With dexterity and some sense of candor, he strode purposefully along the red carpet isle to the podium.

His assigned role for the day was unambiguously defined: To unveil the Rainbow Coalition candidates for the 2027 general elections in Rivers State.

But unknown to many, Governor Siminalayi Fubara had a special announcement to make.

First, he took a brisk eye scan through the sea of heads at the Yakubu Gowon Stadium, then announced: “I am no more your leader. Stop calling me ‘my leader, my leader’”

The day was Tuesday, October 27, 2026, when a political group formed by the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Mr Nyesom Wike, organized a rally which drew participants from the 23 local government areas of the state.

They converged on the Yakubu Gowon Stadium Port Harcourt to display which candidate from the six-member political parties that constitute the Rainbow Coalition for the coming elections.

Fubara was tactically chosen to perform the unveiling and handover the flag of the All Progressives Congress, APC, to Hon Ogundu Kingsley Chinda, the anointed governorship candidate of Wike.

Fubara did not only surrender his potential second term as a sitting governor to Chinda but also relinquished his role as the political leader of Rivers to Wike.

The governor veered off the track of duty and handed down a stern warning, or so it seemed, to his organic supporters who stood by him in thick and thin during the dark moment of the political crisis in Rivers, telling them unreservedly that he was no more their leader.

“Let me say something here so that it will always help us while we move forward”, he started.

“I’m aware there are some issues where some persons who followed me when we had the crisis when you’re in your meeting you say ‘my leader, my leader’.

“We are now in one house. And because we have one house, there is no issue about who is the leader.

“I might be your oga (governor) but we have a common leader now. So, please, going forward, this issue of ‘my leader, my leader, my leader’, I want it resolved here and now.”

There was a cumulus of silence at first, then a deafening applause.

Governors as leaders

Way back in January 2025, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, through his Vice, Kasim Shettima, had declared that all APC governors were political leaders of the party in their states.

The implication is that as the highest political position in the state, a governor is seen as a leader politically.

Tinubu made this known during the defection of Governor Agbu Kefas of Taraba State from PDP to APC.

That pronouncement also covered Fubara the moment he defected from the same PDP to APC on December 9, 2025 and picked the 001 registration number of the ruling party.

Also, shortly after Fubara’s defection, APC national leaders—including National Chairman, Prof Nentawe Yilwatda, National Secretary, Ajibola Basiru, and Deputy National Organising Secretary, Duru Eze, officially affirmed the Rivers governor as the leader of the APC in the state.

They cited the APC Constitution, which designates sitting state governors as party leaders in their respective states.

Rainbow/Fubara reconciliation

Reeling in the deep cut injury occasioned by the over three years of political crisis that culminated into the declaration of a state of emergency on March 18, 2025 by President Tinubu, Wike and his political group soon realized the need to bring in Fubara and his structure to form a formidable force for 2027.

Between August 16 and October 7, 2026, the Rainbow Coalition led by Wike held a back-to-back peace meeting with the governor in his private residence in Port Harcourt.

The last meeting, expanded to include all the 23 LGA chairmen, had lawmakers from both state and national assemblies and political appointees loyal to Wike in attendance.

At the meeting, Fubara accepted to return to the “family”.

And the three suspended lawmakers loyal to him were reinstated while members of his political camp were promised juicy positions in the next dispensation.

The peace meeting generated outrage in Rivers with many describing the governor as the “weakest” political leader in the history of Rivers.

Fubara was alleged to have told his loyalists to go to the rural areas across the state and preach the gospel of Rainbow Coalition.

State capture?

Political observers are of the opinion that, having used his structure to propel Fubara to become governor, Wike was making a grand plan to capture the soul of the state.

The internecine crisis witnessed in the past, obviously testified to the fact that the minister “was desperate for a third term by proxy”, said Franklin Uket, a public commentator.

Uket noted that from the fight to regain his structure, “Wike never wanted Fubara to be independent minded as a governor. “He never wanted Fubara to draw any of his (Wike) political enemies close to his government”.

Now politically suffocated, Fubara’s decision to throw in the towel of leadership also gives credence to the fact that the crisis is deeper than what appears in the surface.

“The governor has been stampeded and bullied out of power”, Uket alleged.

Public perception

Apparently miffed by the recent development, Fubara’s former ally and royal father, HRH Ubokikwan Gabriel Ogbologwung, PhD, Paramount Ruler of Egwebe in Andoni LGA of the state, said “the summersault position taken by the Executive Governor of Rivers State, Siminalayi Joseph Fubara, in my thinking is not an excellent decision”.

The monarch said Fubara’s statement gives credence to what many see as using the governor “as a tool for the state’s total capture placing the state under Minister Nyesom Wike’s political egoistic jackboot”

He said the governor’s latest move has made most of his followers, especially as the grassroots, to shrink back into their political shells.

“With Fubara’s ignominious move, he has totally surrendered his political life for a terminal crush by Nyesom Wike, who left nothing for Governor Fubara on the negation tables, which architect -in-chief is Wike and Wike alone”.

Ogbologwung said as a Rivers man, “I see the governor’s total surrender to Wike as a ship captain who swims ashore with the only life-buoy available during a wreck without bothering about the safety of his crew members.

“The governor’s action has sadly demonstrated to the world how not to have a leader with a borrowed mind.

“As a result, he has, by his own inconsiderate machinations deliberately sunk his political ship, having eaten to his own belle-full, that he desires less of neither the survival of his followers nor the state itself”.

Another supporter of the governor and an elder statesman of Ijaw extraction, Chief Anabs Sara-Igbe, reiterated that Rivers people are not in sync with Wike’s political posturing.

He said Fubara must have been forced to relinquish his leadership role because “he has found himself in a web”.

Sara-Igbe said the governor’s action may have serious future implication on political balance of the state.

“What he did may have a deeper meaning. Wike has been begging Fubara since, it means that he wanted to take total power from Fubara. But we are waiting”.

Speaking differently, a former member of the House of Representatives and a political analyst, Prince Ogbonna Nwuke, said the governor’s action could be deduced from the context of how he sees himself presently.

“There is nothing too big for anybody to do to bring peace. You can’t have two masters in the same boat”, Ogbonna said, adding that only Fubara can answer why he voluntarily surrender his leadership to Wike.

The former commissioner however stated that as things stand now, “Fubara has taken a backstage in the state politics. I don’t know if I should say it is humility or weakness. But the governor is not ego-driven or power-drunk”.

According to him, the governor’s supporters must have felt let down, disappointed and shocked.

“He may have plans for his people on what to do for them to ameliorate the pains of what has just happened”, Ogbonna concluded.

For the President of the pan Niger Delta Elders Forum, PANDEF, Prof (Amb) Godknows Igali, there was nothing strange about what Fubara did.

“He is entitled to his opinion or action. In the beginning, they were in the same political family”, Igali said.

The diplomat said that interest, in whatever form or shape, is determined by whoever is the political leader of the state. “It is Fubara’s right to relinquish authority or to hold onto it”, he said.

Implication

Governor Fubara may not envisage any further political power again after his tenure.

But the question many are asking is: What possible impact will that action have on the people of Opobo, his ancestral home! Will they be trusted with political in the nearest future!

More so, what is the assurance that Fubara and his team are in the Rainbow Coalition camp with their full chest! The answers are in the belle of the 2027 governorship election in the state. But for now, he is on hangar’s cliff. (Sunday Vanguard)