Nigeria and her rulers are no strangers to sarcasms; criticisms that speak to the corruption and ineptitude of a nation and her leadership. Reproachful and damning as they may be, these darts, no doubt, mirror the way and manner Nigerian leaders have conduct the affairs of the nation; sometimes carrying themselves as tyranny personified.
It was Chief Gani Fawehinmi of blessed memory who once described Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, then Nigeria’s head of state, as an evil genius. Oddly, the General would later admit to being tickled by Fawehinmi’s coinage. In the same way, former British Prime Minister, David Cameron would describe Nigeria as a fantastically corrupt nation. Just as Babangida would concede to being an “evil genius”, so would anyone who is truly conversant with the Nigeria narrative-her political and economic trajectory, agree with the former Prime Minister that Nigeria is indeed fantastically corrupt.
In the countdown to the 2023 presidential election, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu was unequivocal in foretelling his emergence as successor to Late Gen. Muhammadu Buhari. And because we pretend to live in a great nation of good people, we glossed over his “emilokan” declaration. Instead, we plunged into an election that would be decided by a computer glitch; a glitch that has since brought Jagaban’s audacity to fruition.
Tinubu was still gunning for the APC’s presidential ticket when he told his Abeokuta audience that it was his turn to rule Nigeria. Again, because we didn’t take Mr. Cameron seriously, we failed in our interrogation of Tinubu’s boast; swallowing his bait as he kept missing his steps and selling us word salad like “PD-APC”, “Baba-blu-blu-blu” etc. Whatever the excuses were, our current reality obviously speaks to the peril of glossing over such high wired pranks when it mattered.
Tinubu truly deserve some acclaim to have prevailed in the face of all the pre-election trials, fumbling and jest. He must be a genius to have emerged winner of Prof. Mahmood Yakubu’s glitch-tech-election. As a matter of fact, that election launched President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as another “evil genius”, to lead Nigeria, thereby stripping Gen. Babangida of his entitlement as Nigeria’s one and only evil genius.
Like the one before him, President Tinubu shares a thing or two with IBB-the “Maradona” that deployed every conceivable trick to remain in power. Unfortunately for Rivers State and her governor, it was in Tinubu that Wike found an ally in his desperation to hold on to the reins of power in the state. And by reason of shared interest, they descended real hard on the governor and the good people of Rivers State.
As matter of fact, their recent political offensive against the state brought Mr. Cameron’s assertion to the fore. In other words, were Nigeria not fantastically corrupt, and President Tinubu, another “evil genius”, would a democratically elected governor, one with the people’s mandate be thrown out of office at the pleasure of Mr. President? It is indeed baffling how the governor and his courtiers did not see it coming-that broadcast that technically and temporarily annulled the March 25, 2023 Gubernatorial and state Assembly elections held in Rivers State. An annulment the president codenamed emergency rule, decreeing must last for six months; thus yanking off half a year from the tenure of an elected government.
Of course, Mr. President has ‘graciously’ lifted his fiat, after six months of a well-orchestrated occupation, plundering and assault on the people’s psyche and treasury. However, as the state now grapples with the aftermath of an emergency rule, the fragmentation of her political and economic structures, worse of all, the profligacy unleashed on her till by an expert plunderer, one is constrained to hazard the politics and motive behind an emergency rule in a state that was running on a clean bill of security health.
An effort in this regard would reveal that the deliberate and brutal traumatization of a federating unit was essentially to pave the way for a Tinubu/APC capture of the South-South geo political zone. Accordingly, Mr. President, a supposed democrat, would haughtily jettison the rule of law for the rule of might without qualms. Far from being a tactical blunder.
I’m still so bemused as to how the country’s Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, with all the laurels, went so spineless that he couldn’t whisper the illegality of Mr. President’s action to his boss. As for Vice President Kashim Shettima, his hypocrisy was rather despicable. How could he so smugly recall Mohammed Adoke’s patriotic advice to former President Goodluck Jonathan? An appointee who prevailed on his boss not to undermine the constitution of the federal republic, but lacked the balls to point out same illegality and the danger it portends for our democracy to the man he shares ticket with?
The president might not have heard from those around him because they choose to play the ostrich to continue in the corridors of power. But could he frankly say the same of a thousand Nigerian voices that cried blue murder? How about Prof. Wole Soyinka’s encapsulation that his action was ultra vires? As a people’s president, Tinubu could have backtracked on the travesty given the public outcry that trailed his declaration. But no, the aberration had a timeline and must endure for six whole months. As far as Rivers people are concerned, the annulment was lifted only because an end has been achieved and the Gov. Fubara and his colleagues reduced to some frightened mouse?
As former governor of Lagos State, President Tinubu need no schooling in the unconstitutionality of his action. Yet he was deliberate in applying the sledgehammer. He knew more than anyone else that there was no basis for the declaration of a state of emergency in a state that was absent any form of security threat. But he shot down democracy in Rivers State for his expediency. In it’s wake, a democratically elected governor will now share power with Minister Ezebunwo Nyesom Wike at Mr. President’s pleasure. In other words, Mr. President overreach himself for no one, but himself.
Whereas there is hardly enough blame for Minister Wike, the man who has since arrogated the ownership of Rivers State to himself, the man whose greed instigated the siege ab inito, it is inescapable that Mr. President had it all figured out before Wike approached him fuming and cursing. Regrettably, beyond being naïve, Gov. Fubara, who would give the world to preside over a peaceful state, responded to the offensive like a man bestriding the fence, taking up the gauntlet half-heartedly. And the outcome, the reality of the day.
Beyond undermining the Rivers governor, posterity will equally remember President Tinubu as tactically employing the emergency rule to browbeat South-South governors into capitulation, as the once PDP’s stronghold is now in the pocket of the APC. The strategic place of Rivers State in both regional and national politics has never been lost on President Tinubu. He knew the cataclysmic effect, clamping down on the TREASURE BASE would exact on the South-South region. And for a man whose focus is on 2027, no wager was too much to try out. Already, the gale of defections that has since hit the region speaks to the president’s masterstroke. The APC now hoist her flag across the South-South, not by reason of electoral victory, but by the subtle coercion occasioned by the Rivers offensive. What a means to an end?
It will also not escape posterity that President Tinubu declared a state of emergency in Rivers State to get even with Sir (Dr.) Peter Odili. Odili had in a moment of euphoria boasted that Nigeria is bound to catch cold should Rivers State sneeze. Like Babangida, Tinubu, isn’t the man to let such averment go unanswered. Odili seemed to have forgotten all too soon, that as contemporaries, there was no love lost between him and the man who presently sits as Nigeria’s president. He was Obasanjo’s right hand man when Tinubu was given the short end of the stick. So what could’ve passed as a harmless averment attracted dire consequence (federal might). In fact, Gov. Fubara, had to swallow the bitter pill as a lesson in ‘political insubordination’ as it had become apparent that dwelling under Odili’s shadow emboldened him to cherry pick the clauses to implement from the document that was handed to him at the Villa on December 11, 2023.
Yet in all of this, had the Supreme Court not demobilized the governor, maybe, just maybe, the president would’ve been restrained. Because, until that judicial pronouncement that happened barely a week after Pa Clark’s passing, neither the President nor Wike assailed Gov. Fubara. To all intents and purposes, the apex court’s verdict of February 28, 2025, not only whetted the ground, but provided the plank on which the offensive rested. It was a vexing verdict that has left a huge dent on the integrity of the apex court. Given the foot-dragging that occasioned Rivers casas before the statesman’s passing, it can be argued that the judgment arguably ambushed Pa Clark in death. Moreover, given Wike’s characteristic preemption of the sweeping verdict long before it was handed down. The speed at which the state of emergency was declared afterwards brings to mind the events of 1962, as captured in the opening quote.
There was no riot of any kind, no disturbance of any sort, no threat of external aggression, yet the constitution was suspended in Rivers State.
Nothing prepared my mind that it could get this appalling when I posited that resolving the Rivers crisis would be a test of President Tinubu’s honour, not might. I had written and pleaded with Mr. President in an open letter dated March 25, 2024 to kindly revisit his peace pact of December 11, 2023. I mentioned that clauses 6 and 8 of that document clearly put the governor in a catch 22 situation. That that document be revisited in the spirit of fairness and equity. I did entreat that the blood of Dr. Marshall Harry, Chief A.K Dikkibo, Hon. Monday Ngbor, Chief Ignatius Ajuru, Hon. Charles Nsiegbe, Barr. Ken Aswuete and many others, murdered in cold blood to settle political scores in Rivers State, plead atonement for the living. But against my plea, Rivers State is made yet a scapegoat.
Nigerians are at liberty to gloat over, or weep for Rivers State. But she must look beyond what has befallen the state. After all, the state has accepted her fate as typified by her governor under an ‘emilokan’ government. Let’s say the governor went to war with his enemy’s playbook, and was overwhelmed by federal might. He was asked to step aside while his constitutional duties were transferred to an appointee with military credentials, all in a fantastically corrupt democratic space.
To crown it all, an ‘election’ that selected Wike’s cronies in the PDP as APC members into the 23 Local Councils in the state was conducted, and the men hurriedly sworn into office. The people might not get know to how Rtd Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas plundered their till in an emergency that shouldn’t have been in the first instance. But it seems reinstating their governor was what mattered most. Therefore, let the Rivers experience serve as a wakeup call to all Nigerians that our democracy is fast switching place with Presitucracy occasioned by a desperate presidency.
Nigerians must know that the satanic hijack and temporal incapacitation of Rivers State was a pilot scheme, although the president and his handlers want the people to think him altruistic in his involvement. Pretending that the president didn’t aid Wike to hold the higher ground against Gov. Fubara and the people, or that we do not see the sword of Damocles still flaming over Gov. Fubara’s head smacks of ostrichism. Truth is, twice did the president wade into the Rivers crisis, and twice did he fail to resolve the crisis as a statesman; let alone, the father, the governor helplessly calls him.
Beyond bemoaning the Rivers fate, Nigerians, should brace up as 2027 beckons. Our democracy is being emasculated and our president is fast sliding into a dictator. And I daresay Nigeria risk another third term gambit come 2031 if we continue to pretend.