Ides of March! Has the hour come?

Rivers State woke up one day in October 2023, still in the middle of the honeymoon, to find that the state governor, Sim Fubara, was about to be impeached. They looked well and saw that 27 lawmakers had sworn to impeach him for the FCT Minister who actually brought him to office. Only four lawmakers disagreed not because they were loyal to Fubara but because they felt it was very wrong to remove a man who had not even had the time and space to commit an offence.

This crisis grew till many knew that it would end in a tragic scenario: resignation or impeachment. This is because it became clear that the reason or reasons for the impeachment had nothing to do with breach of any part of the constitution but probable breach of personal constitution or agreements or expectations.

So, this moment of final push has been predicted and shifted. Has the final hour come?

Many murmured for months that it would either end in resignation or impeachment. They knew it would never end in rapprochement, and that peace would never be an option. That must be why the so-called free elders and stakeholders screamed when Gov Fubara signed an 8-point agenda for peace. They saw it as mere trap, but the FCT camp saw it as way out of the crisis. So, there was clear divergence of belief in the agreement by same parties to the dispute.

Many now ask, why would peace never be an option? This is because, just like a matter between husband and wife, none is ready to say the exact reason for the quarrel, because both may be morally and mortally guilty and implicated.

Read also: Tinubu urges Fubara to uphold rule of law as governor

Instead, in the absence of official statement on the reasons for the dispute, the grapevine took over to supply the answers. What was official was the EFCC accusations against both godfather and godson of N117bn withdrawn over the counter. The rumours took over: that both parties had agreed to 25% of Rivers allocations that must be handed to the godfather monthly; that IGR was underreported leading to suspected fleecing the state of over N13bn per month; that both parties knew how opposition groups were either killed, maimed, run out of town, framed up, etc. Now, who is willing to tell the truth just to indict the other? Both parties may continue to point fingers in the dark, like winking in the dark.

Final targets seem to be; For godfather, get Sim out of the phone. For Fubara: Fone refusing to yield the Sim. The godfather’s camp may not wish to take prisoners because they have no cell to keep them and would not want a prisoner to live long enough to squill. Sim seems to plan to simply resist but never throwing any punch so the world would bear witness he never did raise a finger at his benefactor or that he never spilled blood to stay on the seat. Instead, his body language is, whatever be the outcome, leave or stay, good. And that everything happens to the righteous by the will of God. His body language is he has nothing to lose but his concern is the sympathy he has for the masses and those who have decided to fight for him. But are those fighting know the cause or origin of this fight? The way it is; the final decision may be: fight to finish.