Gray hair, they say, is the frost of time—earned by seasons of storms survived and lessons distilled. In African cosmology, it is not merely a sign of age but a crown of counsel, a living archive of restraint and wisdom. Yet, when the village burns and the elders sit mute beneath the iroko, gray hair becomes an ornament without authority, a relic without relevance.
Rivers State today is such a village. Since October 2023, barely three months into the life of the Sir Siminalayi Fubara administration, a political conflagration has raged—pitting a sitting governor against his political progenitor, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, and a majority caucus of the 10th State Assembly led by Rt. Hon. Martin Amaewhule. What began as a contest of influence has metastasized into an institutional siege.
At its core, the crisis is not merely about loyalty or succession; it is about power unmoored from purpose. The Assembly, once a co-equal arm, has been weaponised as a lever of coercion. Executive authority has been challenged not through the grammar of governance but the theatre of brinkmanship. Rivers people watch, bewildered, as governance yields to vendetta.
In moments like this, societies turn instinctively to their elders—the custodians of balance, the sentinels of continuity. The expectation is simple: that age will arbitrate ambition, that memory will temper rage, that experience will rescue the present from self-harm. Yet, in Rivers State, the elders have largely watched, equivocated, or worse, aligned.
Worrisome still is the spectre of so-called leaked agreements—documents said to codify settlements but whose contents, by every credible account, are driven by narrow, selfish interests. They speak not to schools and hospitals, to roads and livelihoods, to peace and productivity; they whisper instead of positions, protections, and personal guarantees. Rivers people are nowhere in those clauses.
That such documents could circulate while elders looked on—some in silence, others in complicity—raises the gravest questions. Since October 2023, the crisis has lingered like a stubborn ailment, untreated not for lack of remedies but for lack of will. The elders’ watch has been long; their intervention, tragically short.
Names that once commanded reverence now echo with disquiet. These are men and women whose words once steadied the ship of state. Their collective stature should have produced a chorus for peace.
Instead, the air has been thin with moral clarity. Where was the united front that says: Enough? Where was the firm counsel that reminds all actors that Rivers State is larger than any godfather, any caucus, any contract of convenience? Silence, in times of injustice, is not neutrality; it is permission.
To be clear, this is not a trial of one camp alone. Governor Fubara bears the weight of leadership and the burden of restraint; power tests temperament. But elders exist precisely to absorb shocks, to create off-ramps, to insist on dialogue anchored in the public good—not settlements stitched in private rooms.
The Assembly leadership, emboldened by external patronage, has pressed its advantage with legislative overreach. The FCT Minister, a colossus of Rivers politics, has remained a dominant shadow over the state’s present. Between them, the space for governance has narrowed. And the elders, who should widen that space, have too often shrunk it.
History will ask why gray hair did not glow with guidance. Why the keepers of Rivers’ conscience allowed institutions to be bent and tempers inflamed. Why they did not convene an open, people-centered mediation that foregrounded welfare, development, and peace above all else.
This crisis has cost Rivers State time, trust, and treasure. Investors hesitate; civil servants grow anxious; citizens tire of headlines that deliver heat without light. Development does not thrive in perpetual uncertainty. Peace is not a luxury; it is infrastructure.
Eldership is not a title; it is a duty. It demands courage—the courage to tell friends uncomfortable truths, to resist inducements, to choose legacy over loyalty. When elders fail this test, the young learn the wrong lessons, and the polity decays.
The path forward remains open, but it narrows by the day. What Rivers State needs is a public covenant: transparent mediation, a renunciation of coercion, respect for institutions, and a clear recommitment to the people’s welfare. Any agreement that excludes these is not peace; it is a pause.
Let the elders recover their voice. Let them insist that governance return to roads, schools, health care, jobs, and security. Let them remind all contenders that power is transient, but the judgment of history is not.
Gray hair must mean something again. It must stand as a firewall against folly, not a curtain for compromise. Until the elders rise to this moment, they remain—regrettably—guilty as charged.
Email: ibimdarlinton@gmail.com
Phone: 08112095925
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