It has been a week of demonstrated tyrannic onslaught in a long planned out assault against the people of Rivers State, their democratic structures and revered institutions.
We have seen implacable gods of the rivers in mean desperation join forces with political despots, principalities of Aso Rock in a cruel macabre dance that no longer needs the deceptive devices of masks and shadowy gail of veils but the direct tackles and devious viciousness of unprincipled demagogues.
The claws of war, long sharpened for the purpose have had to be fully panged as the pamutation for control of political structures and future of the State towards 2027 need to be firmed up in a predictable direction. In this game of power play in our tough and rugged turf, nothing is allowed to be left to chance.
The polity is therefore boiling unabatedly as raging gods driven by uncouth frenzy of wild and riotous ambitions overheat the arena beyond constitutional regulations and democratic bounds of lawful engagements signaling in the process the ruination of Rivers State in a chain of long rehearsed macabre dance. Many have said the unfolding episodic scenes of Rivers epic political drama tends to validate the position of Pieter Willem Botha, of apartheid South Africa who in 1988 insisted that.”Black people cannot rule themselves because they don’t have the brain and mental capacity to govern a society.
Give them guns, they will kill themselves. Give them power, they will steal all the government money. Give them independence and democracy, they will use it to promote tribalism, ethnicity, bigotry, hatred, killings and wars” As extreme and falaciously jaundiced as those views may have sounded in it’s generalized assumption and conclusive application, it remains a pathetic democratic parody and intriguing paradox of our desired development that 35 years after the statement was made as an affront to the collective destiny of the black race, political leadership across the continent with Nigeria leading the way has tended to be laying credence to his affirmed position.
I have read commentaries on the declaration of state of emergency in Rivers State that depict suspended Siminalayi Fubara as lacking intact and political wisdom in the context of the prevailing realities of our rather vicious and vindictive nature of politics . The commentators said he needed to have taken tutorials from the likes of Fashola, ex governor of Lagos State on how to handle an overbearing political godfather and still retain political relevance. They insist that when he was riding on the back of the tiger to power, he could have factored in the possibility of ending up in the belly of the same tiger. These same commentators have maintained that Nigeria’s democratic evolution has not quite weaned political godsons from the stranglehold of their godfathers.
For as long as the situation remains in that walking the tight rope reality, the whims and caprices of the godfather will always prevail over the earnestly desired good governance by the people. But it doesn’t appear that we have attained that level of civic consideration and responsibility where the expressed will of the people, rather than the diabolical devices of demagogues drive our political process. Wike, no doubt took the godfather phenomenal in Nigerian politics to a fiendish and monstrous new height. He was in control of the State legislative arm of government, remains a life bencher and the de facto head of the country’s Judiciary and a critical part of the Tinubu’s regime. He obviously had boxed Fubara, an elected governor to a corner where he can now give him ‘ peace conditions’ such as to allow him control the local government structures and to write an undertaking not to recontest in 2027. At that point, it had become clear to all that what the godfather helped the godson to secure was a goat kept in Rivers while the rope with which the goat can be controlled remained with the godfather in Abuja. Was democracy ever conceived to be this devious, diabolic, wasteful and destructive? In a twist of puzzling irony, President Tinubu in declaring the state of emergency had told the world that it was about the only option left in what he considered an inevitable move to save democracy.
His words:
With the crisis persisting, there is no way democratic governance, which we have all fought and worked for over the years, can thrive in a way that will redound to the benefit of the good people of the state. The state has been at a standstill since the crisis started, with the good people of the state not being able to have access to the dividends of democracy.
He also reminded Nigerians of the demolition of the House of Assembly of the state as far back as 13th December 2023 , the February 28, 2025, the supreme court judgement to the effect 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.”
Fubara was also linked to the activities of some militants who had threatened and did go ahead to burn down some oil pipelines in the words of the President “without the governor taking any action to curtail them”. The President’s State of emergency declaration speech was laced repeatedly with reference to the good people of Rivers State and I kept wondering if they are that valuable to the President then why allow the will and political gambits of one man to override that of a whole State in such a preposterous display of political banditry. Fact check on the Sole Administrator, Vice Admiral Ibokette Ibas (Rtd) reveals him to be a long standing political acquaintance and confidant of the Abuja based godfather and emperor the impact of whose reign is deeply felt down in the River banks and creeks.
The question that remains to be duly addressed has to do with what extent the 1999 Constitution grants the President the power to remove an elected governor, deputy governor, or members of a state’s legislature under the guise of a state of emergency ?
In this regard, many have held that the Constitution does not empower the President to unilaterally remove or replace elected officials as custodians of the sacred mandate of the people as such actions amount to an unconstitutional usurpation of power and a fundamental breach of Nigeria’s federal structure.
Those who have been quick to point at former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the declaration of the first state of emergency in Plateau State in 2004 over escalating ethno-religious killings should also pause awhile to think in the direction of how our system can evolve beyond aberrations and constitutional absurdities.
No matter how we struggle to build justifications around it, the use of a military officer, serving or retired to replace democratically elected officials is antithetical to our desired growth in democratic path, culture and civil ethos.
Records have it that in May 2013, Tinubu in very clear terms condemned the declaration of a state of emergency in Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa by the Goodluck Jonathan administration as a dangerous assault on democracy and a ploy to rig the 2015 election.
The more tacit fear democrats across the country and beyond are expressing is that President Tinubu forcing and foisting Military rule on Rivers State, under any guise is a gradual invitation to the same institution on the path to thread going forward in Nigeria’s deepening dilemma of political miasma. The signs indeed are ominous.
