By Uzu Okagbue
When rascality borrows the name of the Presidency, it does not elevate itself; it cheapens the institution it seeks to hide behind. What we are witnessing in Rivers State is the reckless appropriation of presidential authority by an individual whose public utterances and conduct suggest that proximity to power has been mistaken for possession of it. This is not an assertion of strength; it is a confession of overreach. In a constitutional democracy anchored on party supremacy and institutional restraint, no minister, regardless of past influence or present office; has the mandate to personalise federal authority or deploy it as a tool for local intimidation.
What makes this episode particularly troubling is the collapse of judgment it reveals. The Hon. Minister’s utterances, delivered with unusual bravado, betray a man so consumed by personal political combat that reason has been displaced by impulse. In seeking to demonstrate indispensability through noise and confrontation, he inadvertently communicates disdain not only for institutional order but for the very Presidency he repeatedly claims to support. No serious ally of a President seeking re-election conducts himself in a manner that alienates party structures, destabilises a strategic state, and projects federal authority as partisan muscle. Such conduct does not strengthen the President’s prospects; it complicates them. Support that expresses itself through recklessness is not loyalty: it is liability, and history is replete with leaders who eventually discovered that their loudest defenders were their most damaging.
Left unchecked, this posture sets a profoundly dangerous precedent. It teaches party actors that internal discipline is subordinate to personal leverage, that electoral mandates can be bullied into irrelevance, and that the loud invocation of federal proximity can override party hierarchy and state authority. The predictable outcome is institutional breakdown: hardened factions, paralysed governance, judicialised politics, and an eventual loss of public trust. It must be stated clearly that this behaviour is not a reflection of presidential intent nor a policy of the federal government; rather, it is a private overreach whose greatest casualty is the very Presidency being casually invoked. History offers no ambiguity here: when individuals weaponise the centre for local dominance, the centre is eventually compelled to intervene, often at a higher political and reputational cost than early correction would have required.
This moment therefore calls for clarity, not indulgence. Rivers State does not need overwrought disguised as authority; it needs institutional balance, party discipline, and leadership anchored in restraint. History is unforgiving to those who mistake noise for power and proximity for mandate. Institutions may tolerate excess for a season, but they always correct it in the end. The only choice before the party and the Presidency is whether that correction comes early and orderly, or late and costly. Either way, the outcome is predictable; because in politics, borrowed authority always expires
“The Presidency remains above the fray, guided by principle and anchored in institutional stewardship; it is the misuse of its name, not the institution itself, that now calls for measured correction”.
About Author
