By Kolawole Ojebisi
Senate President Godswill Akpabio on Friday launched a subtle jab against the Rivers State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara, for lacking the political maturity to handle the crisis plaguing the state.
Akpabio said for any governor or president to succeed he must build a cordial relationship with the legislative arm of the government urging Fubara to learn from how President Tinubu mushed the two chambers of National Assembly together with the conferment of GCON.
The senate president spoke as Special Guest of Honour at the Public Lecture and Book Launch organised to mark the birthday of the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, on Friday.
He said the only place that can hurt a governor is the House of Assembly and no court or democracy can stop that from happening.
He said, “Recently he conferred on us GCON, Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger, whether he loved it or not he did it. He muscled (sic) the two Chambers together.
“For those of you, who may not understand politics, we were taught that the parliament can turn a woman into a man and a man into a woman. As a governor my greatest fear was my House of Assembly.
“So because of that I never travelled anywhere without my Speaker. Any time I didn’t see him for a day, I would send somebody to his house to invite him to come and have a launch with me and I used ideas to look at his face to know whether he was happy with me or not.
“The only place that can hurt a governor is the House of Assembly and no court or democracy can stop that from happening. Any President that wants to survive like Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu must hold the speaker and the Senate President very closely the way he is holding us.”
Akpabio, who also launched a book on Wike, wondered why despite all resources at the disposal of Fubara, he had not been able to poach some of the 27 lawmakers in the camp of Wike.
The former Governor of Akwa Ibom State said people must rise to condemn politics of betrayal and treachery, noting that such political orientation was affecting sustainability in governance.
He said despite all the insights contained in the lecture delivered at the occasion by the Guest Lecturer and Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, Prof. Julius Ihonvbere, he did not address the critical issue of sustainability.
“He said: “I do not know what is happening in Rivers State but I hope that the successor to Wike realises the fact that no matter how the bird flies, the legs are pointing to the ground.
“Something must be wrong. Today is not for politics. Today is for Nyesom Wike. But sometimes I wonder, I would never be the governor given the resource of Rivers State and then I disagree with my House of Assembly and I am not able to poach at least one member out of the other group. If I do not do that, it means that there is something wrong with my political philosophy.
“I do not care what people say, we must try to stop this politics of betrayal, and politics of treachery because it does not allow for good succession. Prof Julius, in everything you said here, the word that was missing was ‘sustainability’.
“You cannot have sustainability in good policies and governance when the person taking over from you is interested in not destroying you alone but destroying everything that you built. If you are a politician, note, you must have opposition as people oppose you, they are also the step you can use to go higher.”
Akpabio, however, said when politicians served with dedication, passion, confidence and with open heart God would eventually lift them higher.
Turning to Wike, he said he did not become the FCT Minister by chance, but that the position came because of the hard work he put in when he was the governor of Rivers.
