Rivers State Emergency Rule: A Different View

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s proclamation of emergency rule in Rivers State on Tuesday surprised me for reasons different from those for which he has been severely criticised.

The mildest criticism is that Tinubu’s failure to call the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, to order was responsible for the crisis. The more severe criticisms range from accusations that the president has subverted constitutional rule to charges of potential destabilisation at the behest of Wike.

A common point of agreement is that a civilian president should never have to declare emergency rule. That is the ideal. But Rivers State before Tuesday presented a dire and complicated situation that stretched idealism to its elastic limits.

Chaos in slow motion

It’s convenient, especially for those who promoted and profited from the crisis, to pretend otherwise. Still, after the 27 state lawmakers loyal to Wike issued an impeachment notice, the outcome, if Governor Siminalayi Fubara had been impeached, might have been far worse for the state than can be contemplated under emergency rule. The proclamation was an unsolicited stitch in time.

If oil pipelines were already being blown up and militants deploying as the impeachment notice reached Fubara, what would have happened if the process had carried through? Rivers State has been chaos in slow motion for nearly two years, the only thriving business in the state being the politics of those who support Fubara and those who are against Wike.

The Supreme Court’s judgement invalidated the budget passed by Fubara and nullified the local government election. It affirmed the position of the 27 lawmakers, making Fubara’s government a lame duck. Emergency rule saved the governor from gunpoint, created a pause for the people to get their lives back, and made room for Wike and Fubara to stop and reflect. It’s a messy situation, but the counterfactual could have been worse.

Between Wike and Fubara

Popular media has framed Fubara as the victim of a grasping, unforgiving godfather, which suits his comportment. But during this inconvenient pause, it might be helpful for the governor to reflect on what he might have done differently, something that pressure by those egging him on for their narrow, selfish reasons might not have given him the space to do.

In the public imagination, control of the state’s “political structure” is at the heart of the dispute between Fubara and Wike. Whether that is so, whether it’s about who the “authentic” party leader is, or it is more than what the public knows, Fubara and Wike know. We can only guess. But they both know.

Open war

The open war started after Fubara’s swearing-in when the governor wanted to install his candidate as speaker in the House of Assembly but failed. What was the point of demolishing the State House of Assembly complex built for hundreds of millions of naira with taxpayers’ money in December 2023 simply on the suspicion that the lawmakers were planning to impeach him there? Why did the governor think it was right to convene four of 31 lawmakers in his office to present the appropriation bill and then go on to implement it?

And why, after the peace deal brokered in Abuja, was it difficult for him to be his own man, free himself as the hostage of opportunistic local politicians and self-appointed opinion leaders and implement the decisions reached instead of caving into busybodies in the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) whose primary interest is to continue the unfinished war of the 2022 Convention by other means?

Atiku No 2.

The PDP leadership and their cousins in Labour have never forgiven Wike for supporting Tinubu’s election. They have been quite loud in condemning the state of emergency. That’s their job as opposition. However, if the PDP is letting its testosterone rush get into its head and impair memory, we may need to remind the party how we got here.

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has been quite vocal in condemning emergency rule in Rivers State. In his earnestness, he has forgotten that the government in which he was the Number Two man had a shambolic record of infidelity to constitutional rule. And that is saying it nicely.

One can argue that President Olusegun Obasanjo’s proclamation of emergency rule in Plateau State in 2004, though controversial, was inevitable because of the horrific deaths caused by the sectarian violence, which led to reprisals in other states. Yet, former Governor Joshua Dariye’s suspected links to the crisis made his suspension inevitable.

Bayelsa playbook

Atiku could not have forgotten that when his boss did it again in Ekiti State two years later, it was mainly to facilitate Obasanjo’s hijack of the state for his political convenience after lawmakers claimed to have impeached the governor. Fayose had become a thorn in his side, and he vowed to remove him by all means, fair and foul.

Atiku may argue that he had been estranged from the government then and could not bear vicarious liability. However, he remained a part of the government until the end and must endure its glory and shame.

Or perhaps he would have preferred the impeachment of Fubara from Obasanjo’s Bayelsa playbook? In that case, instead of an emergency rule, Tinubu would have provided a haven where the majority 27 lawmakers would have met under heavy security protection to remove the governor, as Obasanjo did under slightly different circumstances, in the case of former Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha.

Amaechi’s forgotten diary

Former Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi, a longstanding foe of Wike, also weighed in, condemning the “power grab’s illegality.” He has a right to intervene and speak his mind. However, since he called the proclamation “an affront” to the rule of law and a power grab, it might be helpful to remind him of a typical, but by no means isolated, example from his record as governor.

In 2013, when the position of chief judge in Rivers State was vacant, Amaechi appointed and swore in the President of the Customary Court of Appeal, Justice Peter Agumagu, against decency and the provisions of law. He joined issues with the National Judicial Commission (NJC), which was at its wit’s end to restrain him and keep him on the path of common sense. The state judiciary reeled under Amaechi’s blatant affront for one year, something he now conveniently forgets.

Apples and oranges

Parallels have been drawn between the state of emergency in Rivers State and the one in 1962 during the Western Region crisis, especially as the latter was believed to have led the country down the slippery slope that eventually ended in the removal of the Tafawa Balewa government and the Civil War.

The underlying currents may be similar – local politics gone rogue – but the consequences or potential consequences are not. Constitutional lawyers can debate the legal triggers because of the lack of clarity in Section 305 of the 1999 Constitution, compared with the 1960 Constitution, a pre-Republican document that gave the prime minister more expansive powers.

While the emergency rule in the Western Region was mainly an opportunistic intervention by the federal government to undermine the Obafemi Awolowo-led opposition, the emergency in Rivers State was an inevitable step to prevent a potential descent into chaos, where the governor was not an innocent bystander.

Water in the coconut

Since 1999, two administrations – Muhammadu Buhari’s and Umaru Yar’Adua’s being the only exceptions – have proclaimed emergency rule. Apart from 2013, when President Goodluck Jonathan left the governors of the three affected states in place because they had no link to the crises in their states, complicity has affected the scope of the application of emergency rule.

When Obasanjo threatened an emergency in Lagos, Tinubu said it was unacceptable because he was doing his best as governor to tackle the sectarian clashes in a small part of the state then. In Rivers, the governor is a part of the problem.

Those opposed to the proclamation should say how to leave Fubara in place and extract the water of peace from the coconut of Rivers State without breaking the shell on the head of the people.