Victor EzejaMajor opposition leaders in Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, have condemned the declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers State by President Bola Tinubu.
In a nationwide broadcast on Tuesday night, President Tinubu declared a state of emergency in Rivers State and suspended the state governor, Siminalayi Fubara, his deputy, Ngozi Odu, and all members of the State House of Assembly for an initial period of six months. He equally announced the appointment of Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ekwe Ibas as the administrator of Rivers State.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelThe declaration of a state of emergency in the oil-rich South-South state has elicited widespread reactions.
Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president of Nigeria said the declaration seems like a political manipulation hatched in bad faith.
In a statement on Tuesday night, Atiku said anyone following the trend of the political crisis in Rivers State knows that President Tinubu had been “a vested partisan actor in the political turmoil.”
He accused the president of deliberately refusing to take action to prevent escalation of the crisis.
Atiku further asserted that apart from the political manipulation in Rivers, the security breaches that led to attacks on national assets in the state such as crude oil pipelines is squarely a responsibility of the president.
“Tinubu cannot evade responsibility for the chaos his administration has either enabled or failed to prevent,” Atiku stated.
He expressed concerns that under Tinubu’s watch, “the Niger Delta has been thrown back into an era of violent unrest and instability — undoing the hard-won peace secured by the late President Umaru Yar’Adua. Years of progress have been recklessly erased in pursuit of selfish political calculations.”
“If federal infrastructure in Rivers has been compromised, the President bears full responsibility. Punishing the people of Rivers State just to serve the political gamesmanship between the governor and @officialABAT’s enablers in the federal government is nothing less than an assault on democracy and must be condemned in the strongest terms,” Atiku further stated via his X handle on Tuesday night.
On his part, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 general election, Mr Peter Obi, said Tinubu’s decision to remove Governor Fubara from office “is not only unconstitutional but also reckless.”
He said Tinubu’s action has plunged Nigeria back into a state of lawlessness, significantly reversing the progress made in the last 26 years of the country’s democratic journey.
“The declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers State is not just reckless—it is a clear attempt to return us to a state of nature and tighten its grip on power at all costs. It is a degrading back door imposition of martial rule on a strategic part of the federation with all the implied negatives,” Obi stated.
He said the political situation in Rivers does not justify such an extreme measure, adding that section 305(1) of the 1999 constitution which the president relied on to execute his action, was interpreted in a biased manner.
According to him, “A state of emergency does not mean an elected governor can be removed unilaterally.”
Obi noted that the action does not align with democratic norms or good governance, adding that “it appears to be a predetermined action serving specific interests rather than the collective good of the people of Rivers State and Nigeria.
“This action constitutes an unconstitutional overreach, setting a dangerous precedent that threatens democracy, the rule of law, and the separation of powers. If left unchecked, it could foster a culture of impunity,” Obi warned.
The former Anambra State governor appealed to the National Assembly and all stakeholders not to allow the action to stand, adding that it only deepens the culture of impunity already threatening the country’s democracy.
Victor Ezeja is a passionate journalist with six years of experience writing on economy, politics and energy. He holds a Masters degree in Mass Communication.
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