President Tinubu declared a state of emergency in Rivers State due to the prolonged political crisis, stating that he could not allow the situation to continue without constitutional intervention.
He claimed previous attempts to restore peace had failed, necessitating extraordinary measures.
Tinubu is the third president since 1999 to invoke Section 305 of the Constitution.
Former President Obasanjo used it twice, and former President Jonathan used it during the insurgency in 2013.
Ironically, Tinubu, as a former opposition leader, had previously criticized President Jonathan’s use of emergency powers, claiming it had political motivations.
“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 previously cautioned that such actions would initiate unpredictable consequences, potentially fostering radical ideologies and extremism, which would contradict the intended outcome of unwarranted interference.
“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.”
Tinubu had argued that the Jonathan government’s failures indicated a lack of understanding regarding the importance of international collaboration for technological and human resource advancements.
He also believed that the massacres of local communities would further isolate the people, hindering their potential partnership with the government in securing their 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.
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