By Suyi Ayodele

Yoruba name for fever is Ibà. There is also a town in Yorubaland called Ibà (the same pronunciation as fever), in Ifelodun Local Government Area of Osun State. And there are different types of Ibà. If my syntax is correct, especially in pluralisation of nouns, the plural of Ibà in Yoruba lexicography will be Ibàs. This, of course, is achieved by mere inflection.

Yoruba medical taxonomy says there is Ibà apóntò (the fever that makes one urine to be yellowish – Malaria Fever). There is also Íbà pónjú (the fever that makes one eyeball to be yellowish – Yellow Fever). The third is the worst. It is called Ako Ibà (male fever) which causes one’s urine and eyeballs to be yellowish and the skin to turn pale.

Ako Ibà in modern medicine will be Typhoid fever. Ako Ibà is cerebral, and it kills faster than any other type of fever. An Ako Ibà patient is close to a psychiatric patient. Whoever is afflicted, especially at its advanced stage, talks about things out of this planet. He thinks he is something that he is not.

A little cousin who suffered from Typhoid years back claimed that he was the husband of his elder sister and demanded for conjugal benevolence. His mother wept bitterly, thinking that her precious son had gone gaga. But the elders around knew it was an Ako Ibà. Whoever has it thinks that he is the husband of the reigning Queen of the land!

I swear down, no pun is intended here. This headline is a mere coincidence. My mind, no, my pen, pleasantly sorry, my keyboard, is the one playing tricks here. But the devil is a liar!

The Scripture is true. That is what the Christian Faith teaches. Less than a week ago, the scripture as contained in Acts 19:15, to wit: “…Jesus I know, Paul I know; but who are ye” (KJV), was made life by some women. Women have always been at the centre of the Gospel. Little wonder they were the only set of people who sought Jesus out after His crucifixion! Those our mothers have a way of making seemingly complex matters simple!

The iconoclast of this epoch, Abami Eda (the weird one), Fela Anikulapo Kuti, in 1971 released his lampoon album, Yellow Fever, where he sang about different fevers. The maverick musicologist was in his best wits in that album.

Something happened in Rivers State last Friday. As we all know, a lot has been happening in Rivers State since March 18, 2025, when President Bola Ahmed Tinubu decided to afflict the people of the state with an Ako Ibà in the name of a thoughtless state of emergency. He sacked all the democratic institutions in the state and replaced the democratically elected governor, Siminalayi Fubara, with a Sole Administrator (Solad), a former Chief of Naval Staff, Ibok Ekwe Ibas.

Like an Ajélè (envoy) of a feudal lord, Ibas has been carrying on in Rivers in manners that make nonsense of the axiomatic expression of one who is sent on an errand like a slave delivering it like a freeborn. In a way that is typical of someone suffering from Ako Ibà, Solad Ibas has been carrying on as if he was elected by the people of Rivers State.

Give a leper a handshake, our elders say, he will request for a warm embrace. Because the people of the state, especially the menfolk, refused, or were/are too complacent to resist the illegality of a Sole Administrator in the state, Ibas has carried his sacrifice beyond the mosque. Treating Rivers State like a conquered territory, the impostor in The Brick House has been acting in manners that suggest that Nigeria is still under a military regime.

First, Ibas dissolved all statutory Boards of parastatals in the state. He went ahead to dissolve the State Independent Electoral Commission, appointed Special Advisers for himself, and started going into areas that his illegal appointment did not envisage in the first instance. The worst of it all is that President Tinubu, in his morbid disdain for the people of the state, did not find any worthy Rivers State indigene to appoint as the Solad, a position that yells blue murder in our democracy!

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A lot has been said and written about the unconstitutionality of the declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers State. Many people have opined, and correctly too, that Tinubu’s action was, and is still informed by his ambition to have all the 17 states in the South under his armpits for the 2027 presidential election. He needs the entire South to fight his estranged friends in the North. The argument, which events in other states have proved to be valid, is that there is nothing altruistic in the impulsive action of the President.

Many, including yours sincerely, keep wondering why President Tinubu is still retaining Nyesom Wike and his pathologically infantile behaviours as a minister in his cabinet despite his obvious roles in the crises in the state. Why the President chose to be an Adájó owú (the unrighteous judge) in this matter remains a mystery. The only plausible reason for retaining Wike is that the President is compensating the tempestuous minister for a job well done!

What, in my estimation, betrays President Tinubu’s ulterior motives in Rivers State is the killings in Plateau and Benue States in the past few weeks. If President Tinubu could declare a state of emergency in Rivers State where there was no single killing, why not in Plateau and Benue States? What else does Tinubu want to happen in those two states before he would be convinced that laws and orders have broken down there? If we juxtapose this with the fact that President Tinubu stayed put in France where he had gone to ‘reflect’ on his two years in office while Plateau, Benue, Brono States were on fire, one can then understand how our leaders reason!

And before I am accused of crying more than the bereaved especially when Governor Fubara is said to be holding nocturnal meetings with his traducers, let us take a detour back to the main gist of the Ako Ibàs that is afflicting the oil-rich Rivers State.

The appointed Solad, forgetting that he is a butterfly and cannot fly like a bird, decided to rub salt on the injury of Rivers State and its people by promoting the obnoxious office of a First Lady. The retired Vice Admiral did not only relocate to the state bag and baggage, he decided to come along with his wife, Theresa Ibas.

Don’t blame ‘Madam Excellency ‘, the wife of Rivers State Solad. When the farm becomes desolate, the lizard makes the palm fruits its delicacy (Ilè dà fún alángbá je eyín). Mrs. Ibas, like her husband, thinks that she is entitled to all the pecks of office for the wife of an elected governor is illegally getting in our political system. So, she stepped up her games and started acting like the First Lady of the state, summoning meetings, directing women and carrying on with the full complement of the office of ‘Her Excellency, the First Lady of Rivers State’.

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But trust Rivers women. They are strong-willed. They have seen and treated different types of fever in their motherhood. They have different antidotes for Ako Ibà. And when they saw the symptoms of a chronic Ako Ibà in Mrs. Ibas last Friday, the women, like the good mothers they are, decided to administer the right concoction in prescribed dosage.

The event was the Renewed Hope Initiative (RHI), whatever that means in the face of the current hopelessness, under the control of the First Lady of the Federation – another misnomer of this era – Mrs. Oluremi Tinubu. That charade of women empowerment has been going on across the states of the Federation in the last couple of weeks.

Last Friday was the turn of Rivers State. The RHI office in collaboration with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), gathered the women at the EU Event Centre, Port Harcourt, with the intention that Mrs. Tinubu would be there to empower 500 Rivers State women with “livelihood empowerment equipment.”

Matters took a dramatic turn when Mrs. Theresa Ibas stepped up to the podium to deliver Mrs. Tinubu’s address. The women were shocked. They stayed rooted to their chairs as Madam Ibas made her way to the state lectern. Then suddenly, the alarm blew in their heads. Something snapped! The women realised that a stranger was about to address them instead of the wife of the governor they elected.

Just as the evil spirit told the sons of Sceva that tried to imitate the apostles, to wit: “…Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?” (Acts 19:15), Rivers women rose up and chorused, like the days of the Bible: “Valerie Fubara we know. Remi Tinubu, we know. Who are you?” Before the distraught Mrs. Ibas could recover from the shock, the women all stood up and began to sing: “”We want Sim/Give us Sim/We want Valery/We want Remi Tinubu to speak to us.” And they walked out, singing, gyrating and twerking!

Ask me a million times. I love those Rivers women! They are not just beautiful; they are simply courageous. I watched the video of the encounter several times. It reminds me of the old evangelism song of our Anglican crusades of yore where we affirmed the position of women in the propagation of the Gospel. The song played in my head again as I penned this. The lyrics easily came to mind: Obìrin yíó gbe, obìrin yíó gbe; b’ókùnrin bá ko Jésù sílè, obìrin yíó gbe (the womenfolk would carry Him if the menfolk refused to lift Jesus, the womenfolk would carry Him).

One of the courageous women, Ekpeye Favour, while speaking with journalists after the heroic walkout said that the women had nothing against the wife of the President but the impostor who came out to address them.

“We were told to come out and welcome Her Excellency Senator Remi Tinubu and be dressed up…. We wore shirts with her picture and our First Lady’s imprinted on the shirts…. only to be addressed by someone claiming to be our First Lady in this state. And women could not sit down and watch such things happen. So, they stood up and left.” Ekpeye then sent the women’s message in clear terms: “We have a governor. We love our governor. We support our governor. We have a First Lady. And we are just saying one governor at a time. We have a president, one president at a time…”

Those beautiful women of Rivers have sent the challenge. It is an unmistaken challenge. If Rivers men are acting like they don’t have balls anymore, the women are there for the rescue. The men can continue to fall over one another to curry favour from Solad Ibas. Rivers women would have no such buffoonery! If anyone approaches the women with any symptoms of Ako Ibà, no matter how severe the symptoms are, they have the antidotes in full dosage!

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How did the legendary widow, Nwanyereuwa, who led the Aba women riot of November 18, 1929, react in her grave? The Amazon, Olufunmilayo Ransome Kuti must have turned in her grave to give the victory salute to those women of valour! Mother Moremi Ajasoro, the beautiful princess from Offa, who sacrificed all she had to save Ile-Ife, must be proud of the Rivers women. Queen Idia, the late Iyoba (Queen Mother) of Benin Kingdom during the reign of Omo N’Oba Esigie (1504-1550), is no doubt giving a thumbs up for the Rivers women. Our adorable Dora Akunyili, as she moved the motion to make the then Vice President Goodluck Jonathan the acting President on February 17, 2020, easily came to mind as I watched the video of the Port Harcourt encounter. Nigerian women have always given a good account of themselves whenever the hearts of men failed. Those women in Rivers State re-enacted that resilience last Friday. I am proud of them!

Nigerians have a lot to learn from that singular incident. Rivers State people can arrest the illegality of a Sole Administrator in their dear state if all of them would do what those beautiful women did last Friday. Ibas is acting as if he has the mandate of the people because whenever he calls, some people respond. Rivers State people need to stop that abnormality. Ibas’ orò (deity) can only whimper if it has people behind him.

The consciousness that President Tinubu has no right to suspend an elected governor should be registered in the minds of the people. They need to be reoriented that it is illegal for Tinubu to dissolve a state legislature and appoint a Sole Administrator. The people must realise that Tinubu cannot and does not have the power to suspend democracy in any part of the country. Nigeria, or any part thereof does not belong to the President. It doesn’t matter what Fubara is doing behind the curtains. The mandate he holds belongs to the people; only the people can retrieve it from the impostors usurping the people’s sovereignty!

If Rivers State people want their elected governor back, and the dismantled democratic structures in the state restored, the women have shown the way. It is not rebellion; it is not even a call to action. It is no incitement. It is eternally legal to resist all unconstitutional acts. No where in the world such a despicable act is carried out except in the Nigeria of Tinubu. General Olusegun Obasanjo did it and we all condemned him. Tinubu cannot be an exception.

If there is any rebellion against Rivers State, it is the March 18, 2025, state of emergency. We should get it right. With the failure of the Tinubu administration in all facets of our nationhood, the President ought to have declared a state of emergency in the Presidency itself and handed it over to a National Sole Administrator! We copied this present Presidential system of government from America. In its 249 years (from 1776) of democracy, no American President has ever removed a state governor! It is rather unfortunate that a so-called democrat is the one perpetrating this illegality in our nation. So, resisting Ibas and boycotting or walking out on him and his wife at events is legal and one of the inalienable rights of the people of Rivers State.

For those courageous and beautiful women of Rivers State, as they move about with their pots of concoction to cure all Ako Ibàs in their state, I evoke here, the spirit of Birago Diop, the… poet, who in “Viaticum”, evokes: “Go into the world; go! They (spirits of the ancestors) follow your steps in life.” May the spirits of Nwanyereuwa, Olufunmilayo Ransome Kuti, Moremi, Akunyili and all departed heroines continue to watch over those women with nerves! May Nigeria and Nigerians survive the Frankenstein monster we inadvertently imposed on our nation!