I have restrained myself from participating in the Wike–Fubara political imbroglio. My first instinct has always been to treat it for what it looks like: a family feud, a fight between rulers, a contest within the ruling class. And in such a contest, no matter who wins, the people of Rivers State are positioned to lose.

As someone trained by egalitarian instincts, I am interested only in political conversations that make a difference in the lives of the people for whom power is held in trust. That is why I struggle when I see citizens and commentators “taking sides” as if this is a morality play with a hero and a villain. Whether Wike prevails or Fubara prevails, the ordinary Rivers person does not automatically gain security, welfare, dignity, or the dividends of democracy. The winner in the quarrel of rulers is still not necessarily the winner in the life of the ruled.

So, my first question to those passionately choosing sides is simple: are they genuinely ignorant of what this crisis represents, or are they willfully acting as propagandists, selling distraction to the public as if it is governance?

Because if we are honest, Rivers State is not merely Rivers State in this moment. Rivers is a prototype, a microcosm of Nigeria’s political condition. And until we define the crisis correctly, we will keep debating symptoms while leaving the disease untouched.

Define it properly: this is the character of the Nigerian political class

The present crisis reveals the operating character of the Nigerian ruling class. The two major players are not the full story; they are symptoms, actors in a deeper formation.

And the formation is clear.

1) The “installed governor” problem: power without roots

We must begin where the problem begins: the mode of emergence.

The foundation, as widely understood in public discourse, is that the governor was installed by the political godfather. The one who installed him did the heavy political lifting, campaign structure, machinery, and enforcement, while the beneficiary’s main qualification was perceived loyalty to the installer.

In that kind of emergence, the governor’s roots are not primarily in the people; the roots are in the installer’s interest. And once a man’s political oxygen is not the people but a godfather, the very idea of independent governance becomes structural rebellion.

This is not a defense of the governor. It is an explanation of the architecture that produced him.

2) The “bought legislature” problem: representation hijacked at source

Then there is the House of Assembly.

It has been widely reported in public conversations that the same installer “bought the forms” of the legislators and midwifed their political emergence. Whether one accepts every detail of that claim or not, the logic of the allegation is consistent with our broader Nigerian reality: legislators often emerge not as products of constituency representation, but as products of gatekeeping and sponsorship.

And if legislators are products of the installer, their loyalty is structurally wired, not to the people, and not to the governor, but to the man who financed and facilitated their emergence.

So, from the formation itself, both the executive and the legislature are configured as extensions of the installer’s political project.

The real agenda: a third-term-by-proxy strategy

In this light, what is playing out is not surprising. The installer desired a conditional continuity, what amounts to a third term by proxy. The route to that outcome is simple: install a loyalist, capture the Assembly, control appointments through legislative leverage, and build shock absorbers to neutralize any deviation.

Once that system is built, the beneficiary is not installed to govern freely. He is installed to function within the mode, within the script.

In such a system, for the governor to attempt autonomy is not merely to “be bold.” It is to malfunction against design. It is to rebel against the very conditions that made his emergence possible.

Why the “lame duck” argument misses the point

This is where many analysts lose the plot.

They call the governor “weak” or “a lame duck” because he has not “won over” the Assembly or “carved an independent path.” But that critique assumes that the governor entered office with political freedom, institutional room, and an independent mandate.

He did not.

The system was designed to make him perform only if he performs according to the script. It was designed to constrain his movements, limit his leverage, and ensure that every major institutional pathway returns to the installer.

So when people mock him for not dominating the Assembly, I ask: with what instrument, exactly? With what pre-existing structure? With what political roots? With what independent base?

The tragedy is that citizens are being asked to analyze a rigged structure as if it were a normal democratic arrangement.

This is the lesson: stop fighting the symptom, confront the system

My interest is not in defending Wike or defending Fubara. I have no emotional investment in either. My concern is the Rivers people, and, by extension, Nigerians because what is on display is the deeper scandal: the systematic undermining of democratic processes.

A system that produces “governors” and “legislators” primarily through godfather engineering cannot deliver true democracy, because it denies democracy’s essence while retaining democracy’s form. It performs elections and produces officeholders, but it disconnects power from the people’s will.

And when democracy loses its essence, it loses its capacity to deliver welfare, security, dignity, and development.

This is what we must fight, not personalities.

The hard question: does the installed leader even have a mission?

Even if we suspend the design argument, another question still stands: what is the governor’s motivation for fighting to stay in power?

Does he have a mission? A vision? A picture of a preferable future for Rivers people that he is willing to fight for at personal cost?

Because conflict, by itself, is not virtue. Quarrelling with a godfather does not automatically become governance. Resistance is only meaningful when it is anchored to a clear public purpose.

And here again is the deeper indictment: the very profile that qualifies someone to be “installed” is often the absence of spine and the presence of pliability. If a man is selected because he can be directed, should we be shocked when he behaves like a man selected to be directed?

Across Nigeria: where has the installed truly defeated the installer?

This is not only a Rivers story. It is a Nigerian pattern.

Across states, across party lines, the same design repeats: installers build ecosystems of dependence, capture legislatures, control appointment pathways, and install shock absorbers. The system is configured for continuity of influence, not continuity of governance for the people.

So, rather than asking why an installed man is not behaving like a free man, we should ask why Nigeria keeps producing installed men in the first place.

Conclusion: Rivers is a warning; Nigeria must learn the right lesson

If we continue to treat the Wike–Fubara crisis as entertainment, or as a contest that demands our loyalty to one camp, we will miss the lesson that matters.

The real issue is not who wins the quarrel of rulers. The real issue is the political architecture that makes governance a private arrangement among elites while the people watch as spectators.

What we call democracy in Nigeria will remain a joke as long as it is engineered to deny the people true ownership of power. And the alternative does not have to be called “democracy” for its own sake; it must be a system of governance that reflects who we are, protects human dignity, and manages our commonwealth for the benefit of the majority.

That is the conversation worth having.

Not the surface. The design.

Do have an INSPIRED weekend with the families.