Not Again, Rivers Of Babylon (2)

“Nothing,” Albert Camus said, “is more despicable than the respect based on fear.” 

Like Peter the Apostle, Fubara passed through the transfiguration experiences at the high political mountain. It remains to be known who and who he saw with his then master, Wike. Again, like Peter the Apostle, he must have been carried away by the magnificence of what he saw and heard, to ask his master for the building of three tabernacles, one for Wike and two for the other two principal fellows with him.  As an obedient and submissive “boy” he excluded himself from the comforts of the tabernacles. Pardon my biblical allusion. Fubara is not Peter, the Apostle neither is Wike the Christ. The Bible is a great book for lessons and instructional illustrations, so I draw from it regularly.

Fubara cannot stand before God and man to deny he did not have open and closed door meetings with his benefactor. He cannot also deny that he did not agree to the terms of agreements and engagements before the sailing of their political boat. Wike dramatized everything during the campaigns. He declared his political wars early enough courageously, charging and rampaging like a killer bull. He spoke strongly and fearlessly against his party’s presidential candidate, Abubakar Atiku. He swore the man would fail and lose in Rivers State. And it came to pass. He boasted that all the other PDP candidates in the state would win. It came to pass. All this while, no one heard Fubara speak and canvassed an alternative view. He remained the meek and unambitious in spite of his ambition. He took a backstage. A spectator, clapper and cheerleader’s role. To him then, Wike was right to have come against his own party. For him, Wike was right to have single handedly, imposed him on the party and the state. With him, Wike was the Napoleon. He was the state. And like the King of England, he could do no wrong.

I wonder what was going on in Fubara’s mind each time they went on rally and Wike would be abusing and threatening his opponents? I wonder if Fubara did not catch the significances of the lyrics and wild dances by Wike especially the “agreement is agreement” tune. Was he thinking the song and dance were meant for Atiku alone? Am not judging Gov Fubara. I am only trying to raise some fundamental issues of conscience and morality in politics and power play if ever the two words exist in the game of play.

Was he thinking that he (Fubara) could simply and easily walk away from their agreements without a fight back from Wike. Why did he decide to hoodwink his political structure with the looks of meekness when he knew he wanted to play the cat at the end? Why and how did he start early to dare the lion?

Take it or leave it, Fubara suffers from the Macbeth’s psychology. Though, unlike Macbeth, he did not kill directly to wear the crown. However, like Macbeth, he manifests the “unconscious as a harbinger of danger.” like Macbeth. It is this trait that he expertly covered as meekness or loyalty to deceive Wike. This unconscious mind continued to animate his desires for the office in spite of the degrading conditions he was forced into. No doubt, like every desperate Nigerian politician, Fubara was obsessed with the vaulting ambition of garbing power. He couldn’t raise a voice against some of the conditions and hence was powerless in the face of Gov Wike.

I am not fascinated by his trademark meekness then just as I am not enthusiastic about his pugnacious hypocrisy now. There is nothing to be proud of his prostrations before Wike then and his talking tough now. Fubara is proving Andre Malraux right,  “Man,” he said, “is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides”.

What is happening in Rivers State is saddening, painful and disheartening. Like the adage holds, it is the grasses that suffer when two elephants fight.  Gov Fubara should save us his pretences. He failed the tests to manage his state’s political troubles. Agreeing on a template for peace, signing and commiting himself to the terms only to renege, questions his integrity beyond politics.  An anonymous cliche says, “People of integrity do not hide their reactions or opinions, they do not manipulate others through deception, and they do not pretend”

He should have known when to back out or fight the war. He refused to heed Chinua Achebe’s wisdom, “People say that if you find water rising up to your ankle, that’s the time to do something about it, not when it’s around your neck”