How a Governor Learned the Grammar of Survival

The line that set the tone came from the governor himself: without the president’s intervention, he said, he would already be a former governor. Few Nigerian leaders summarise their ordeal with such economy.

Siminalayi Fubara announced his defection to the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Port Harcourt on December 9, 2025. The room held party elders, state officials, and the faint tension of a man crossing a political river with no bridge behind him. He blamed the PDP for leaving him stranded during months of turmoil.

Even though the turmoil had a clear architect. Even though the said architect is reportedly his predecessor, Nyesom Wike. Even though Wike remains a towering figure in Rivers’ politics.

Readers might remember all the ‘wahala’ Fubara went through, starting with the impeachment threat, the federal intervention, and everything in between. Fubara would later admit that the President shielded him from a fall that seemed imminent. This gratitude hints at the real cost of remaining in his former party.

Fubara’s situation differs from the usual choreography of Nigerian defections. According to him, it was not in his register to plan ahead for a second term or chase alignment with the centre. He was trying to salvage his seat. The fight with Wike was public, daily, and draining. Even a Supreme Court ruling on the defected lawmakers became part of the theatre.

It is from all these that his role in the political scene emerges: a governor pushed into survival mode by a mentor-turned-rival, a party unable to defend him, and a federal rescue that came with its own gravity. 

Rivers’ politics now carries that choice like a watermark. But will a governor who learned survival in public govern with quiet confidence or with the caution of someone who knows how quickly the floor can shift?