform? It is not ethical or moral or acceptable for men in uniform to shoot at their colleagues on the other side or I might be getting something wrong. What was the alleged shooting at the governor aimed to achieve on that fateful day? During World War II, hundreds of allied soldiers died from what military authorities referred to as “friendly fire”. When I first saw the term “friendly fire”, my instinct as a primary school pupil was to wonder why it was called “friendly” when it was in actual fact deadly. What was Wike’s family trying to do with their shooting on the streets of Port Harcourt? Re-enact the phenomenon called friendly fire?

Wike is a lawyer, we have learnt. So, would it be wrong to even contemplate that he does not know the place of the law in society? Those who caused the fire at the Rivers State House of Assembly are supposed to come under the weight of the relevant laws. I will not be too far from the proper register if I call that fire by what it was: arson. The policemen who, according to Governor Fubara, “shot directly” at him, a duly elected state governor, have breached some rules just like the officers who shot those water cannons in his direction. Whatever their motives for those shots were should be investigated. Who gave the order that those shots should be fired should be questioned. Those actions did not depict a father playing with his son and they did not tell us that the security personnel in the state are obeying the state governor. There is the place of law in a society and delinquent actions should have consequences.

If, indeed, as Governor Fubara himself believes that there is nothing to worry about, then he must learn fast how to be the man he should be. Did you appoint your chief security officer, Mr Son? How many of the 23 local government chairmen in the state are your true friends? Do you really know how the three senators and all the House of Representatives members representing Rivers State came about? Is it true that only one of the sixteen commissioners in the state is your appointee? Your Chief of Staff is alleged to be from your father Wike’s enclave in Rumueme/Rumuepirikom. Is this true?

There are many questions… More questions than answers really. These questions include the rationale for your ex-parte order against the Rivers State House of Assembly, its Speaker, the deputy speaker, and the clerk of the House; including the state’s Chief Judge. This father and son matter is curious indeed. The Igbo say that a headhunter does not allow cutlass bearers to move to his back.

On Monday, your reaction showed that you could be what the Yoruba refer to as EkoIla, which has liberated itself from the knife. What you rose against was what Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson wrote about in their brilliant “Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty.” Their research had shown them a glaring but simply profound cause of the title of their book. They said a small group of people corner political power and use it to the benefit of only themselves, their cronies and their families.

The countries that have developed are those which have been able to challenge and change that arrangement. If the people are not at the heart of what Wike and his son are doing, then… Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived, says Abraham Lincoln.

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