Who God Has Not Cursed: Why Fubara Remains Unimpeachable Despite Rivers’ Lawmakers’ Desperation -By Isaac Asabor

There is a reason the Bible says, with chilling finality, “How can I curse whom God has not cursed?” (Numbers 23:8). It is not poetry. It is power. It is a statement of limits, of where human scheming ends and a higher order begins. In Rivers State today, that ancient declaration has found a modern, political expression in the embattled but unbowed Governor Siminalayi Fubara.

For the third time, lawmakers in the Rivers State House of Assembly, widely perceived as proxies in a larger, bitter power struggle, have attempted to impeach Fubara. And for the third time, their effort has smashed headlong into a legal brick wall. Not politics. Not street protests. Not divine thunderbolts. Law. Cold, procedural, unforgiving law.

At some point, Nigerians must stop pretending this is about governance or constitutional morality. It is not. This is a sustained attempt to undo an election outcome and reclaim political control by any means necessary. Yet, like Balaam hired to curse Israel but forced by God to bless them instead, every legal arrow fired at Fubara has returned to sender.

Let us be blunt: as long as God has not cursed Fubara, and the courts keep confirming this reality, no assembly allegedly acting at the behest of Nyesom Wike can impeach him.

This latest gambit marks the third impeachment attempt against Governor Fubara since his fallout with his predecessor and erstwhile political godfather, Nyesom Wike. Three times, the Assembly has brandished the sword. Three times, the sword has shattered. If this were a boxing match, the referee would have stopped it by now.

The pattern is no longer subtle. Each attempt follows the same script: hurried resolutions, dramatic allegations of “gross misconduct,” legal shortcuts, and an apparent belief that brute political force can override constitutional procedure. Each time, the judiciary steps in, not to protect Fubara the man, but to protect the law. And that is the irony the plotters refuse to grasp. In trying to destroy Fubara, they have repeatedly exposed their own contempt for due process.

The most recent blow to the impeachment crusade came not from the streets of Port Harcourt, but from the pen of the Chief Judge of Rivers State, Justice Simeon C. Amadi.

In a carefully reasoned letter addressed to the Speaker of the House, Martin Amaewhule, Justice Amadi declined the Assembly’s request to constitute a seven-man investigative panel under Section 188(5) of the 1999 Constitution. His reason was simple, devastating, and legally airtight: his hands are fettered.

There are subsisting court orders. There is a pending appeal. The doctrine of ‘lis pendens’ applies. Until the courts speak, everyone, governor, lawmakers, judges alike, must maintain the status quo.

That single phrase, “my hand is fettered” should echo painfully in the chambers of the Assembly. It means the impeachment train has derailed, again, before leaving the station. This is not luck. It is not sentiment. And it is certainly not judicial activism. It is the predictable outcome of a process riddled with legal landmines.

Justice Amadi disclosed that his office had been served with interim injunctions from the Rivers State High Court in Oyigbo, orders that expressly restrained him from acting on any impeachment-related request from the Assembly. Those injunctions were not whispers or technicalities. They were explicit, certified, and binding.

To compound matters, the Assembly itself has appealed those same interim orders. In doing so, it activated the doctrine of ‘lis pendens’, a principle so basic that any first-year law student understands it: when a matter is before a higher court, no party is permitted to take steps that would pre-empt or undermine the outcome. In other words, the lawmakers tied their own hands.

Justice Amadi went further, citing precedent— Hon. Dele Abiodun v. The Hon. Chief Judge of Kwara State & Ors (2007) — where a chief judge was faulted for constituting an impeachment panel in defiance of a restraining court order. The message was unmistakable: the Chief Judge would not sacrifice his judicial integrity on the altar of political desperation.

The biblical story of Balaam, as told in Numbers chapter 23, is instructive not because it is mystical, but because it reveals a timeless truth: there are forces that schemes cannot override. Balaam was paid handsomely to curse Israel. He tried. He opened his mouth. Blessings came out. That is Rivers State today.

Each impeachment attempt has been framed as a curse, a political death sentence pronounced by an Assembly determined to break a sitting governor. Yet each time, the courts have forced those curses to collapse into procedural nullities.

This is why the phrase “Who God has not cursed, no one can curse” resonates so powerfully in the Fubara saga. Whether one is religious or not, the symbolism is unavoidable. Power without legitimacy is empty. Authority without law is noise.

Let us also stop dancing around the elephant in the room. These impeachment attempts do not exist in a vacuum. They are widely seen, fairly or unfairly, as extensions of Nyesom Wike’s unresolved battle for control over Rivers State’s political machinery. The lawmakers pushing this process are not viewed as independent actors; they are seen as foot soldiers in a proxy war.

That perception alone has poisoned the credibility of the entire impeachment project. Even if the allegations against Fubara were stronger, and they are not, the process would still struggle under the weight of its own political baggage. Nigerians are not naïve. Rivers people are not fools. They understand power plays when they see one. And the judiciary, to its credit, has refused to be dragged into the mud.

The tragedy here is not just the repeated failure to impeach Fubara. It is the damage this obsession is doing to the legislature itself. A House of Assembly that should be passing laws, scrutinizing budgets, and addressing Rivers people’s pressing concerns has instead become a permanent impeachment committee. Time, energy, and public resources are being wasted on a project that has failed three times and shows no sign of succeeding.

Given the foregoing view, it is expedient to opine that the lawmakers’ persistence towards the impeachment of Fubara has become embarrassment.  In fact, it is expedient to opine at this juncture that the lawmakers seem not to have realized that the problem is not the courts, the Chief Judge, or divine conspiracy, but their own flawed approach. In fact, the lawmakers need to be reminded that politics has rules. Law has procedures. Power has limits.

Governor Siminalayi Fubara may not be perfect. No leader is. But impeachment is not a weapon to be deployed at will, especially not as an instrument of political vengeance. The Constitution is clear. The courts have been consistent. The Chief Judge has spoken. And it should be embarrassing to the law makers that three attempts have being made in impeaching Fubara, and three failures have being recorded.

Until something fundamentally changes, legally, not theatrically, this story will keep ending the same way. And so, the biblical words still apply: “How can I curse whom God has not cursed?”

As long as the law stands, as long as the courts remain firm, and as long as divine providence, or simple constitutional order, continues to shield him, Fubara remains politically unkillable.

The lawmakers should sheath their swords. Rivers State deserves governance, not endless warfare.