IN May 2013, when the shoes were in the other foot, Bola Ahmed Tinubu condemned the declaration of a state of emergency in Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa as a dangerous assault on democracy and a ploy to rig the 2015 election by President Goodluck Jonathan.
“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,” Tinubu said.
The conundrum: what shall we say now that President Tinubu has flagged off his second term re-election campaign barely two years to the end of his first four years in office? Can we now say the President is hatching a plot to rig himself back to power, using Rivers State self-induced crises as a launchpad?
That Tinubu dutifully and fearfully acted out the scripts of Nyesom Wike, his Minister of Federal Capital Territory, to truncate democracy, regardless of his pretentious hogwash of suspending democracy in Rivers on the Supreme Court’s patronizing declaration that “there is no government in Rivers State, has been part of the larger scheme to override the will of the people.
The fact that Tinubu has to pick a known Wike’s ally — Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ekwe Ibas — to replace an elected civilian governor, Sir, Siminalayi Fubara, is an open invitation for military incursion into the nation’s politics by reasserting the military’s misguided belief that they’re better suited to govern Nigeria.
Will it not have been most enlivening to have the President handout suspension also to Wike, his unelected minister for six months to serve as a delicate balance of power, politics, and stability in Rivers State? Because the tragedy of the Rivers’ politics is such that the multi-ethnic state, which holds the largest chunk of the nation’s oil reserves, is already bursting at the seams, where emotions and tensions are building up to the point of explosion. So far, two oil pipelines have reportedly been shut off, one before the state of emergency declaration and the second one after the declaration.
Section 305-308 of the Nigerian 1999 Constitution outlines the procedure for proclaiming a state of emergency in the country. According to this section, the President can issue a proclamation of a state of emergency in the Federation or any part thereof by publishing it in the Official Gazette of the Government of the Federation.
However, the President can only do this under specific circumstances, namely, in a war situation or imminent danger. When the Federation is at war or in imminent danger of invasion or involvement in a state of war. The other time the President can proclaim a state of emergency is when there is a breakdown of public order. The question now is, is there an actual breakdown of public order and public safety in the Federation as a result of the Rivers State political standoff?
Also, the President can declare a state of emergency when there is a natural disaster. When there’s such occurrence or imminent danger of a natural disaster or calamity affecting the community or a section of the community, the President can exercise his constitutional powers as stipulated in Section 305-308. Finally, when a state governor requests it by himself. When the President receives such a request from a Governor to issue a proclamation of a state of emergency in the state, supported by a two-thirds majority of the House of Assembly, it can as well be carried out seamlessly.
Tinubu’s putinization of democracy in Nigeria and the declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers State are absolutely absurd as is the deification of Nyesom Wike’s celebration of anarchy, promotion of militarism, glorification of politics of hegemony, rascality, impunity, might as law, godfatherism, adoration of oligarchy, and the endorsement of barefaced corruption.
The grieving Ijaw ethnic group has engaged President Tinubu in no unmistakable conclusion that Fubara’s removal from office is meant to serve Wike’s overbloated political ego, having pocketed the Nigerian Judiciary and the Presidency. It’s left to be seen how President Tinubu will overcome the self-afflicted political miscalculation of the suspension of democracy as Rivers State boils over.
Erasmus Ikhide contributed this piece via: ikhideluckyerasmus@gmail.com
This is the opinion of the writer and not the view of this platform.
