A lot has been said about President Bola Tinubu’s imposition of a state of emergency on Rivers State and the suspension of Governor Siminalayi Fubara and the state’s lawmakers for an initial period of six months. Some have said that the President took the right decision. Many said that the declaration of state of emergency in the state was hasty. Others believe that the President acted unconstitutionally by suspending the elected officials of the state. Yet others said that the action was an affront and indeed a threat to democracy.
No matter what people think, it must be agreed that President Tinubu or whoever is an elected President of Nigeria at any given time has the power to proclaim a state of emergency in any part of the country or in the whole federation. Section 305(1) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) provides that the President can proclaim a state of emergency in any part of the country or in the entire federation, by an instrument published in the Official Gazette, and that this must be approved by the National Assembly within a specified number of days. However, this section defined the conditions upon which this could be done.
In Section 305(3), the constitution provides that the President may only declare a state of emergency in a state if:
“(a) The governor of the state, with a resolution supported by two-thirds majority of the House of Assembly, requests the President to do so; or
(b) There is actual breakdown of public order and public safety requiring extraordinary measures; or
(c) There is a clear and present danger of an actual breakdown of public order and public safety in the Federation or any part thereof; or
(d) There is an occurrence or imminent danger of invasion, war, or insurrection; or
(e) There is a natural disaster or public health emergency; or
(f) There is any other danger threatening the existence of the Federation.”
In the Rivers State situation, Governor Fubara never asked President Tinubu to declare a state of emergency. The House of Assembly never passed a resolution asking the governor to demand a declaration of a state of emergency. However, although there were fears that there may be a breakdown of public order and public safety in Rivers State owing to the political crisis in the state, this was presumptuous. Twenty-seven state lawmakers who had initially declared that they had defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC), but later cowardly denied ever doing so, were having a running battle with the state governor, with emotion running high. With the accusation of misconduct against the governor and his deputy as well as militants threatening to wreak havoc if the governor was removed from office by the lawmakers, it seemed that there was danger of breakdown in law and order in Rivers State. These were all assumptions, a circumstantial evidence.
It is obvious that President Tinubu hid under such well-orchestrated plots to act like a despot in a democracy. Yes, inasmuch as President Tinubu could declare a state of emergency in Rivers State, he has no constitutional power to set aside an elected governor and/or lawmakers, as there is no part of the Constitution that gives him such authority. Therefore, President Tinubu overreached himself, acted unconstitutionally and has actually contradicted himself based on past positions on state of emergency.
President Tinubu could declare a state of emergency in Rivers State and still leave the democratic structures in place, while sincerely wading into the political crisis, with a view to resolving it. The question that President Tinubu must answer is this: Were he declaring a state of emergency in the whole federation, as provided for in the Constitution, at a time of insecurity or war, would President Tinubu set himself aside from office for the period that the extraordinary action and measures put in place to resolve the matter lasts? Would President Tinubu hand over to a retired military officer to take charge in the emergency period? Certainly, President Tinubu would not step aside in any federal state of emergency. He would remain in office during the period and work with those who would execute the extraordinary measures. Why then did he act the way he did?
What has played out in Rivers is that President Tinubu acted like a biased umpire. He took sides in the Rivers State political crisis and needed to give Governor Fubara a bad name in order to hang him. Granted that Fubara shares in the blame, as he talked too much and led from his heart rather than from his head, a sincere umpire would have remained neutral, read the riot act to the parties involved in the political crisis and followed up with sincere mediation. Unfortunately, what Nigerians have seen is a President who blames the governor for everything that went wrong, including accusing him of inability to take action on a security issue.
President Tinubu had said in the broadcast: “The latest security reports made available to me show that between yesterday (Monday, March 17, 2025) and today (Tuesday, March 18, 2025) there have been disturbing incidents of vandalisation 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.” Haba, Mr. President! How could President Tinubu accuse Governor Fubara of doing nothing to secure pipelines, for instance, when the governor had no security instrumentality to so do? It is the responsibility of the Federal Government, which controls the military and the police, to secure pipelines. Therefore, ordering security agencies to ensure safety of life and the pipelines is the duty of President Tinubu.
It is worrisome that President Tinubu does not practice what he preaches. The President has shown a penchant for changing positions on matters when he is at the receiving end. Just as he shifted position on protests against the federal government because he is now in the saddle, as against supporting it when he was in the opposition, he has imposed emergency rule on Rivers State and suspended democratic structures when he earlier opposed these measures. For the avoidance of doubt, President Tinubu, in 2005, as governor of Lagos State, boasted that his government would do everything to defend its territorial integrity and sovereignty if there was an attempt to impose a state of emergency on the state. Also in 2013, President Tinubu opposed the imposition of a state of emergency on Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states by then President Goodluck Jonathan. He had pointedly said: “The body language of the Jonathan administration leads any keen watchers of events with unmistakable conclusion of the existence of a surreptitious but barely disguised intention to muzzle the elected government of these states for what is clearly a display of unpardonable mediocrity and diabolic partisanship geared towards 2015.”
President Tinubu, who has imposed a state of emergency on Rivers State and sacked the governor and the state lawmakers, is the same man who, years ago, consistently opposed such action, even when the then President of Nigeria did not suspend the democratic structures in place. How chameleonic could a man be!
The National Assembly, which has the power to act as a check on the President’s unconstitutional behaviour but chose to support it by approving the imposition of emergency rule on Rivers State and the sacking of an elected governor, should know that when a snake loses its venom, little children would use it to tie firewood. The National Assembly has supported anti-democratic action and, therefore, failed in its duties.
The National Assembly should know that when an elected governor is removed from office during a state of emergency, it erodes trust in the democratic process, creates uncertainty and paves the way for political advantage and undue consolidation of power by a tendency working for one-party state. Constitutional provisions must be respected. Governors should only be removed from office by the House of Assembly through impeachment. We can only protect democracy and ensure stability and security for Nigerians through transparency and respect for the rule of law.