A statement made by a relatively unknown man called Godwin Daboh in 1974 – “If you Tarka me, I go Daboh you” – has become the locus classicus for reciprocating vicious attack with ferocious counterattack and has added to Nigeria’s political lexicon.
The prophetic undertone of Daboh’s statement can be seen in the paradoxicality of the story of Tarka and Daboh itself. While serving under General Yakubu Gowon (rtd.) as communications commissioner, Joseph Tarka threw down the gauntlet to the effect that people who knew corrupt officials should report them. Godwin Daboh, a relatively unknown businessman, responded by simultaneously releasing the above paradigm and giving credible evidence to indict Tarka for corruption. Following a few skirmishes, Joseph Tarka resigned from Gowon’s government in August 1974.
Let us look quickly and furtively at the Wike-Fubara imbroglio to see its implications on power play in Rivers State.
When Fubara succeeded Wike, the relationship between the duo could be aptly described as cooperative. While Wike supported Fubara to be governor, the latter too reciprocated by making Wike nominate virtually all the commissioners, special advisers and other aides as a quid pro quo. He also allowed Wike to have a monumental say in the governance of Rivers. Wike was, however, not satisfied. He wanted total control, especially of the purse of the government in a bid akin to enjoying a third term, which Fubara rebuffed.
With Fubara waking up, Wike’s foot soldiers tried such distracting tactics like assault, false propaganda, impeachment threat, and insubordination to frustrate him. The insubordination against Fubara came to the peak on December 11, 2023 when 27 audacious and unflinching members of Rivers State House of Assembly engaged in a serious constitutional breach by dumping the PDP, their party, to join the APC. Reasoning inferentially from the backing the assembly men got from Wike, people began to query Wike’s membership of two parties!
Even with Wike gradually insinuating himself into a double dealer, he was still sufficiently cheeky and valorous to attend the Abuja national caucus meeting of PDP on April 17, 2024 and no one raised a voice against his attendance.
I am sure this was what further emboldened Wike’s resolve to deal with Fubara. Thus, despite Fubara earnestly conceding some grounds to him as ordered by President Tinubu in his peace deal with the duo, Wike’s foot soldiers continued to frustrate Fubara.
Wike’s justification of the reasonableness of his actions, which has always been in defence of his political structure, is laughable. I am sure that explains the reason Chief Edwin Clarke remarks that Wike is “dancing naked in the marketplace.” How can anyone be talking about a structure that is as ephemeral as fashions?
You don’t own a political structure for ever; otherwise, the founding governor of Rivers should still be laying claim to Rivers’ political structure. If Alfred Diete-Spiff, Dr. Peter Odili, Sir Celestine Omehia, and Chief Chibuike Amaechi, all former Rivers’ governors who are still alive, are not laying claim to the structural control of Rivers, I don’t know what gives Wike the effrontery and presumption of insisting he will have the structure forever.
If Melfor Okilo, the state’s first civilian governor, who died at the ripe age of 75 in 2008 did not carry Rivers’ structure to heaven, I don’t know why Wike should see his ownership of Rivers’ structure as abiding, persistent, permanent, perpetual, and perennial.
One lesson in communication is that belief in reciprocity exposes how behaviour can be influenced by reciprocal gestures thereby shaping interpersonal dynamics. Reciprocity works best where cooperation is optimized without exploitation. It is either Wike does not understand this reciprocity principle or his first party (the PDP) has so much pampered him that he feels he can ignore the principle and still get away with it. But now that Fubara has determined to end the distraction in Rivers and consolidate power fast, one can safely predict that what the big PDP has failed to achieve, the underrated Fubara will definitely accomplish.
Fubara’s latest game of counterattacking Wike’s attack is that of equivalent retaliation. Indeed, the scenario in Rivers State today is analogical to the principle in reciprocal altruism in evolutionary biology where an organism temporarily reduces its fitness and increases another organism’s fitness while expecting a vice-versa reciprocation later. Where the first organism’s expectation is dashed, it reverses itself.
With Fubara enjoying the support of respectable leaders like Chief Edwin Clark, King Dandeson Douglas Jaja, HRM Chief Ateke Tom, Dr. Peter Odili, Sir Celestine Omehia, and Dr Abiye Sekibo as well as reinstituting the case earlier withdrawn from court, appointing his own commissioners, having a good rapport with the new speaker of the house, getting a court judgement against the continued stay of Wike’s local government chairmen, and insisting on probing Wike with a view to exposing the fowl’s nyansh (ass), the chickens have indeed come home to roost. This new deployment of the strict reciprocation strategy remains the most successful one that can optimize Fubara’s outcome and sustain his government.
In conclusion, I don’t know why the Tarka-Daboh phrase is transposing to “If you Wike me, I go Fubara you” after 50 years. But, because 50 is the Biblical number of liberty, something within me is telling me this is prophetic. I can see Wike being disgraced out of office if he does not soft-pedal on Rivers’ crisis. Insofar as this crisis has become an infinite horizon, operating interminably, with resultant violence, insecurity, backwardness and neglect, Fubara should continue with the infinite-horizon model by consolidating power and weakening the opposition. He should heed the advice of the elder statesman, Dr Peter Odili by making his “people-focused objectives” to be foregrounded and idealized.
Fubara’s decision to consolidate peacefully or otherwise should ultimately be contingent upon the decision of the opposition led by Wike to sheathe the sword and reconcile with him with understanding. So, Fubara should change his tactics the same way his counterpart in Osun State, Governor Ademola Adeleke changes his dances.
• Dr. Babatunde, a legal practitioner, writes from Zagreb, Croatia.
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