A leading traditional ruler in Rivers State, Eze Ohna Sergeant Chidi Awuse, has faulted Governor Siminialayi Fubara’s action when he removed him as chairman of the Traditional Rulers’ Council.
Eze Awuse decried the aspersions cast on him by the governor, who described him as “unsteady” at a time he was battling for his life, lying in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at the hospital.
He said he spent six months in critical condition.
Eze Awuse, who is from Emohua Local Government Area, spoke at the weekend during the visit of Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike.
Wike led a delegation of his political family to his palace to rejoice with him for surviving a debilitating ailment.
Fubara removed Awuse on June 21 from his position as Chairman of the Rivers Traditional Rulers Council. The monarch was appointed by Wike.
Accusing Awuse of inactivity and absence of effective leadership of the council under his watch, the governor replaced him with the Paramount Ruler of Apara Kingdom, Eze Chike Worlu Wodo.
Fubara had said: “I want the council to live up to its responsibility. From my observation, the council is moribund. So, I can feel that the council, for a while now, has been very inactive. Inactive because, maybe, the chairman has decided not to be responsible as a chairman. I think that is the best way to describe it.
“I am not talking about other things that have been happening. But I feel there are responsibilities of the chairman, and so far, I have not felt it and you can also attest to that, that you are not seeing that leadership that you expect
“I would like to draw your attention to a special insult that was meted to this government. The council produced a calendar for the year of our Lord 2024, and the governor’s picture and the deputy governor’s photographs are not in the calendar.
“I want to ask you: does it show any sign that, that leadership is working with this government? I hope you have a copy of it? Does it show that your chairman is working with this government?
“So, I have decided today, we have to move forward. By the special grace of God, the administrative life-span of the chairman is one year, which is renewable. So, at this particular time, I have to say that with the power vested on me, I announce that the tenure of Chief Sergeant Awuse has been terminated.”
But Awuse, who just returned from a medical trip, rued the governor’s comments about his personality and leadership, describing the governor as “ungrateful”.
Recalling his sacrifices as a first class traditional ruler during the making of Fubara as a governor, the monarch said he backed his candidacy and followed the campaigns to the 23 local government areas of the state.
According to him, he formally informed the governor on three occasions about his trips in writing and that all his letters were acknowledged by the government.
Awuse said: “I never went out of this state without telling my governor; not just once; all written; all acknowledged. So, when somebody said he didn’t know where I went to, I was surprised unless there was another chairman other than me.
“He was my candidate. I took him as my candidate. All the people running around him today, none of them showed face. I am the only traditional ruler, first class, that followed that campaign from local government to local government and I went to every local government.
“In most of the local government areas I mounted the rostrums to speak for him because I trusted him. I was the main one. But today in the house of politics, you see the good the bad and the ugly. Anyone that falls into your hand you take.
“I was sacked from my seat the day I was in ICU. I was in coma for 10 hours. I told only him (Wike) because everybody rejected me.
“The government I was serving rejected me. People have the mind to say I will support the governor to the fullest. Why won’t you support him to the fullest when you did not contribute to his being there.
“I am learning how to stand up because I was in ICU six weeks with gadgets all over my body fed through my nose. And you (Fubara) told people when I was in ICU that I was a man of questionable character.
“You said Sergeant Awuse, I am not steady. That is one quality I don’t deserve. Call me any other name but I am a steady human being.”
On the controversy trailing his recent warning that those opposing Wike should not to come to his house, the monarch said if not for God and Wike’s interventions, he would have died.
“Why shouldn’t I say so. I have the right to say so. All of them gallivanting in government house we never saw them. I suffered. I went to 23 local government campaigns, all the flag off and commissioning I went to nobody complained. Thank God I am alive.”
Turning to Wike, he said: “We give God all the glory. Your coming has added another life to me. You don’t know what you are doing for all us here. Anybody who is with you you touch the person’s life but now you have saved a life.
“Nothing will make me say anything other than that. I know what you did for me. I wrote three letters to my governor to allow me go and look after myself. If I had remained one week here I would have died here.
“But you (Wike) told me that ‘nothing will make you to die. Continue to pray you will not die’. That was what you told me.”
Referring to Wike as “our leader, he added: “Our leader to say thank you will be understatement. Apart from God Almighty who gave directives to the relevant agencies of medicine to put me where I am today, I am sorry for anybody who may be angry, you are the next person that I will thank.
“You are a leader worthy to be followed. Our former Governor and now minister I am repeating it to all of you who may have double mind, leave one and follow one and that one is Wike. As a friend, he is number one to me today.
“Every other things don’t matter. That I said if you are not supporting Wike don’t come to my House. The other day Emohua stakeholders came here. Two of them are coordinators of Sim (Fubara). I am not a politician of that kind of character. I am a liberal politician but standing on my course when I move”.
Speaking on behalf his political family, Wike said he was surprised to hear the governor cast aspersions on Sergeant Awuse, whom he said was revered as an astute politician.
He said Awuse was one of the few leaders, who ensured that Fubara got the governorship ticket of the PDP.
The minister said: “I was watching television and I heard when the governor said, ‘that one that can never be steady’. And the next thing I heard is that they had removed you.
“He was one of the few people who made sure on the day we were deciding who will run as a governor that the ticket was given to the governor. The governor never bothered to ask about Awuse even if it is to ask his children.
“But he was on television casting aspersions on somebody who all of us revered in politics. When politics was politics, we don’t know where the governor was whether he was in primary school. That is all part of life.”