By CALEB FUBARA

“There was no rioting of any sort and there was no general disturbance of the peace anywhere in the Region. The necessity to declare a state of emergency had existed only in the imagination of those who wanted it for their own political end”—Adewale Ademoyoga, *Why We Struck.

Nigeria and her rulers are no strangers to sarcasms; criticisms that speak to the corruption and ineptitude of a nation and her leadership. Reproachful and damning as they may be, these darts, no doubt, mirror the way and manner Nigerian leaders have conducted the affairs of the nation; sometimes carrying themselves as tyranny personified.  

It was Chief Gani Fawehinmi of blessed memory who once described General Ibrahim Babangida, then Nigeria’s head of state, as an evil genius. Oddly, the General would later admit to being tickled by Fawehinmi’s coinage. In the same way, former British Prime Minister, David Cameron once described Nigeria as a fantastically corrupt nation. Just as Babangida conceded to being an “evil genius”, so would anyone who is truly conversant with the Nigeria narrative- her political and economic trajectory, agree with the former Prime Minister that Nigeria is indeed fantastically corrupt.  

In the countdown to the 2023 presidential election, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu was unequivocal in foretelling his emergence as successor to the late General Muhammadu Buhari. However, because we pretend to live in a great nation of good people, we glossed over his “emilokan” declaration. Instead, we plunged into an election that would be decided by a computer glitch; a glitch that has since brought Jagaban’s audacity to fruition.  

Tinubu was still gunning for the APC’s presidential ticket when he told his Abeokuta audience that it was his turn to rule Nigeria. Again, we failed in our interrogation of Tinubu’s boast; swallowing his bait as he kept missing his steps and selling us word salad like “PD-APC”. Whatever the excuses were, our current reality obviously speaks to the peril of glossing over such high wired pranks when it mattered.

Tinubu truly deserve some acclaim to have prevailed in the face of all the pre-election trials, fumbling and jest. He must be a genius to have emerged winner of Prof. Mahmood Yakubu’s glitch-tech-election.      

Like the one before him, President Tinubu shares a thing or two with IBB- the “Maradona”- who deployed every conceivable trick to remain in power. Unfortunately for Rivers State and her governor, it was in Tinubu that Wike found an ally in his desperation to hold on to the reins of power in the state. And by reason of shared interest, they descended real hard on the governor and the good people of Rivers State. In other words, would a democratically elected governor, one with the people’s mandate be thrown out of office at the pleasure of Mr. President? It is indeed baffling how the governor and his courtiers did not see it coming- that broadcast that technically and temporarily annulled the March 25, 2023 Gubernatorial and state Assembly elections held in Rivers State. An annulment the president codenamed state of emergency, which he decreed must last for six whole months; thereby, yanking off half a year from the tenure of an elected government.

Of course, Mr. President has ‘graciously’ lifted his fiat, after six months of a well-orchestrated occupation and assault on the people’s psyche. However, as the state now grapples with the aftermath of an emergency rule, the fragmentation of her political and economic space, one is constrained to hazard the politics and motive behind an emergency rule in a state that was running on a clean bill of security health.  

An effort in this regard would reveal that the deliberate and brutal traumatisation of a federating unit was essentially to pave the way for a Tinubu/APC capture of the South-South geo political zone. And in pursuit of the above, Mr. President, a supposed democrat, exercised no restraint in jettisoning the rule of law for the rule of might. He also didn’t pretend it was a tactical blunder.  

I’m still bemused as to how the country’s Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, with all the laurels, failed to, at least, whisper the illegality of Mr. President’s action to his boss. As for Vice President Kashim Shettima, his hypocrisy was rather baffling. What man would smugly recall Mohammed Adoke’s patriotic advice to former President Goodluck Jonathan; an appointee who prevailed on his boss not to undermine the Constitution of the federal republic, but lacked the balls to point out same illegality, and the danger it portends for our democracy to the man he shares ticket with?

The president might not have heard from those around him because they chose to play the ostrich to continue in the corridors of power. How about a thousand Nigerian voices that cried blue murder? How about Professor Wole Soyinka’s encapsulation that his action was ultra vires? Had the president’s mind not set on achieving a set a goal, could he not have backtracked on the travesty given the public outcry that trailed his declaration? But no, the aberration had a timeline and must endure for six months. As far as Rivers people are concerned, the annulment was lifted only because an end has been achieved and Gov. Fubara and his colleagues in the South-South frightened out.  

As former governor of Lagos State, President Tinubu need no schooling in the unconstitutionality of his action. Yet he was deliberate in applying the sledgehammer the moment he saw a window. He knew more than anyone else that there was no basis for the declaration of a state of emergency in a state that was absent of any form of security threat. 

But he shot down democracy in Rivers State for his own expediency. brought to his knees. He must now share the power of his with Minister Ezebunwo Nyesom Wike, all at Mr. President’s pleasure. The point being made is that Mr. President overreached himself for no one, but himself.

Whereas there is hardly enough blame for Minister Wike, the man who has since arrogated the ownership of Rivers State to himself, the man who instigated the siege ab inito, it is inescapable that Mr. President had it all figured out before Wike approached him fuming and cursing. Regrettably, beyond being naïve, Gov. Fubara, who would give the world to preside over a peaceful state, responded to the offensive like a man bestriding the fence, taking up the gauntlet half-heartedly. As to be expected, Rivers State and her people are the ones now bearing the brunt of a ruthless political scheme.

The South-South geopolitical zone, once the PDP’s stronghold is now an APC neighbourhood, no thanks to the Rivers invasion. As a seasoned politician, the strategic place of Rivers State in both regional and national politics cannot be lost on President Tinubu. He knew the cataclysmic effect, clamping down on the treasure base would exact on the South-South region. And for a maverick whose focus is on 2027, no wager was too much to try out. Already, the gale of defections that has since hit the region speaks to the president’s masterstroke. The APC now hoist her flag across the South-South, not by reason of electoral victory, but by the subtle coercion occasioned by the Rivers offensive. What a means to an end?  

President allowed ego to overwhelm his sense of statesmanship by deploying a state of emergency in Rivers State to get even with Dr. Peter Odili. Odili had in a moment of euphoria boasted that Nigeria is bound to catch cold should Rivers State sneeze. Like Babangida, Tinubu, isn’t the man to let such averment go unanswered. Odili seemed to have forgotten all too soon, that as contemporaries, there was no love lost between him and the man who presently sits as Nigeria’s president. He was Obasanjo’s right hand man when Tinubu was given the short end of the stick. So what could have passed as a harmless political expression attracted dire consequence (federal might). In fact, Gov. Fubara, had to swallow the bitter pill as a lesson in ‘political insubordination’. It had become apparent that dwelling under Odili’s shadow emboldened him to cherry pick what clause to implement from the document that was handed to him at the Villa on December 11, 2023.       

Yet in all of this, had the Supreme Court not demobilised the governor, maybe, just maybe, the president would have been restrained. Because, until that judicial pronouncement that happened barely a week after Pa Clark’s passing, neither the President nor Wike assailed Gov. Fubara. To all intents and purposes, the apex court’s verdict of February 28, 2025, not only whetted the ground, but provided the plank on which the offensive rested. It was a vexing verdict that has since afflicted the court with trust deficit, erosion of integrity, and placing quantum doubt on the independence of the Nigerian judiciary. For a court that had hitherto foot-dragged on deciding Rivers cases, her sudden jolt in addressing the issues, albeit omnibus, short after Pa Clark’s passing smacks of an ambush of a statesman in death. Wike in his characteristic loquacity raised the bar of suspicion. He literally preempted that sweeping verdict long before it was handed down. Frankly, the sequence of events between February 17 and March 18, 2025 were reminiscent of   the events of 1962, as captured in the opening quote.  

There was no riot of any kind, no disturbance of any sort, no threat of external aggression, yet the Constitution was suspended in Rivers State.

I didn’t envisage it would get this appalling when I submitted that it would require President Tinubu’s honour, not might to justly resolve the Rivers political crisis. I had written and pleaded with Mr. President in an open letter dated March 25, 2024 to kindly revisit his peace pact of December 11, 2023. I had insisted that clauses 6 and 8 of that document clearly put the governor in a catch 22 situation. And unless the document is revisited in the spirit of fairness and equity, sustainable peace will continue to elude the state. I did entreat that the blood of Dr. Marshall Harry, Chief A.K Dikkibo, Monday Ngbor, Chief Ignatius Ajuru, Charles Nsiegbe, Ken Aswuete and many others, murdered in cold blood to settle political scores in Rivers State be allowed to atone for the living. Again, the state is made a scapegoat of vaulting ambitions.

Nigerians are at liberty to gloat over, or weep for Rivers State. But they   must look beyond what has befallen the state. After all, she has accepted her fate as typified by her governor under a Federal Government. Let’s say the governor went to war with his enemy’s playbook, and was overwhelmed by federal might. He was therefore asked to step aside while his constitutional duties were transferred to an appointee with military credentials, all in a ‘fantastically corrupt’ democratic space.  

An ‘election’ that saw Wike’s cronies in the PDP selected as APC members into 20 of the 23 Local Councils in the state was conducted, and the men hurriedly sworn into office. Rivers people might not get know to how Rtd Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas handled their resources in an emergency that shouldn’t have been in the first instance. But it seems reinstating their governor was all that mattered. Therefore, let the Rivers experience serve as a wake-up call to all Nigerians that our democracy is fast switching place with ‘Presitucracy’ occasioned by a desperate presidency.  

Nigerians must know that the hijack and temporal incapacitation of Rivers State was only but a pilot scheme. The president and his handlers may have succeeded in brainwashing the people to think him altruistic in his involvement in the Rivers crisis. But pretending that the president didn’t aid Wike to hold the higher ground against Gov. Fubara and the people, or that a sword of Damocles still hangs over the governor’s head smacks of ostrichism. Truth is, twice did the president wade into the Rivers crisis, and twice did he fail to resolve the crisis as a statesman; let alone, the father, the governor helplessly calls him.    

Therefore, beyond bemoaning the Rivers fate, Nigerians should brace up as 2027 beckons. Because our democracy is being emasculated, just as our president slides into a dictator. And I daresay Nigeria risk another third term gambit come 2031 if we continue to pretend.

*Fubara, a public affairs analyst, wrote from Rivers State