Come tomorrow Thursday, the 18th of September, the gates of the Brick House in Port Harcourt shall swing open once more to receive its tenant. Governor Siminalayi Fubara will be reinstated, his title and insignia returned. The law, in its majestic majesty, has spoken. The six months emergency rule has abated. But those who understand power know that the law often deals in the currency of letters, while power trades in the gritty grain of influence. He will return not to a victory parade, but to a gilded abode of his tense kingdom. The crown has been recovered, but the question lingers in the humid Rivers air: who truly lost in the supremacy battle?
This entire episode is a profound lesson in the folly of the chick squabbling with the hawk over the ownership of the sky. His initial rebellion had the fiery passion of youth, a spectacle of operatic grandeur. He was the favoured son who, upon being handed the keys to the palace, immediately sought to change the locks, forgetting who held the deed to the land upon which it was built. He listened to the sycophantic chorus, the modern-day versions of Rehoboam’s foolish friends, who urged defiance when wisdom whispered for caution. They told him to burn down the village to roast a yam; now, he must govern from the ashes of broken ego.
Experience, that most brutal and honest of teachers, has administered its stern lesson. The man who bit the finger that fed him from the quietude of the civil service as a bookkeeper to the apotheosis of power now finds that same finger cannot be broken. His gubernatorial robes, though soon to be officially draped back over his shoulders, feel thinner now, almost spectral. This is the harsh reality of life. A leader who cannot grow in wisdom, the society will grow a long cane to flog him to brain reset.
What political family is Sim Fabura returning to? The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Rivers State is like a mighty iroko tree that has been hollowed out by termites. It stands tall, an imposing sight from a distance, but a single push reveals its internal ruin. To cling to this hollowed tree is to invite a great fall. The PDP cannot offer him a shield; it is a broken calabash that can hold no water for a man dying of thirst.
So, what must a man do when he finds himself in a deep pit? The wise elder does not advise him to keep digging. He lowers a ladder.
Therefore, hark, oh Governor, as you prepare to reclaim your chair this Thursday. Your path to redemption is not in another futile war. It is in the ancient, counterintuitive wisdom of our ancestors: the snake that is surrounded by fire must straighten itself and crawl through the flames, or remain to be consumed. Your salvation lies in a grand, dramatic, and utterly necessary act of political realism. You must defect to the All Progressives Congress (APC).
This is not surrender. This is strategy. It is the wisdom of Oliver Goldsmith’s heroine who stoops to conquer. It is the supreme paradox of power: to rise, you must first be willing to bow. A move to the APC is not an admission of failure but a declaration of political maturity. It is an acknowledgment that the old war is lost and a new, more winnable one must be waged from a different fortress. The man who is given a mat to sit upon does not ask if it is new, only if it is dry.
The APC is no high moral sanctuary just like every other political party; it is the Leviathan that rules the sea. But for a governor adrift, it is the only vessel sturdy enough to weather the ongoing tempest. For APC, acquiring a sitting governor from the nation’s treasure-base is a masterstroke. For Sim Fabura, it is life itself. This is a fair 50/50 deal. It offers the imprimatur of federal might, a shield against the overbearing local termite kings, and the machinery to actually govern with ease.
Let the purists cry foul. Let them speak of principle. But as the proverb goes, a man who is being pursued by a wild beast does not stop to complain about the roughness of the path. Your choice is stark: remain a magnificent king of a graveyard, presiding over your own political funeral, or stoop, cross the aisle, and conquer the future.
This Thursday, you will be reinstated by the law. But true power, the power to truly govern, awaits a different decision. The APC’s door is not just open; in the current political climate, it is the only door that does not lead to a cliff. Sim Fabura must straighten himself and crawl through. He must stoop, to conquer.
