By Our Correspondent
Former Rivers State Governor and current Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has declared that Governor Siminalayi Fubara committed a fatal political error by attempting to erect his own political machinery less than three months after assuming office.
Speaking during a special media engagement in Port Harcourt over the weekend, Wike asserted that Fubara’s decision to go solo so early in his tenure signaled a clear disregard for the established political framework that propelled him to Government House.
Wike emphasised that he left office with a well-laid infrastructural blueprint, including the ongoing Port Harcourt Ring Road project and 12 completed flyovers, all designed to position Rivers State as a credible competitor to Lagos.
His expectation, he said, was that Fubara would build upon this groundwork rather than dismantle the supporting structure.
“My thinking was that we need to compete with Lagos. We laid the foundation; he should continue from there, and we would give him all necessary support,” Wike recounted.
However, he lamented that those intentions were quickly overtaken by the governor’s new alliances.
Wike alleged that within his first 100 days in office, Fubara began surrounding himself with individuals whose primary interest was his downfall—including figures who secretly coveted the governorship themselves.
“You just came to office, and someone says he wants to support you. Must it be his name? Some will go through your wife, your in-laws, your father. It now behoves you to ask, ‘Where will this advice lead me?'” Wike stated.
He accused the governor of listening to bad counsel and ignoring the loyalists who had labored to install him. “He tried to do it by himself. He wanted to set up his own structure against the structure that built him. It did not take up to 100 days, and we saw it,” Wike declared.
The FCT Minister argued that Fubara’s preoccupation with consolidating personal control diverted attention from governance, widening the developmental gap between Rivers and Lagos—a gap Wike had hoped to close.
” Nigerians were astonished by my 31 days of commissions and flag-offs—no governor has ever done that. We were focused. But he lost focus,” Wike said.
Responding to widespread rumors that he had demanded financial compensation from Fubara, Wike dismissed the claims as baseless political blackmail. He noted that as FCT Minister, he oversees a budget of approximately N1.8 trillion and has grown the territory’s Internally Generated Revenue from N8 billion to N40 billion monthly.
“If it was money we were asking for, we wouldn’t have prevailed. I don’t know what I want. All I wanted was to stabilize the place and move on from where I stopped,” he explained.
Wike concluded that Fubara’s early missteps have now placed the state in a precarious position, with political distractions overshadowing the urgent task of development.
“His mistake led to where we are now, too far in the day, the difference between us and Lagos,” the former governor added.
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