Rivers Ijaw Peoples Congress (RIPCO), new face of Babel?

Even as you may be reading this piece this morning, a process is ongoing for conferring a chieftaincy title on the former governor of Rivers State and now Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike. The initiative is by a group that goes by the name Rivers Ijaw Peoples Congress (RIPCO), under the […]

Even as you may be reading this piece this morning, a process is ongoing for conferring a chieftaincy title on the former governor of Rivers State and now Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike. The initiative is by a group that goes by the name Rivers Ijaw Peoples Congress (RIPCO), under the leadership of George Sekibo a former Senator. Even as the organisers of the exercise may be flying it as bereft of any untoward significance, hardly can any other thing be further from the truth.

For in reality the circumstances of conferment of a chieftaincy title on Wike, the timing of the dispensation and the designated venue, collectively constitute a chapter of one of the latest salvoes hatched by the acolytes of the former governor in the ongoing contest for control of the state between him and the incumbent Siminilayi Fubara.

For close watchers of politics within the state, the consensus defines its obvious intent as to perpetuate an agenda of further unrest and making it ungovernable for the governor.

Firstly is that the designated venue Abuloma near Port Harcourt was the scene of a bloody fracas which took place a fortnight ago during the election of a new executive committee for the Eastern Wing of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC). According to trending reports, the fracas ensued over the power play between forces loyal to Fubara and Wike in the contest to secure leadership of the IYC.

According to media reports, the polls were initially designated for Opobo – Fubara’s home town before it was rerouted to Abuloma, the stronghold of George Sekibo, a former Senator and Wike’s strongman. Hence the circumstances of conferring a chieftaincy title on Wike in the same Abuloma, is seen as troubling by not a few interested parties in the peace of the state.

Second is the fact that the chieftaincy exercise is coming barely a week to the scheduled local government polls which had been scheduled by the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission (RSIEC) for October 5 2024.  Given the circumstances surrounding the build-up to the polls exercise and the recent withdrawal of the PDP from the polls, the chieftaincy exercise is seen as a new rallying point for his political organisation.  

Then come the incongruities associated with the leading lights of the Rivers Ijaw Peoples Congress (RIPCO). First is that it does not require the attribute of clairvoyance to smell the incongruity of the RIPCO, as a body set up by enemies of the Ijaw nation to destroy whatever unity they have ever garnered.  In figurative terms, the advent and enterprise of the RIPCO is akin to the cliché that what the fathers gathered with the rake, the children are throwing away with the shovel.    

The starting point of the incongruity of the RIPC is its name – Rivers Ijaw Peoples Congress. This assault posed by this name on the Ijaw nation is of historical proportion. The Ijaws who are arguably the fourth largest ethnic group in the country, have historically fought for their rights as one body and one voice. And given the impetus afforded the ethnic minorities when they stick together in fighting for their rights, in a Nigeria where the various constituent ethnic nationalities are of varying sizes which have to stand – each one by itself in accessing the nation’s common patrimony,  it has always been ill-advised to encourage splinter groups among them.

 That is why the advent of the RIPCO, a qualified splinter group from the Ijaw National Congress (INC), qualifies as an instrument of confusion and division – a modern day Tower of Babel which was set up for the deconstruction and ultimate death of the Ijaw ethnic nationality as a political force in the country.

Incidentally even its sponsors are not hiding their questionable agenda of willingness to sell off the soul of their ethnic base for mere lucre.  For instance, as recently as June 2024, a delegation of the RIPCO led by George Sekibo and Boma Iyaye (former Commissioner under Wike and now representing Rivers State in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), visited the President of INC Professor Benjamin Okagba in Yenagoa the capital of Bayelsa State, to canvass the neutrality of the INC in the ongoing contest for the soul of Rivers State between Wike and Fubara. They further tried to debunk what they considered as anti-Wike sentiments among Ijaws in the country. Interestingly, the criterion for their advocacy was that Wike was the God sent messiah for the Ijaws to have a governor in the person of Siminalayi Fubara.

However, against the backdrop of historical facts, this scenario flies against the struggle of the Ijaw nation to have a governor of their stock in the state. Essentially it vitiates the potency of the advocacies and struggles of the leading lights of the Ijaw aspiration for leadership of the Rivers State. Secondly the advocacy of these RIPCO agents for an ex-Governor of the state as Wike to wield oversight powers on his successor and incumbent Fubara, portrays them as being ignorant or outrightly mischievous, in respect of the constitutional provisions which vest all appurtenances of state power and resources in the incumbent governor of any state of the federation.

 The message for the Ijaws is simply to be vigilant as the enemy is no more far away, but right among your ranks.