Fubara’s quiet wit retires Nigeria’s most overfed political villain – When APC Married Trouble and Fubara Served the Divorce Papers to Wike
When the apprentice retires the master, the story is never a quiet one. In Rivers State, Governor Siminalayi Fubara has done precisely that: he has delivered, with quiet calculation and disarming composure, the kind of knockout that leaves both the fallen godfather and his enablers staring at the canvas in disbelief. Wike’s Waterloo has arrived, and it has come not with thunderous bluster, but with the measured wit and calm resilience of an Ijaw man who refused to be crushed. The APC which helped to feed and fatten this political monster for its own convenience, now finds itself wincing at the very blows that have retired its once‑celebrated ally.
From the outset, the APC was no innocent victim of circumstance. The party saw Nyesom Wike clearly: his methods, his excesses, his unrestrained appetite for power were all on open display. Yet, in its eagerness to secure short‑term advantage in Rivers State, the APC knowingly clasped him to its chest, like a man who invites a cobra into his home because it promises to chase away rats. Now that the venom has spread and the alliance has turned toxic, the party’s cries of shock ring hollow. You cannot dance with the tiger and then complain when it bares its teeth; you cannot willingly wade into fire and then wail about being burned. By its own deliberate choices, the APC helped to raise, indulge and empower the very creature it now pretends to fear and silent.
Indeed, the party’s present predicament is nothing short of a self‑inflicted wound, a voluntary injury now theatrically presented as persecution. It was the APC that flung wide its doors, rolled out the red carpet and clasped Wike’s hand in triumph when his antics tilted the scales in its favour. At that time, there were no sermons about decorum, no lectures on propriety, no moral outrage. The same unrefined conduct they now decry was then dressed up as strategic masterstroke, as political sagacity, so long as it weakened opponents and strengthened their hold on power. When Wike’s belligerence worked for them, they laughed, applauded and posed for photographs; Wike's vices were conveniently ignored, if not quietly celebrated.
Yet, when something is fundamentally wrong, it remains wrong even when it appears to serve your interests. Principles that only surface when the wind changes direction are not principles at all, but mere tactics. The APC cannot suddenly discover morality simply because the monster it fed has begun to nibble at its own fingers. To denounce today what was hailed yesterday, not out of newfound conscience but out of shifting convenience, is the purest strain of political hypocrisy. A party that knowingly and repeatedly feeds a beast cannot protest when it grows fat and bold enough to test the taste of the hand that fed it. The APC must therefore cease its relentless complaining and accept that it is merely reaping the bitter harvest of its own sowing.
At the centre of this drama stands Wike himself, a man whose conduct has long been marred by recklessness, arrogance and a glaring lack of restraint. He has behaved less like a statesman and more like a minor despot intoxicated by his own voice, as if public office were a personal inheritance rather than a sacred trust. His politics has revolved around one fixed point: himself. Personal relevance, personal influence, personal gain – these have been his guiding stars. In his world, loyalty is purely transactional, alliances are disposable and principles are nothing more than decorative robes to be donned or discarded at will. Such a man can only play the villain in the long run, however loudly he may attempt to cast himself as the hero.
It is precisely this unguarded, domineering and erratic behaviour that has become the banana peel under his own feet. A man living in a glass house should not throw stones, yet Wike has hurled boulders in every direction, shattering trust, friendships and alliances along the way. The loudness that once drew crowds now echoes like a tired drum in a hall that is steadily emptying. Serious politicians are increasingly wary of tethering their future to a man whose words appear to carry no lasting weight and whose loyalties shift like sand under a restless tide. His selfishness, his hunger for control, his domineering posture – these are not just minor blemishes, but tragic flaws. Like the classical tragic figure, he struts the stage loudly, unaware that the curtain is about to fall.
However, the twist in this tale is that the curtain call did not come from his opponents alone, but from his own political “son”. Governor Fubara, the man Wike once sought to micromanage as a puppet, quietly rewrote the script. With calm resilience, strategic patience and a disarming public composure, Fubara outmanoeuvred the self‑styled godfather. In a political ring long dominated by noise and intimidation, he chose wit over bluster and strategy over spectacle. You cannot suppress an Ijaw man and expect to go free; history has shown that those who underestimate such quiet strength often discover, too late, that the river they tried to dam has quietly carved a new course.
By standing his ground without descending into Wike’s brand of theatrical confrontation, Fubara has effectively retired his overbearing godfather from the centre of Rivers politics. The once‑almighty enforcer, who strutted like an emperor, now finds himself staring at a political map on which he is increasingly irrelevant. His ministerial appointment in Abuja looks less like a new dawn and more like a sunset – a final posting before the night of political paralysis sets in. His time as governor may well go down as his last truly significant elective office; the corridors of power he once dominated are gradually closing their doors. Step by step, blow by quiet blow, Fubara has dealt a brilliant knockout that has left the once‑feared strongman wobbling on the fringes of relevance.
As the APC begins to pull away from him, Wike stands, politically speaking, in a desolate no‑man’s‑land: formally attached to power, yet substantively unwanted. He is politically homeless, hovering between alliances but firmly rooted in none. The very party that once paraded him as a prized asset is now edging away from him like one might retreat from a fire that has begun to lick the curtains. His former protégés are asserting their independence, his influence is thinning out like smoke in the harmattan sky, and the political stage that once reverberated with his booming voice is increasingly lit by other faces. One by one, his props are being removed, and his shadow, once expansive, is shrinking by the day.
In the end, unchecked excess always sends the bill. Wike’s unbridled utterances, his confrontational style and his inability to temper ambition with wisdom are the very reasons he is drifting towards political paralysis. A machine running at full speed without maintenance eventually seizes and stops; his career is following that same mechanical law. The APC’s folly in enabling and amplifying such behaviour for expediency has merely accelerated the process, but they cannot now wash their hands and pretend to be neutral spectators. They did not just discover the monster; they fed it, defended it and unleashed it. Now that it has turned, they must bear the responsibility in full.
Yet, amidst the wreckage of collapsing godfatherism, one figure emerges as the quiet hero of this saga: Governor Fubara. Without resorting to the crude theatrics that defined his erstwhile patron, he has shown that subtlety can defeat swagger, that quiet steel can humble noisy tyranny. His victory is not just personal; it is symbolic. It sends a message to every overbearing political godfather who believes that a successor is merely an extension of their ego. Fubara’s stand underscores an ancient truth: power is transient, and no throne is permanent.
Ultimately, this entire episode stands as a cautionary tale for Nigeria’s political class. When parties and politicians build alliances solely on convenience, closing their eyes to character in the blind pursuit of advantage, they are merely fattening a beast that may one day devour them. You cannot go on feeding a monster and then feign surprise when you find yourself on the menu. The APC must accept that it is suffering the natural consequences of its own cynical choices. Wike, in turn, is discovering that the same unguarded conduct that lifted him into the limelight is dragging him into the shadows of irrelevance. His political paralysis is not a tragic accident; it is the inevitable outcome of a career built on instability, selfishness and unrestrained ambition. And standing over this fallen edifice, calm and resolute, is Fubara – the apprentice who retired the master with a single, brilliant, history‑defining knockout.
EBIKABOWEI KEDIKUMO - writes from Ayakoromo Town, Delta State
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