An Impostor and Wife of Stranger Cannot Address Us, Say Rivers Women

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In their sustained resistance to the foisting of a state of emergency on Rivers State, some women in the state on Thursday demonstrated their resolve not to compromise their position by walking out on the wife of the sole administrator, Theresa Ibas, who had come to represent the First Lady, Mrs. Oluremi Tinubu at a women’s empowerment programme at the EUI Centre, Port Harcourt.

The event was organised under Mrs. Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Initiative.
Recall that the president had on March 18, 2025, proclaimed emergency rule in Rivers State and suspended Governor Siminalayi Fubara, his deputy, Prof. Ngozi Odu, and all members of the state House of Assembly, citing security concerns and threat to national assets.

He consequently appointed retired Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas as sole administrator.
However, Rivers women, under the aegis of ‘Women For SIM’, had consistently staged what they called ‘Bring Back Our Fubara’ protests in different parts of the state, chanting songs of solidarity and demanding the reinstatement of their governor and his deputy.

It was therefore a most humiliating and embarrassing moment for Mrs. Ibas as the women, in their large numbers, refused to sit and have a perceived “impostor” address them. As she started to speak, their voices of opposition drowned hers, even as they spontaneously staged a walkout amid shouts of ‘We want Sim, We want Sim’.

The enraged women, who demanded that only Valerie Fubara was permitted to address them, sent a clear message that they would not accept the sole administrator’s wife as their first lady.
They insisted that the wife of a stranger cannot address them.

Viral videos on social media showed the women getting up all at once and leaving the venue while one of them exclaimed: “Who is that impostor? Ibas’s wife is addressing Rivers’ women. Who is she? Come on, pack your load, Madam, we don’t want you”.

Another voice said, “We need Mrs. Oluremi Tinubu to come and address us; she is the one we have been waiting for. We don’t need a stranger. We want Sim right now. Sim should come today, not tomorrow”.

The aggrieved women are not happy that President Tinubu chose to side with his minister of the Federal Capital Territory, and immediate past governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, in the disagreement between him and his successor.

A source close to the protesting women told TELL that they were deceived.

According to the source who claimed to have been attending meetings as a member of the planning committee, “we were told our First Lady, Mrs. Oluremi Tinubu will be represented by the wife of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mrs. Fatima Abbas, but to our amazement, Ibas brought his wife to Rivers to address us in a state he said has security challenge. So, it is now safe for his wife to come and act as first lady. We will not accept it.”