The state of emergency in Rivers is a frontal attack on the ethos of democracy, argues EDDY ODIVWRI

I am not certain if we are in what the Bible calls perilous times. But the indications are pointing us to very uneasy dispensation. With the three arms of government: executive, legislature and judiciary under the whimsical manipulation of one or two men, we cannot but be worried. We are troubled that our democracy is between the hammer and the anvil. How shall we escape the Impending crush?

 We were yet trying to process and digest the Akpabio- Natasha tangle and the melancholy in the Senate, when suddenly President Bola Tinubu released a political plague on the polity by declaring the state of emergency in Rivers State. Those who have been defending the action of Mr President have anchored their arguments on section 305 of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended). There is no doubt that the President has the constitutional powers to declare the state of emergency in any part of the country. But the constitution did not provide the President the power to carry out a coup against the state. What Mr President did in Rivers State is not less than a frontal attack on the ethos of democracy.

What is debatable, and which is crucial, is whether or not the situation in Rivers State had got to the point of wielding that big stick. Those in defence of the actions of President Tinubu even argue that Mr President Tinubu must be commended for being proactive in forestalling what could become such a soon-to-be disaster in Rivers State. Assuming, without conceding that the situation was rife and precarious and demanded to be arrested by declaring a state of emergency, which section of the constitution (Section 305) empowers the President to, like a College Principal, suspend an elected governor or even the state legislators?  Which sub section or item of the said Section 305 gives the President the authority to suspend a governor, who was elected like him? The President is not an emperor!  I have listened to lawyers and political hangers on, and I can understand why the few people who have spoken in support of Mr President are entirely people who are his appointees and lackeys. This is understandable, as they will not be expected to speak against the action of their principal, if they yet want to remain in office.

Yet, that “zombie” loyalty does not answer the popping question: where did the president get the power to suspend an elected governor? I have listened to Felix Morkah, the National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and alleged constitutional lawyer, and one Hon Philip Agbese, the Deputy Spokesman of the House of Representatives on ARISE Television struggling to explain why and how the President suspended an elected governor. None of them could say, in clear terms, how or where the President sourced the power. They merely rambled and nibbled in quixotic tones around the issue.

 It is even more ridiculous for the “learned” Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Mr Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) who argued that the state of emergency was meant to save Gov Siminalaye Fubara from being impeached. Really? Not even the metaphysical poets of the 17^th century could beat that twist of political casuistry, like Fagbemi did.  It is instructive that while the rest of the rational world condemned the action of Mr President, the 27 pro-Wike lawmakers have applauded it. We are not surprised. They clearly remind us of that other woman in the Bible who came to King Solomon claiming that the living baby was hers. She did not hesitate to accept the suggestion that the living baby be sliced into two, so she and the other woman can have a part each. By accepting that unmotherly option, King Solomon knew and ruled that she was not the mother of the living baby, as no genuine mother of a baby would agree that the baby be sliced because of dispute over its ownership.

But if what the executive did was bad enough, it was doubly worse for the National Assembly, whom many thought would redeem the awful situation, and save the nation the embarrassment. Those who yet thought that the nation was still being governed by people with conscience and fear of God, expected that the National Assembly will withhold its assent to the proclamation of the President. Such people had argued that since there was no provision for the suspension of elected governor and lawmakers in the constitution, that the lawmakers will not support the President. Others argued that the opposition lawmakers can constitute a stumbling block to the debate, since the ruling APC doesn’t have the required two-third majority in any of the two chambers to cause the motion to go smoothly. Those people were naïve. I had known long before now that a Senate presided over by Godswill Akpabio (who serially manipulated his way to get into the Senate after stepping down for Tinubu at the APC presidential primary) will do everything to undertake Tinubu’s bidding. The House of Reps is not quite different. As envisaged, both chambers perfected the means to give President Tinubu what he wanted. Beside muzzling those who wanted to object to the motion, the saddest strategy was to resort to using voice vote instead of electronic voting to determine who and who was supporting the presidential proclamation.  How can any right-thinking person determine or calculate two-third majority with a voice vote? Is that scientific?

But they obviously resorted to voice vote because they did not even have the quorum to carry on with the business of the debate in the first place. It was the last straw that broke the camel’s back, politically. I think this disgraceful act lacks the grace of being described as rubber-stamp national assembly. The common sense of the lawmakers went on holidays or better still, got de-activated by the wads of thousands of dollars allegedly served the lawmakers, as recompense. But expectedly, the lawmakers have denied receiving bribes to pass the motion. Nobody expected them to admit receiving bribe anyway.

It was even more telling that much water had passed under the legislative bridge when President Tinubu went ahead to swear-in the Sole Administrator he appointed for the Rivers State, Ibok-Ete Ibas, even before the National Assembly met to debate and approve the proclamation. The fall of the national lawmakers represented the final collapse of all the pillars of democracy. Earlier, the judiciary had tumbled over with the controversial and illogical ruling of the Supreme Court; the Executive had, unlawfully, wielded the big stick and the only left defence bar to protect democracy in Rivers State, was knocked down by the national lawmakers.

The bias of President Tinubu in the Rivers crisis has never been clothed. It is not surprising. When he first intervened between Gov Fubara and his erstwhile godfather, Nyesom Wike, the so-called terms of settlement released by the presidency was heavily tilted against Gov Fubara. No wonder the settlement did not work. And Mr President did not bother to check why despite his intervention, the problem not only continued but festered. Wike, no doubt has been the political Man Friday of President Tinubu, in the all-important Rivers State, if not the entire Niger Delta region. So, protecting and preserving the Wike status is not only politically wise, it is a sure strategy to secure 2027, seeing that Wike has become the lionized bully to frighten and threaten any challenger to Tinubu’s political frontiers. But hey, what does it profit President Tinubu to gain a poIitical merchant and lose the nation’s economic soul? Or does the President not know that the nation’s economy is dependent on the Niger Delta?

 Is it not remarkable, for instance, that Wike who is more an APC supporter, in spirit and flesh, than his mere bodily presence in his PDP, has continued to rip his party apart with needless feud and rancour, so as to sustain a weakened party against the APC, as 2027 draws nearer? Why would President Tinubu not keep and retain such a political protein, the hard-headed spanner-thrower in the way of his political adversaries?

That explains why all through the proclamation speech for the State of Emergency, not once was Nyesom Wike’s name mentioned, whereas, everybody knows that the FCT minister is the author and finisher of all the crises in Rivers State. All the blames were heaped on the head of Gov Fubara. He is the fall guy—the burden bearer. In less than 24 hours after the explosion of the trans Niger pipeline, Fubara is held accountable for doing nothing. Even when the demolished State’s House of Assembly is 80 per cent completed, Fubara is blamed for doing nothing on it, 14 months after. We had had cases of pipeline vandalism several times in the past. How many states of emergency had been declared as a result? Ten people were killed in Zamfara State last Saturday by bandits, was there a whiff from the President? Even with the new Sole Administrator in place another pipeline has been vandalized in Rivers State. Would that lead to another State of Emergency declared? It’s all a desperate and calculated bid to call the dog a bad name so it can be hanged.

Nobody is talking about the 27 lawmakers who woke up one day and declared they had decamped from the PDP—the party through which they were elected into the state’s House of Assembly, and that they have now joined the APC. They addressed press conferences to confirm their new party membership. Nobody is talking about how they should lose their seats in the state’s House of Assembly having decamped, as prescribed by the constitution. The qualms now is that Fubara did not say anything about pipelines vandalized few hours before the declaration. Who is sure whether the pipeline was actually vandalised by anti-Fubara forces to feather the argument to support the state of emergency plot?

The brazen actions of President Tinubu on this matter seems to suggest the Nigerian people have been so conquered, acquiesced, completely choiceless and helpless. It seems we have got to a point that the Nigerian leaders are no longer afraid or mindful of the reaction of the citizenry to whatever they do. How the people will feel or receive the leaders’/rulers’ actions, no longer matters. This is a dangerous point in public governance.

What spiritual metaphysics could have seized our collective ability to resist this spate of arbitrariness and flagrant abuse of powers? It simply reminds me of what the late Gen Sani Abacha once did as a maximum ruler. A confession, then published on the Backpage of THISDAY Newspaper had narrated how some Islamic spiritualists were imported from Mali, on the orders of Sani Abacha or his handlers. The brief was to put together a psycho-trado mystique that will cause the Nigerian people to be collectively benumbed such that whatever Abacha did or chose to do will never be challenged or frowned at. To start with, the Mullahs were said to have asked that some 1000 yet-to-open eye fresh mice be gathered. The said mice will be instrumental in achieving a comprehensive (mental and verbal) muting effect on the Nigerian people. Those sent to source the mice were yet on the field searching for the innocent mice, when God delivered Nigerians from the snares of the fowler called Gen Abacha. Are we really helpless?

 Odivwri was a Deputy Editor at THISDAY

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