The Return of the Governor and the Shackles of Peace
And it came to pass in the land of Rivers, a place of much oil and great political turbulence, that a period of six months’ emergency rule, declared by King Bola, did finally come to an end.
For on the eighteenth day of the ninth month, the King did lift the suspension upon Siminalayi, the son of Fubara, the Governor, and upon his deputy, and upon the members of the House of Assembly.
And the Governor, Fubara, did return to his seat in Port Harcourt, and a great crowd of his loyalists, the riverine people, did gather to welcome him with songs and shouts of victory.
Yet, his return was not a return to true kingship, but rather to a dominion held in check by a subtle treaty signed in the King’s Court in Abuja.
For it was revealed that his former Master, Nyesom, the son of Wike, now the Minister of the Federal Territory, had, during the period of suspension, tightened his grip upon the political structures of the land.
Behold, even in the local government elections conducted during the time of the administrator, the party loyal to Wike did sweep all but three of the twenty and three council seats, including the very ward of Governor Fubara himself.
And the twenty and seven lawmakers, who were men of Wike, did also return to their seats in the Assembly, and they immediately demanded that Fubara, the Governor, must bring forth a new bill of appropriation, that they might scrutinize every expenditure made during the time of his forced absence.
On the Sunday following his return, Fubara the Governor held a great thanksgiving in the Cathedral to mark the sixty and fifth year of the nation’s freedom, but not a single one of the twenty and seven lawmakers of Wike’s camp, nor the newly elected council chairmen, did show their faces.
Thus, the peace that was brokered by King Bola in Abuja was a fragile peace, and the return of Fubara was a return to a throne encircled by the mighty men of his Master, where his sceptre was but a rubber stamp in the hands of the Federal King.