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Rivers Proxy Battle Between Nyesom Wike, Simi Fubara Before Supreme Court: Chidi Odinkalu
Rivers Proxy Battle Between Nyesom Wike, Simi Fubara Before Supreme Court: Chidi Odinkalu
Rivers proxy battle between Nyesom Wike and Simi Fubara before dupreme court. One important difference, though, is that the issues in Rivers State today hardly involve principle or the public interest.
Depending on one’s perspective, February 10, 2025, promises to be Proxy Wars Day at the Supreme Court of Nigeria in Abuja.
On that day, a panel of five Justices will hear arguments on seven appeals connected with the synthetic political crisis in Rivers State.
The issues that the court will be asked to decide include the validity of last October’s local government elections in the state, the fate of the faction in the Rivers State House of Assembly that claims to have switched affiliations from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (after being elected on the platform) to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), the legality of the state’s 2025 budget passed by the rump of the state House of Assembly, and the effort to importune judges into denying Rivers State access to its share of the federation account.
The effort to frame these as legal issues is transparently valiant.
Despite the shameful conversion of judges into politicians in the Rivers State crisis—or indeed because of precisely that fact—the imminence of Rivers State Proxy Wars Day at the Supreme Court is evidence of what has gone wrong with Nigeria’s judicial system and why fixing it is essential for the health of Nigeria’s attempt at government with electoral legitimacy.
This is not the first time that legal disputes about power and how to share the spoils from it have ended up at the highest court in the land.
That tendency in Nigeria is over a century old. It arguably goes back to the 1921 judgment of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the case of Amodu Tijani over the effort by the colonial authorities to split Herbert Heelas Macaulay from his support for Eshugbayi Eleko, the Oba of Lagos.
To hear those cases before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in 1920, Herbert Macaulay travelled to London with the Oba’s Staff of Office in support of Amodu Tijani and the Idejo Chiefs of Lagos.
From London, he issued a statement claiming that the Eleko was the King of over 17 million Nigerians and in possession of territory more than three times that of Great Britain.
Despite a healthy revenue of over £4 million, he claimed, the British had reneged on a treaty commitment to compensate the Eleko.
Embarrassed at being publicly called duplicitous in this way, the British required the Eleko to disown Herbert Macaulay.
He issued a public statement clarifying his position on Herbert Macaulay’s statement but declined to disown him through the Oba’s Bell Ringers, as the Brits required.
Unable to secure the popular Eleko’s support, the colonists decided to head off rising tension by deposing him.
On 6 August 1925, they issued an ordinance de-stooling him, and two days later, on 8 August, they arrested and removed Eleko for internal banishment in Oyo. In his place, they installed Oba Ibikunle Akitoye.
Oba Akitoye’s rule lasted an uncomfortably brief three years, largely because he lacked the support of the people of Lagos. Indeed, in 1926, he suffered a physical assault by his people.
Supported by the elite and people of Lagos, the deposed Eleko took his case to the courts, fighting again to the Privy Council, which decided on 19 June 1928 in favour of his claim for leave for a writ of habeas corpus. This sealed the fate of Oba Akitoye, suspected to have facilitated his earthly demise shortly thereafter.
The crisis in Rivers State shares some unsettling similarities with the events in Lagos nearly one century ago.
In Rivers today, as in Lagos then, a powerful man – in this case, the current Minister of the Federal Capital Territory and immediate past governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike – seeks to banish the current governor of Rivers State, Siminalayi Fubara, from office using surrogates beholden to him in the state House of Assembly.
One important difference, though, is that the issues in Rivers State today hardly involve principle or the public interest. Framed though they are in legalese, these cases from Rivers State are about power and money grab.
This is not a first. It is the standard procedure of the current FCT Minister to seek to inveigle judges into acting as his political surrogates under a ruse of law.
In instigating this crisis, Mr Wike suffered a characteristic failure of his frontal lobe. He forgot his public vow to “give himself that respect” and not interfere in the affairs of the state after his exit from the office in May 2023. Rather, since leaving office as the state governor, Mr Wike has sought to install himself as the minister in Abuja and sole administrator in Port Harcourt.
He makes no effort to conceal that much of what passes as his political dare-devilry appears to be accomplished under the influence of sufficiently gluttonous amounts of dangerous beverage to entitle him to access to a defence of automatism in criminal law.
In October 2024, he told Seun Okinbaloye on Channels Television with undisguised hubris that the only solution to the crisis in Rivers State was for the incumbent governor to “obey court judgment.”
This was no advocate for the rule of law, however. Instead, Mr. Wike projected an air of political impregnability purchased with a currency bearing a distinct whiff of procured judicial cookery.
This is not entirely unexpected of an ambitious Nigerian politician without an alternative address (apologies to Deji Adeyanju). What is more difficult to overlook is the high judicial tolerance for the undisguised political importuning of judges.
Nigeria’s judicial system has been overtaken by a category known as “political cases.” In November 2023, former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Olukayode Ariwoola, reported that his Supreme Court registered 1,271 motions and appeals from September 12, 2022, to July 11, 2023. The court “heard 388 political appeals, 215 criminal appeals and 464 civil appeals.”
Two years earlier, in 2021, Ariwoola’s predecessor, Tanko Muhammad, reported that the court’s portfolio of 269 appeals disposed of included 139 civil appeals, 102 criminal appeals, and 28 “political cases”.
Nyesom Wike
According to CJN Ariwoola’s report, the court “delivered a total number of 251 judgments, of which 125 were political appeals, 81 were civil appeals, and 45 were criminal appeals.” The court’s output fell by 6.69% in just two years, but “political cases” rose from 10.67% to 49.8%. Even allowing for the fact that 2023 was an election year, this is a system collapse.
Nigeria’s judges appear to have decided that politicians are the only people entitled to exit from the courts. In turn, the politicians are happy to enjoy this exclusivity and to overwhelm the courts to the point that even judges now complain. They hire the priciest lawyers to frame undisguised power and money grabs as questions of law.
The Supreme Court can end this, but it is reluctant. Instead, the court affords powerful politicians the tolerance they are unwilling to extend to lesser mortals, preferring to enable this joint enterprise of senior lawyers and politicians. At the same time, it fetters its capacity to determine what should be a question of law deserving of its rarefied attention.
This sucks for many reasons. It prostitutes the bench, casualizes the constitutional guarantee of fair trial “within a reasonable time,” and portrays the judiciary as captured.
To describe this as Supreme pusillanimity is to be generous. It is a form of judicial lasciviousness syndrome, promenading judicial wares before political gawkers in a peonage system where the only effective currency is high political patronage.
The Supreme Court can make a bold statement in these Rivers State cases. It should be ready for many more proxy war days if it doesn’t.
Okpebholo Threatening Me With Violence, I’ll Fight Back Says Obaseki
Okpebholo threatening me with violence, I’ll fight back says Obaseki. Godwin Obaseki, the immediate past governor of Edo, has accused Monday Okpebholo, his successor, of threatening him with violence. Obaseki spoke during the weekend at an event in London, the United Kingdom.
BACKGROUND
Since assuming office in November 2024, Okpebholo has initiated a series of actions aimed at scrutinising Obaseki’s tenure.
He first constituted a 14-member committee to investigate the assets, liabilities, contracts, and financial decisions made under Obaseki.
Okpebholo then expanded the scrutiny to the state civil service, ordering a probe into all recruitments conducted between May and November 2024, alleging a violation of due process.
Last week, Okpebholo asked the federal government to repatriate Obaseki to answer questions over public funds linked to the controversial Museum of West African Art (MOWAA) project.
‘OKPEBHOLO THREATENING ME’
Obaseki said the governor is threatening him with violence and allegedly sent thugs to attack him in the UK.
“Those who live by the sword will die by the sword,” Obaseki said. “And to tell the governor, Okpebholo, I don’t know him; I have never met him. When you start with violence, you will reap violence.
“For one year since I left office, I didn’t say one word. I decided to respect myself and allow them to try [in governance] as well. Go and find out, you won’t see one thing I said about his government.”
He accused Okpebholo’s government of being behind the attack on diplomats during the exhibition in MOWAA.
“As if that was not enough, the government paid people to come to Manchester to attack me,” he said.
“Who has started this violence? Is it me? Last week, this governor held a disgraceful press conference in which he threatened me not to come to Benin.
Obaseki
“They have been threatening violence. So if I respond, nobody should hold me responsible. “I can’t leave myself empty to be hurt and attacked by deranged people.
“So I am going to fight back. I will fight back. I didn’t start the fight. They are afraid. They know they did not win the election.”
Ex-VP Atiku Demands Independent Probe Of N17.5tn For Pipeline Security
Ex-VP Atiku demands independent probe of N17.5tn for pipeline security. Former vice president Atiku Abubakar has called for an independent forensic audit of N17.5 trillion for the securing fuel pipelines and other related issues.
The former vice president, who described the figure as one of the most brazen financial scandals in the nation’s history, also called on the federal government to publish the full list of companies awarded these contracts.
Atiku, in a statement, also said the scope, deliverables, and duration of each contract should be disclosed just as further disbursement must be halted until accountability is established. He also charged the governor to explain to Nigerians how this expenditure aligns with national priorities at a time of unprecedented economic strangulation.
The former vice president was reacting to a report that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) spent N17.5 trillion in just 12 months on “securing fuel pipelines and others.”
Reacting, the former vice president, while questioning the figure, said Nigeria spent roughly N18 trillion on fuel subsidy over a period of 12 years in a national programme that directly cushioned millions of Nigerians, stabilised the transport sector, and helped keep food prices manageable.
He however said under President Bola Tinubu, the country has now expended nearly the same amount in a single year on the same subsidy and opaque pipeline security contracts awarded to private firms tied to associates and cronies of the President.
Likening the president’s action to robbing Peter (Nigerians) to pay Paul (cronies), Atiku noted that it is not governance but a grand larceny dressed as public expenditure. “The Tinubu administration justified the removal of fuel subsidy by claiming the country could no longer afford it. Nigerians were told to tighten their belts, endure hardship, and “make sacrifices.”
“However, the same administration has now channelled ₦17.5 trillion — an amount that could transform Nigeria’s power sector, rebuild our refineries, or fund universal healthcare — into opaque security contracts whose beneficiaries are conveniently linked to those in power.
“In some places in the country, a litre of PMS goes for over N1,000 and the justification for this by the Tinubu administration is the wholesome removal of subsidy, yet according to the records provided by the NNPCL, this same administration has spentN7.13tn on what it calls, “energy-security cost to keep petrol prices stable”; another N8.67tn on what it calls “under-recovery.”
These two balablu nomenclatures: energy-cost and under-recovery are a new coinage of the Tinubu administration to deceive Nigerians on the government’s fraudulent claim that it was no longer paying subsidies on petroleum products.”
He further raised some posers for the Tinubu administration: “Who are the companies paid under these contracts? “What specifically justifies a 38.7 percent rise in the amount of energy-cost from N6.25tn in 2024 to N8.67tn in 2025?
“Why is pipeline security now more expensive than a decade-long subsidy that served over 200 million Nigerians? “Where are the audit reports, parliamentary oversight findings, and cost-validation documents?”
The former vice president said no administration that presides over this level of fiscal recklessness has the moral authority to demand sacrifice from its people.
He added that the Nigerian public cannot continue to suffer crushing inflation, punitive fuel prices, an unending collapse of the naira, and widespread hunger — only for a select circle of political allies to pocket trillions under the guise of “pipeline security.”
“This scandal confirms what Nigerians already know: the Tinubu administration did not end subsidy — it merely redirected public wealth from the entire nation to a privileged cartel anchored around the Presidency. “The government must, without delay: Publish the full list of companies awarded these contracts;
“Disclose the scope, deliverables, and duration of each contract.
Atiku
“Subject the entire ₦17.5 trillion expenditure to an independent forensic audit; Halt further disbursement until accountability is established. “Explain to Nigerians how this expenditure aligns with national priorities at a time of unprecedented economic strangulation.”
He said Nigerians deserve transparency, not deceit, adding that leadership isn’t about cronyism. He stressed that Nigerians deserve a government that places national interest above private enrichment.
“This ₦17.5 trillion pipeline-security expenditure is not merely a financial anomaly — it is a moral indictment on the Tinubu administration and a clarion call for full accountability,” he said.
Army Chief Pledges Support For Wounded-In-Action Soldiers
Army chief pledges support for wounded-in-action soldiers. The chief of army staff, Waidi Shaibu, on Sunday assured wounded-in-action soldiers of the best medical care.
The chief of army staff, Waidi Shaibu, on Sunday assured wounded-in-action soldiers of the best medical care, saying that their sacrifices to the nation would never be in vain.
The chief of administration at the army headquarters, Isah Abdullahi, delivered Mr Shaibu’s message to the wounded-in-action soldiers during a working visit to the 44 Nigerian Army Reference Hospital in Kaduna.
Mr Abdullahi said, “This visit serves as an assessment to evaluate the 44 Nigerian Army Reference Hospital, regarded as a flagship facility of the Nigerian Army.
“Last week, upon his assumption of duty, I visited this hospital to assess its operations and, most importantly, to meet with the wounded-in-action soldiers from our ongoing operations.
“Following that visit, I was directed as the chief of administration to follow up and evaluate the conditions of these soldiers and identify the challenges the hospital faces, aiming to address those issues for the improvement of the facility.”
He added, “During my visit, I interacted with the wounded-in-action soldiers and conducted a tour of the facility. It’s evident that this hospital has undergone a significant transformation, representing a complete paradigm shift from its previous state.”
According to him, the hospital had served not only military personnel but also civilians from Kaduna and beyond, making it a true centre of excellence in medical care.
Army
“Much has improved here, and we hope this visit will contribute further to the progressive development of the facility.
“Our goal is to ensure that the hospital continues to play a critical role in meeting the health needs of both military personnel and civilians,” Mr Abdullahi explained.
He reminded the wounded-in-action soldiers that their sacrifices for the nation were deeply appreciated, adding that the military authorities were committed to ensuring that their sacrifices were not in vain.
“We will do everything possible to guarantee that they receive the best medical care, with the intention of returning them to their duty posts as swiftly as possible,” Mr Abdullahi said.
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