The tendentiousness of the emergency rule declared in Rivers State last Tuesday by President Bola Tinubu speaks so loudly in the wide obloquy that trailed it. Understandably, the ruling party, All Progressives Congress(APC, and the Attorney- General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN),are among the very few Nigerians who have stoutly defended the President over the declaration. But the knocks and outrage from most others over the President’s actions have been massive and overwhelming.
First, if the declaration could be excused as a pre-emptive presidential measure to safeguard the nation’s oil assets in view of the two explosions that presaged the President’s move, suspending elected authorities— Governor Siminalayi Fubara; his deputy, Mrs Ngozi Odu, and members of the state House of Assembly, and appointing a Sole Administrator, a former Chief of Air Staff, Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ekwe Ibas—is an overkill. It amounts to killing a fly with a sledgehammer.
President Tinubu relied on Section 305 of the 1999 Constitution(as amended), which truly empowers the President to foist an emergency rule on any part of the federation. But the provisions of this section are somewhat nebulous and do not say categorically that he(President) can sack or suspend elected officials of any state or part of the federation affected.
Section 305(3) succinctly and in clear terms spells out conditions that must exist before a proclamation of state of emergency can be made by the President. According to this subsection, the President can declare an emergency rule based on the following conditions:
(a)When the federation is at war.
(b)The federation is in imminent danger of invasion or involvement in a state of war.
(c)There is actual breakdown of public order and public safety in the federation or any part thereof to such extent as to require extraordinary measures to restore peace and
security.
(d) There is a clear and present danger of an actual breakdown of public order and public safety in the federation or any part thereof requiring extraordinary measures to avert such danger.
(e) There is an occurrence or imminent danger, or the occurrence of any disaster or natural calamity, affecting the community or a section of the community in the federation.
(f) There is any other public danger, which clearly constitutes a threat to the existence of the federation or
(g) The President receives a request to do so in accordance with the provisions of subsection(4) of this section.
By virtue of Section 188 of the same Constitution, only the House of Assembly can remove the governor and/or deputy through a well-laid down impeachment procedure.
Second, President Tinubu exhibited a glaring bias in heaping all the blame for his imperial intervention on Fubara. Agreed, the governor himself had indulged in some quite infantile fancies and impetuously lent himself to suspicion that he might have, overtly or covertly, had a hand in the pipeline explosions that presaged the President’s pre-emotive move.
About two weeks to those explosions by militants, Fubara, openly and on record, made some impolitic utterances unbecoming of a governor. While commissioning some Government House Staff Quarters in Port-Harcourt on Monday, March 3, 2025, Fubara said, among others: “In as much as I don’t subscribe to violence, when the time comes for us to take a decision, I will lead the cause for that decision.
“Let me say it again, I am not scared of anything. The worst that will happen is for me to leave the office. Am I leaving the earth? Is it going to stop me from existing? … So, let me thank everyone, more especially our youths. Be strong, don’t be perturbed, be strong, I assure you at the right time, you will get instructions”!
About two weeks after, precisely between last Monday and Tuesday, two pipelines were blown up allegedly by militants. The same Tuesday, President Tinubu imposed emergency rule on the state. Any connection between the governor’s utterances and the presidential move?
From all indications, the Federal Government suspected a link between the two or a possible acquiescence by the governor. The President alluded to the incident in the text of his address declaring state of emergency thus: “The latest security reports made available to me show that between yesterday and today(March 17 and 18), there have been disturbing incidents of vandalization of pipelines by some militants without the governor taking any action to curtail them. I have, of course, given stern order to the security agencies to ensure safety of lives of the good people of Rivers State and the oil pipelines.”
Likewise, the AGF reiterated this position in response to a question put to him on the Rivers crisis by the State House correspondents: “There was what I will call telegraphing of the militants by the governor. And I said so when he told them that, oh, he will let them know when it was time to act, to the militants. Let us say it was wrong. Did he come out to disown them? The answer is no. And a week after, they swung into action; you see or witness the vandalisation of oil pipelines”.
Again, Fubara had, in an unnecessary impulsion, demolished the House of Assembly complex after it was razed by unknown persons and made no move to rebuild it. This conveniently paralysed a leg of the tripod that holds governance.
Then, acting on a ludicrous court ruling giving judicial backing to a four-man faction of the state Assembly, in a 31-member strong legislature, which is a judicial travesty on its own, the governor almost completely emasculated the legislative arm of government by moving the legislative business to the Government House.
He quickly presented the 2025 budget to the four-man Assembly loyal to him and signed the risible Appropriation Bill into law the same day. Of course, this charade adequately featured in the February 28,2025 judgment of the Supreme Court.
The apex court had observed, among others, that “a government cannot be said to exist without one of the three arms that make up the government of a state under the 1999 Constitution as amended. In this case, the head of the executive arm of the government has chosen to collapse the legislature to enable him to govern without the legislature as a despot. As it is, there is no government in Rivers State.”
However, it takes two to tango. Fubara could not, by any stretch of imaginations, have been solely responsible for the crisis in the state. It is public knowledge that the shadowy hand pulling the lever of the crisis from the other end is no other than that of the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory(FCT), Nyesome Wike. He is the one manipulating the other faction, the 27 members of the state Assembly loyal to him.
One of the orders of the apex court was for the governor to immediately represent the 2025 budget estimates to the whole House for fresh and proper appropriation. However, in a glaring irrevence to the order of the apex court, the Wike faction of the Assembly now in charge, with the backing of their mentor (Wike), locked out the governor and frustrated all his efforts to represent the budget before them.
Then curiously enough, the governor’s contrived inability to obey that order became one of the impeachable breaches subsequently served on him as “gross misconduct”! This glaring malfeasance was glossed over by President Tinubu while declaring emergency rule in the state. The same Wike had been gallivanting all around and waxing loquacious, pouring vitriols on Fubara and any other person(s) that may catch his fancy along the line of the lingering crisis.
Head or tail, the FCT minister is one of the protagonists of the Rivers crisis. He had, to that extent, been a party to every move by stakeholders to resolve the crisis, including the two interventions by Tinubu himself. Yet, the President spared him arcebic presidential reprimands and instead heaped everything on Fubara. This is unfair. The President should not give the impression that Wike is above the law or that the political expediency over which he(Tinubu) appears to be dotting on him is more important than the national interest at stake should this crisis fester further.
Now, could the purpose of the emergency rule— which is to restore peace and stave off breakdown of law and order, especially the safeguard of the nation’s oil assets in Rivers State against the threats of the militants— still have been achieved without suspending the governor and the other elected officials?
We think so. And there is a precedent. In May, 2013 when then President Goodluck Jonathan had cause to foist an emergency rule on three northern states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa where the murderous activities of Boko Haram insurgents, who were already taking territories, were going out of hand, he spared the governors of the three states and even the chairmen of the local governments directly affected by the security maelstrom.
The then Attorney-General of the Federation, Mohammed Bello Adoke, who advised President Jonathan against removing the governors, revealed in his memoir, ‘Burden of Service: The Reminiscences of Nigeria’s Former Attorney-General,’ that it is illegal to remove the governors or any elected official during an emergency rule because the Constitution does not provide for it.
We believe that, in spite of Fubara’s incautious utterances, which must have impelled the President’s swooping actions, the emergency rule could still have afforded the military to successfully restore order with the deployment of adequate number of troops without necessarily tampering with elected authorities, just like the Jonathan administration did in 2013.
But President Tinubu, instead of borrowing the soft option from former President Jonathan, toed the hardline of ex-President Obasanjo, who, in 2004 and 2006 imposed emergency rules on Plateau and Ekiti States and ousted the governors, Joshua Dariye and Ayo Fayose respectively. He also appointed sole administrators for the two states — Major-Gen. Chris Alli for Plateau and Major-Gen. Adetunji Oluranti for Ekiti. The two instances had elicited caustic nationwide condemnations.
Ironically, Tinubu, as a key opposition figure in 2013, had pilloried Jonathan over the emergency rule he imposed on the three northern states, even when he spared the elected officials.
Describing the action as a dangerous assault on democracy and a ploy to rig the 2015 election, Tinubu had attacked the Jonathan administration then thus: “The body language of the Jonathan administration leads any keen watcher of events to the unmistakable conclusion of the existence of a surreptitious but barely disguised intention to muzzle the elected governments of these states for what is clearly a display of unpardonable mediocrity and diabolic partisanship geared towards 2015.”
Be that as it may, the drafters of the Constitution had envisaged that the President, being human, can misinterpret any section of the national laws and/or act ‘ultra vires’ (beyond his constitutional powers) at any time. That is why the National Assembly, the legislative arm, is so constituted to act as a check and balance on the presidential powers to guard against possible abuse.
It is, however, most lugubrious that the federal legislature fell short of expectations in this instance. There had been heightened expectations that the federal lawmakers would confirm the emergency rule but reject the removal of elected authorities. But the two chambers of the federal legislature expeditiously ratified the President’s actions wholesale!
There are speculations that the palms of the lawmakers might have been greased with some $10,000 to $15,000 each to secure their acquiescence, an allegation which the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, vehemently denied. No matter the case, however, the ease with which the presidential actions sailed through at both federal legislative chambers is indicative of the fear that the National Assembly is possibly emerging as an executive rubber-stamp.
This is quite unhealthy for our democracy because it could easily imperil the system by breeding a despotic President with a leeway to exercise absolute powers! The National Assembly, should, in the interest of our yet nascent democracy, guard against that extreme.
Of course, there is no use crying over spilled milk. Let the federal legislature stymie any attempt by the President to extend the suspension of the governor and others. They should be recalled as soon as peace is completely restored. The Sole Administrator, Vice Admiral Ibas, is a highly experienced military brass hat and appears to have started well.
However, in the final analysis, if the President is actually desirous of achieving lasting peace in Rivers, he should use his verse presidential powers to clip the oversized wings of his political ally, the FCT minister. The rest, as they say, will take a cue and align accordingly.
