Twists And Turns In Rivers Politics

Watchers of the politics of Rivers State woke up on Friday, August 12 to be fed with a photoshoot of Senibo Chris Finebone, the erstwhile firebrand spokesperson of the opposition All Progressives Congress, APC, and the Governor, Chief Nyesom Wike, the Governorship Candidate of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Senibo Sim Fubara, and a former Rivers State Chairman of the APC, Chief Davies Akanya, at the private residence of Wike.
Though the initial pictures were uploaded to the social media without a storyline, it was done to effect. Those who know knew. And the pictures spoke a thousand words. Finebone, who had stood as the bulwark of media opposition to the Wike Administration had defected from the APC bad was now a friend of the government that he had spent over a decade attacking.
Just a few days before the shock exposure, Finebone had berated Wike for threatening to demolish properties of hotels and landlords that make their premises available for use for political meetings with cultists and political miscreants. Finebone had also descended heavily on former APC leaders in the state that resigned enmass, saying they had all along been liabilities to the party. Their voluntary exit was therefore good riddance.While Finebone’s defection was shocking to many because he was almost the alter ego of the APC in the state, many others have seen it as one of the many things to expect in Nigerian politics – no permanent bases. Finebone did not make matters Senator Betty Apiafi for holding a meeting with Atiku Abubakar. Senator Maeba took media space and lashed back at Wike, the first time that a chieftain of the party had fought back at the governor. The development was still smarting when a list of members of the Atiku Campaign Organization in Rivers State without the input of Governor Wike was circulated.
Away from Wike and PDP, the main opposition party, the APC has been battling to keep its ranks under control as one by one, party leaders have been quitting after the party elected Mr. Tonye Cole as the party’s governorship candidate. Among those who left were Senator Magnus Abe, a former Commissioner for Information, Mrs. Ibim Seminatari, a former members of the House of Representatives, Dr. Dawari George and Hon. Chidi Wihioka, Prince Tonye Princewill and Dumo Lulu-Briggs.
Abe and George have since become Governorship candidates of the Social Democratic Party, SDP and Action Alliance.
That of Abe was dramatic. For a long time while he was still in APC, he kept drumming it that he would be on the ballot even when nominations had closed. Eventually, he took advantage of the substitution window and clinched the ticket of the SDP.
With the way politicians in the state have been moving forth and back across political parties, many have been wondering if party loyalty is still of any consequence. In fact, the development is giving vent to the sloganeering of Obidients, the followers of the Peter Obi presidential aspiration that parties no longer matter but individual candidates.