Good morning, Mr President. I write about the simmering crisis of governance in Rivers State. In the din of the crisis, it is generally seen as Siminalayi Fubara vs. Nyesom Wike in ways that miss out on the problems. Lately, it has taken on a dangerous dimension that could undo your administration.

I could also discern an attempt to downplay the crisis as inconsequential to the peace of the country by sycophants in government and to reduce the matter to one of “rule of law” even by your humble self in the wake of the Supreme Court punitive judgment that put a lien on the resources of Rivers State. Even elementary principle governance provides a window for continuity.

However, my purpose with this piece is twofold. One is to give salience to the points at issue in the crisis. Two is to warn you about the danger that that crisis portends for your administration and the country.

We seem to have forgotten so soon the origin of the crisis which lies in the phenomenon of Godfatherism, a patron-client relationship anchored on the primitive accumulation of the country’s scarce resources by both the patron and client. The dynamic is that the patron always likes to stay on top of the game.

This dynamic played out in Anambra, Oyo, and Edo among others. In Anambra, under duress, Chris Ngige, the governor of the state was asked to sign proactively his resignation should he violate the terms of the patron-client relationship, the basis of his enthronement. We saw the same dynamic blatantly played out in the case of Governor Rasheed Ladoja and Lamidi Adedibu aka ‘Baba Molete’ in Oyo State. In Edo, we saw Governor Obaseki tame Adams Oshiomhole who wanted a third term by proxy.  It was all about free-riding state resources to the benefit of the patron and the detriment of the public.

Mr President, the trigger for the current crisis is the alleged quest by Wike, your minister and the former governor of Rivers State to have a humongous sum of the resources diverted to him as the price for his ‘enthronement’ of Fubara as the Governor of Rivers State.

The governor affirmed this allegation on the occasion of the 51st birthday anniversary of Chibuzor Chinyere, the General Overseer of Omega Power Ministries Worldwide, at the church headquarters at Mbodo, Aluu in Ikwerre Local Government Area of the state on November 3, 2024.

In his words delivered ex-cathedra, the governor said, “There is a reason for this crisis, and that reason is the control of the resources of Rivers State. Rivers State’s resources belong to you (the people), and we will make sure that the resources are applied judiciously for the betterment of Rivers State”.

Austin Tam-George, a former Commissioner for Information under the Wike administration further lent credence to expropriation of resources in plain political language. As he put it, “What is happening is a very clear ideological struggle between the forces of privatisation of the state and state capture, represented by the FCT minister, and the governor, who has vowed to make sure that the sovereign will of the people prevails. It’s as simple as that.

I don’t see how reconciliation is possible in this matter. The people have a sovereign right to control their resources to develop the state for the benefit of everyone.”

Mr President, the above is the koko of the matter. You are quite familiar with this dynamic, and I turn to the second point. The Rivers crisis has implications for national security and the health of your administration. Of the new militarist forces, that is, armed non-state actors, the Niger Delta militants were foremost before the advent of Boko-Haram in 2009 following the misguided extra-judicial execution of Mohammed Yusuf by the Nigerian state.

They have proven their capacity to frustrate successive governments at the point of disagreement. President Umaru Musa Yar’adua administration handled them with diplomacy and achieved results, and even the Buhari administration learnt fast and backtracked on the Amnesty Programme.

The fortune of Nigeria’s oil export, the only tangible good that links it to the international economy, has depended on the fluctuating wave of militancy in the Niger-Delta. According to the United States Energy Information Administration, under the Buhari administration, Nigeria’s oil production fell to 1.4 million bpd, as of May 2016 due to Niger Delta Avengers’ (NDA) attacks on key oil platforms. The shortfall was put at about 1.1m bpd at the time.

Presently, OPEC sources reveal a shortfall in production from 1.54 million bpd to 1.47, and this impinges directly on the budgetary projections based on about 2.2 million bpd.

Mr President, your interest in the Rivers game is power acquisition. You want to clinch the price of 2027, and Wike is your anchor, with one leg in Abuja and another in Rivers. You are not perceived as neutral in the game. In what appears to be a zero-sum game, you might risk losing Rivers and the country if the security element of the crisis spirals out of control. Play the role of an impartial arbiter, and damn partisanship, there has to be a country before you can govern.

Mr President, to paraphrase Patrick Wilmot, my comrade, differently, I have held up a mirror so that you can see the reality of the Rivers situation and navigate the waters with dexterity. If you ignore my advice, it will not alter my prognosis.

Akhaine is a Professor of Political Science at the Lagos State University.