As Fubara Continues to Search for His Missing ‘Sim’

By all accounts, the Rivers State drama now reads like a Greek tragedy rewritten in pidgin—featuring betrayal, suspension, emergency rule, and a father-son spat gone public.

Governor SiminalayiFubara—suspended, displaced, and disarmed—emerged this week from political purgatory for yet another closed-door meeting with President Bola Tinubu in Lagos. No details were leaked, of course. This is Nigeria, not Netflix. But insiders whisper that the conversation was about peace. Or, as Fubara calls it, “coming down from our high horses.”

High horses, however, aren’t easily tethered. Not when the Minister of the FCT, NyesomWike, still speaks of Fubara as “my son,” even as he levels accusations of betrayal that border on Shakespearean woe. “I weep,” Wike confessed to reporters earlier this week, comparing Fubara’s defection to a son pointing a gun at his father. He has made it clear: forgiveness is conditional, loyalty is non-negotiable, and history is his to narrate.

Back in Port Harcourt, the official residence of the governor is still curiously silent. Fubara is still not the landlord, and the swapped security details remain so. Admiral EkweIbas (rtd), the person currently in Fubara’s shoes, is still at the work desk of administration in the state. Calm prevails, but calm is not the same as order. This is a state technically under emergency rule, governed by decree, and steered by hush.

To some, Fubara’s recent apology tour—first to Wike, then to Tinubu—seems like capitulation. To others, it’s diplomacy with a human face. Someone notable, a Niger Delta elder, even called it a “sacrifice for peace.” Perhaps. But in Rivers, even peace has a patron.

What’s certain is this: Fubara is still in search of his political ‘Sim’—that spark of authority, independence, or at least a stable seat at the table. Until then, he remains, in the eyes of many, a governor without a house, a son without a father, and a leader negotiating his right to lead.