In trying to decode the curious conduct of Siminalayi Fubara since his reinstatement as governor of Rivers State—after serving a six-month suspension imposed by the “headmaster” of Nigeria’s democracy, President Bola Tinubu, and his “class captain,” Ezenwo Nyesom Wike, Minister of the FCT—I found myself revisiting the term Stockholm syndrome.
The phrase dates back to August 1973, when four employees of Kreditbanken Bank in Stockholm, Sweden, were held hostage for six days by robbers Jan-Erik Olsson and Clark Olofsson. Surprisingly, the hostages developed an emotional bond with their captors and even feared the police more than the criminals. Kristin Enmark, one of the hostages, told the Swedish Prime Minister that she trusted her captors but not the authorities.
Swedish psychiatrist and criminologist Nils Johan Bejerot later coined Stockholm syndrome to describe this baffling behaviour—victims sympathizing with their oppressors.
Today, Fubara’s behaviour appears to mirror this syndrome. Like the Stockholm hostages, he seems indebted to those who humiliated and stripped him of power, grateful for the “privilege” of resuming office, bearing the title His Excellency, and enjoying siren-blaring convoys.
His chief tormentor, Wike, even bragged on Channels Television that he could have prolonged the political “state of emergency” but chose not to. Small wonder Fubara treats his reinstatement as an act of benevolence rather than the restoration of his rightful mandate.
The six-month suspension, in effect, was not just a political punishment but a psychological reset—a calculated process to strip Fubara of any sense of independence or grandeur the governor’s office carries. By the time he returned, he was no longer triumphant but subdued, conditioned, and compliant.
