The Minister of the Federal Captial Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has said the Governor of Rivers State, Siminalayi Fubara, removed a chief from his family and replaced him with someone else.

Wike, who spoke in a media chat on Wednesday, said Fubara took the action just three weeks before a Supreme Court verdict humbled him in Rivers.

According to him, Fubara was misled by supporters who felt the verdict was going to be in his favour.

He said, "Fubara had the temerity, the audacity, because he has money from the FAAC, because he has money from the IGR, to enter my family to remove a chief and make another person chief."

Wike also reacted to Wednesday's incident in which the gates to the Rivers State House of Assembly were shut to prevent Fubara from re-presenting the 2025 budget.

The governor was at the assembly after writing a letter to notify the lawmakers of his visit in honour of a Supreme Court verdict.

Reacting, Wike said, "If you write a letter to the assembly, won't you wait for a response? That's why I tell you sincerely, he is playing to the gallery. He has carried television people now let them say he went to the Assembly, you know it's wrong,"

The minister, who is the immediate past governor of Rivers State, also addressed threats majorly coming from the Ijaw community against a likely impeachment of Fubara.

He said, "When law speaks, all this asawana will die. And the law has spoken, let me tell you something and people should have that rights. I jaw does not constitute the majority of the Nigerian Delta. People must speak out the truth, heaven will not fall, we only die once not two times. Ijaw does not constitute majority of the Nigerian Delta, what nonsense everyday you wake up, Ijaw will do this.

"In Akwa Ibom, Ijaw cannot be Governor, in Delta, Ijaw is the minority of the minority, with all due respect to our late elder statesman, Pa Edwin Clark, he has never produced Ijaw man to be Governor, he has never. The only place an Ijaw man can solely be Governor is in Bayelsa State. Not in Edo, not in Rivers where they are minority of the minority. it is out of our benevolence, live and let live, we picked an Ijaw man to be Governor."

On the likelihood of a Fubara impeachment, he said, "If you have committed an offence warranting impeachment, what’s the issue? Is it a criminal offence? It’s provided for in the constitution. Am I a member of the Assembly?

“If you have breached the constitution and the Assembly finds it appropriate to declare your impeachment.

“I have heard people say: ‘Oh, if they impeach him, there will be a breakdown of law and order.’ Nonsense! Nothing will happen.”

ASA