President Bola Tinubu has declared a state of emergency in Rivers State, citing the prolonged political crisis in the region.
In his nationwide broadcast announcing the decision, Tinubu stated, “No good and responsible President will standby and allow the grave situation to continue without taking remedial steps prescribed by the Constitution to address the situation in the state.”
The president noted that previous efforts to restore peace had been unsuccessful due to the actions of those involved in the crisis. He added that the situation required extraordinary measures to ensure stability, security, and effective governance.
Tinubu’s declaration makes him the third Nigerian president to invoke Section 305 of the Constitution since the country returned to democracy in 1999. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo had taken similar actions in Plateau (2004) and Ekiti (2006), while ex-President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in Adamawa, Yobe, and Borno during the height of insurgency in 2013.
However, Tinubu’s current stance contrasts sharply with his past position. When Jonathan declared a state of emergency in three northern states in 2013, Tinubu—then the National Leader of the now-defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN)—strongly criticized the decision, describing it as a “dangerous trend in the art of governance.”
At the time, Tinubu argued that the move had political motivations rather than a genuine concern for national security. He had stated, “The body language of the Jonathan administration leads any keen watcher of events with 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. Borno and Yobe states have been literally under armies of occupation with the attendant excruciating hardship experienced daily by the indigenes and residents of these areas. This government now wants to use the excuse of the security challenges faced by the Governors to remove them from the states considered hostile to the 2015 PDP/Jonathan project.
Tinubu had warned that the administration will be setting in motion a chain of events, the end of which, nobody can predict, as experience has shown that actions, such as this one under consideration, often give root to radical ideologies and extremist tendencies, a direct opposite of the intended outcome of unwarranted and unintelligent meddlesomeness.
“The present scenario playing out in the country reminds one of the classical cases of a mediocre craftsman who continually blames the tools of his trade for his serial failure but refuses to look at his pitiable state with a view to adjusting,” he said.
“It has become crystal clear, even to the most incurable optimist, that the country is adrift. That the ship of the Nigerian state is rudderless is clearly evident in the consistent and continual attacks ferociously executed by elements often referred to as the insurgents in some northern states of the federation, particularly Borno and Yobe states respectively. Indeed, no part of the country is immune from the virulent but easy attacks, veritable indices of a failing state. No Governor of a state in Nigeria is indeed the Chief Security Officer. Putting the blame on the Governors, who have been effectively emasculated, for the abysmal performance of the government at the centre which controls all these security agencies, smacks of ignorance and mischief.”
“This Government, through acts of omission and commission, has fallen far short of expectation. It actively encourages schisms and all manner of divisive tendencies for parochial expediency. Ethnicity and religion become handy weapons of domination. Things have never been this bad.”
He had said it was evident from the grim experiences in recent times that the Jonathan government had failed, or did not know that it is necessary for it to avail itself of the benefits accruable from exchange of ideas and notes on the latest in terms of technology and human resources among nations of the modern world.
Tinubu opined that the massacres of local communities by unknown elements will further alienate the people who should, ordinarily, partner with the government in securing their immediate environments.
“The President’s pronouncement, which seeks to abridge or has the potential of totally scuttling the constitutional functions of Governors and other elected representatives of the people, will be counterproductive in the long run. A State of Emergency already exists in the states where JTF operates. Residents of these communities live in constant fear. Their rights are violated with impunity under the guise of searching for terrorists in their respective domains.”
“It is a potentially a destructive path to take. If security of a society is about the protection of lives and property of the citizenry, the involvement of the people is a sine qua non to effective intelligence gathering. Any measures put in place which alienate the people, in particular their elected representatives, should be considered as fundamentally defective by every right thinking person in the country,” the statement added.
