…Rights activist asks governor to disclose terms of agreement
Siminalayi Fubara, Rivers State governor, met with President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Monday, pledging to abide by all agreements he had with President Bola Tinubu and his godfather, Nyesom Wike.
Fubara was removed as governor on March 18 after President Tinubu declared a state of emergency in the state in response to the crisis between the governor and Wike, Federal Capital Territory (FCT) minister.
Ibok Eket Ibas became the sole administrator of the state for six months, conducting the local government elections and appointing officials. Fubara returned to his office on September 18.
Read also: Fubara seeks spiritual backing, rallies for peace
Fubara had, in a statewide broadcast, expressed appreciation to the president for intervening in the crisis in Rivers State. BusinessDay had reported that Fubara sought spiritual guidance in a church on Sunday after taking on the mantle of leadership in Nigeria’s oil-rich state.
He urged all citizens of the state to embrace peace, saying that “the greatest gift anyone can wish for is peace.”
Fubara, while speaking with State House journalists after meeting President Tinubu, said he received advice on how to go about his work as a governor.
“You’re aware that suspension was lifted midnight 17th, and I came in on the 19th. Ideally, it’s proper for me to see Mr. President and to tell him that I’m back, and I’ve also resumed my responsibility as the governor of the Rivers State,” Fubara said.
“He advised me on what to do and how to go in their lives,” Fubara disclosed.
He noted that Wike, and President Tinubu are working together, noting that “as far as I’m concerned, we have made peace. My father and his principal are working together.”
Many had already expressed fears that the peace initiative might collapse. But Fubara said he was at the Presidential Villa to seek counsel on how to handle the Rivers State political issues.
Speaking on a what they discussed, he said, “It’s not much. It’s father-son discussion, telling him thank you and and the areas where, if at all, there should be any issue for him to guide me properly so that we are not in any situation of crisis. That’s all.”
Recall that members of the Rivers State House of Assembly had written him to submit his budget as well as the list of his commissioners.
Meanwhile, Ann-Kio Briggs, Niger Delta rights activist, said on Channels TV on Sunday that the people of Rivers State should know the terms of agreement between Fubara and President Tinubu before the six-month emergency rule ended in the state.
Read also: Return of Sim Fubara: Peace upstairs, hate down below
“I think it’s not acceptable when politicians make these agreements over our heads. It’s like shaving the head of someone behind their back,” she said.
“We are the people who have paid the greatest price in all of these things, and it is not right not to be aware of the decision which will affect us,” she said.
“It’s just an impossible situation where we have found ourselves. We don’t know what the President has insisted on, we don’t know what was agreed upon, and where that leads the people of Rivers State. So, we need to know what was agreed on,” Briggs noted.
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