Fubara Didn’t Force Pro-Wike Commissioners To Resign, Says Rivers Govt

Posted by African Examiner Featured, Latest Headlines, News Across Nigeria Monday, December 18th, 2023

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – Amid the feud between Governor Siminalayi Fubara and his predecessor, Nyesom Wike, and the gale of resignations trailing the crisis, the Rivers State Government has said the governor did not force any of his commissioners to resign.

“Whatever their reason, I will like to say that the governor did not force, compel or ask anyone to leave,” the state’s Commissioner for Information, Joe Johnson, said on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics.

“Those who left did so on their own volition, and according to their reasons.”

The commissioner said a structural firm confirmed that the Rivers State Assembly Complex was no longer habitable and that informed the decision of the governor to demolish the complex.

Johnson said even Wike agreed that the complex was no longer habitable, adding that his principal is a pacifist and he is doing all in his capacity to quell the crisis.

Rivers State has been a theatre of the absurd in the last three months with the state House of Assembly serving as the “boxing ring”. The rift between Wike and Fubara split lawmakers in the House with 27 of them decamping from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), a party in whose central government Wike currently serves as Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

The feud also saw the emergence of parallel sittings, impeachment plot against the governor, demolition of the Assembly complex, and gale of resignations of pro-Wike commissioners in Fubara’s cabinet.

Though President Bola Tinubu and some elder statesmen have intervened in the crisis, there seems to be no end in sight to the political tsunami sweeping the oil-rich South-South state.