How Many More Resignations in Rivers?

Rivers State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Zacchaeus Adangor, and the Commissioner for Finance, Isaac Kamalu, last week resigned from the cabinet of Governor Siminalayi Fubara.

The duo tendered their resignations after they were redeployed from the justice ministry, and finance ministry to Special Duties, and Employment Generation and Economic Empowerment, respectively.

Adangor and Kamalu are loyalists of the immediate past governor of Rivers and Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike,

They were all among the commissioners who resigned from their positions last year following the political feud between Wike and Fubara.

The commissioners were later reinstated after Wike and Fubara signed a peace accord facilitated by President Bola Tinubu.

Wike and Fubara are locked in a struggle for control of Rivers’ political structure. The political crisis led to the defection of 27 state House of Assembly members, who are loyal to Wike, from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC). The lawmakers have been threatening the governor with impeachment. They have vetoed the governor in at least three bills after he declined his assent.

In a letter addressed to the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Tammy Danagogo, Adangor and Kamalu said they were quitting Fubara’s administration because the governor was willfully interfering with their duties and also made them redundant.

Fubara’s loyalists believe that Adangor and Kamalu should be grateful that the governor allowed them to serve in his government, considering the level of disloyalty and disrespect they have for him.

According to the supporters of the governor, would Wike have tolerated their disloyalty if he was the governor?

Many watchers of the political development in the state also believe that their deployment was to let them know that Governor Fubara is not as weak as they thought. It is also believed that their deployments were intended to humiliate them.

“If they truly have the interest of the state at heart, couldn’t they have made the efforts to reconcile Wike and Fubara or resign voluntarily when the environment became toxic instead of showing loyalty to Wike against Fubara who was their boss?” a political leader in the state queried.