Meanwhile, a Port Harcourt-based journalist, Olalekan Ige, stressed the need to revisit key infrastructure quickly.

“He should focus on completing several projects he awarded, especially roads, the Elele-Omoku Road, the Trans-Kalabari Road, etc. He needs to immediately look into the Ring Road project abandoned by Julius Berger and resolve all knotty issues.

“The employment issue is so important and needs to be tackled immediately. Many schools, health institutions, and MDAs are lacking personnel. Rehabilitation of schools across LGAs, bursaries for Rivers students, and a State Emergency Management Agency to handle floods and fires must also be prioritised,” Ige said.

Governance Frozen for Five Months
Another APC chieftain, Hon. Darlington Nwauju, lamented what he described as “policy somersaults” under the interim administration.

“As a Rivers man, I have completely lost interest in governance issues here, given the fact that governance has been frozen in the past five months.

“The easiest thing to do in governance—pay salaries—has become herculean under the military administrator. Governor Sim Fubara will have to start from where he met the state in 2023 because development has been completely frozen,” Nwauju said while interacting with journalists.

On his part, a Political analyst, Dr Obinna Nwodim, observed that the people of Rivers had seen little progress since Fubara’s suspension.

He said: “In all fairness, I wouldn’t say that the average Rivers man has seen any tangible result from the government. They truncated what was ongoing because of contracts awarded by the suspended governor. There is a big difference between what is happening now and what would have happened if the democratic structure had remained in place.”

He expressed regret that the period of emergency rule had slowed down development across the state.

‘Fubara Has Been Caged’
However, not everyone is optimistic. Public affairs analyst, Obinwa Akanwa, argued that Fubara may return politically weakened.

“The governor has been boxed into a corner and, as such, less development should be expected,” he said.

Meanwhile, barely a week ago, the Coalition for Justice and Democracy (CJD) accused the suspended Rivers State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara, of orchestrating a campaign of calumny against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

In a statement on Wednesday and signed by its president, Comrade Raymond Aighona, the coalition alleged that Fubara was also behind the circulation of a document on social media which falsely accused the Sole Administrator of Rivers, Ibok-Eket Ibas, of mismanaging half a trillion naira and inflating contracts under the guise of funding President Tinubu’s 2027 re-election bid.

According to Daily Nigerian, the group dismissed the allegations as “baseless blackmail.”

It insisted that the sole administrator had acted strictly within the limits of the emergency powers granted him and under the constant oversight of committees set up by both chambers of the National Assembly to monitor Rivers during the emergency rule.

“Siminalayi Fubara has chosen the path of bitterness and deceit. He has not forgiven President Tinubu for saving Rivers State from total political anarchy through the declaration of emergency rule. Now, in an act of reckless vengeance, he is sponsoring falsehoods, pushing forged documents, and trying to smear the reputation of the President and the sole administrator. These antics will not succeed,” CJD declared.

The coalition stated that after carrying out it’s own checks, it found no evidence to support the claims of financial recklessness being circulated online against Ibas.