Rivers of Absurdity: When a House of Assembly Becomes a House of Division
Rivers of Absurdity: When a House of Assembly Becomes a House of Division
By Jerry Adesewo
Rivers State is no longer governed; it is being rehearsed. Every week, the curtain rises on the same scene: a House of Assembly permanently on the brink, eternally outraged, and obsessively determined to impeach an elected governor—as though impeachment were the only item left on the legislative menu.
This is not governance. This is fixation.
In a state grappling with real issues of development, the Rivers State House of Assembly has chosen a singular obsession: removing Governor Siminalayi by all means necessary, constitutional or creatively interpreted. Lawmaking has taken a back seat. Representation has gone on sabbatical. Oversight has been outsourced to press statements.
Welcome to Rivers, where democracy is no longer practised—it is tested to destruction.
The impeachment drumbeat has grown so loud that one might assume the governor committed an unforgivable crime against the republic. Yet the accusations float like smoke without fire—dramatic, choking, and suspiciously directionless. What is clear, however, is not the gravity of the alleged offence, but the enthusiasm of the accusers.
And then, as always in Nigerian politics, rumour enters like a supporting actor who steals the show.
Whispers—persistent, confident, and unkillable—suggest that a former governor of the state, now elevated to the dignified role of Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Barrister Nyesom Wike, has allegedly taken a keen interest in the impeachment project. Not as a concerned elder, mind you, but as a strategic financier of democratic disruption in the state.
Allegedly.
Because nothing in this story ever happens officially.
According to these rumours, inducements were offered, loyalties were lubricated, and democracy was encouraged—financially—to take a temporary nap. The goal was simple: impeach the governor, settle old scores, and remind Rivers State who still controls the remote.
If true, this would be a remarkable achievement: a minister of the Federal Republic moonlighting as an impeachment consultant in his former constituency.
But Rivers politics, like Nigerian cinema, always has a twist.
Enter the counter-rumour.
Just when the House appeared united in its impeachment zeal, another story broke through the grapevine—this time involving a ₦345 million counter-bribery. Suddenly, the once-united House developed philosophical differences. Members who were previously allergic to compromise began speaking the language of caution. Due process, long missing, reappeared like a resurrected witness.
The House split—not over ideology, not over constitutional interpretation, but over alignment.
Overnight, Rivers State discovered that democracy is elastic and conscience negotiable. The Assembly fractured into camps: those allegedly paid to impeach, those allegedly paid to resist, and those allegedly waiting for a better offer.
This is how a House of Assembly became a House of Division.
Today, the legislature is not fully functional. It exists in a strange political limbo—meeting without meeting, acting without acting, and shouting about democracy while allegedly trading it by instalment..
The most tragic element of this absurdity is the casual way in which impeachment has been reduced to a bargaining chip. In a healthy democracy, impeachment is a last resort—grave, solemn, and rare. In Rivers, it has become a routine political weapon, deployed whenever power arrangements feel inconvenient.
And the people? The people watch from the sidelines, confused spectators in a game they paid for but cannot influence. Their votes elected a governor. Their taxes fund a legislature. Yet their will is the least consulted item in this prolonged standoff.
If even a fraction of the bribery rumours are true—and the persistence of these rumours is itself an indictment—then Rivers State is witnessing not just a political crisis, but a moral collapse. A legislature that can be divided by money is already divided from purpose.
This is no longer about the governor. It is about whether institutions mean anything beyond the ambitions of those who temporarily occupy them.
Rivers State deserves a House of Assembly that assembles to legislate, not to negotiate power deals. It deserves lawmakers who understand that democracy is not a transaction, impeachment is not a business model, and governance is not a vendetta.
Until that happens, Rivers will continue to flow—not with laws, not with development, but with irony.
And history will record that when Rivers State needed leadership, its Assembly chose obsession, division, and alleged inducement over duty.
A House divided may not stand.
But a House for sale has already fallen.