By Michael Chibuzo
No one saw it coming. It started on Tuesday with a short notice from the state house announcing a presidential broadcast scheduled for 7pm. After few paragraphs of President Tinubu’s national broadcast, it was obvious to keen observers that he was going to declare a State of Emergency in Rivers State. And so he did. But how did we get here?
BACKGROUND TO THE WIKE VS FUBARA GAME OF THRONES
The genesis of the Rivers State political crisis can be traced to a falling out between a political godfather and his godson in 2023. For whatever reason, 27 lawmakers loyal to the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike including the Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Martin Amaewhule moved to impeach Governor Sim Fubara who was barely five months in office.
Sim Fubara managed to get four members out of the 32-member assembly to his side including the the Majority Leader, Hon. Edison Ehie. With the backing of Fubara, Hon. Edison Ehie on Sunday 29th October, 2023 led some people to burn down the Assembly Chambers with the hope of preventing any sitting of the Assembly the next day. The next day the Rt. Hon. Martin Amaewhule-led assembly removed Hon. Edison Ehie as House Leader and suspended him and three other members for their role in burning down the assembly complex.
Fubara further backed Hon. Edison Ehie to form a parallel assembly with only 3 other members where he emerged as factional Speaker. Fubara issued executive order moving sittings of the Edison Ehie factional house of assembly to the Government House pending reconstruction of the burnt House of Assembly Chambers.
Around early December 2023 and two days after the Martin Amaewhule faction announced their defection to the APC, Governor Fubara presented the N800 billion 2024 budget to his 4-man assembly inside the government house while simultaneously demolishing the Rivers State House of Assembly complex. On the same day Edison Ehie declared the seats of Martin Amaewhule and his group vacant. By this time, a lot of court cases were already flying around.
President Bola Tinubu stepped in to broker peace on December 18th, 2023. A a peace accord between Wike’s camp and Fubara’s camp was signed at the State House. Among the agreements reached was that Fubara Rt. Hon. Martin Amaewhule remains the speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly and that Gov. Fubara should represent the 2024 budget to the Amaewhule-led assembly. The dissolution of LGA administration by Fubara was declared null and void.
The peace deal later broke down as Fubara refused to represent the 2024 budget to the Martin Amaewhule-led assembly instead chose to resume legislative business with his 4-man assembly which has now shrunk to only 3 members led by Victor Oko-Jumbo as factional Speaker following the resignation of Edison Ehie. Fubara also conducted LG elections despite a court order blocking the process.
JUDICIAL PROCLAMATION
As Governor Fubara continued to have his way, various court cases and appeals instituted by various parties in the Rivers crisis travelled through the judicial threadmill and eventually got to the Supreme Court where the apex Court made decisive pronouncements on many fundamental aspects of the crisis. The Supreme Court affirmed Rt. Hon. Martin Amaewhule-led assembly as the authentic assembly and ordered freezing of FAAC allocations to Rivers State until a valid budget was in place. The apex Court also sacked the local government councils and ordered a new local government election.
FUBARA AND RIVERS HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY ENGAGE IN HIDE AND SEEK
Following the judgment of the Supreme Court, both Gov. Sim Fubara and the Rt. Hon. Martin Amaewhule-led assembly continued to play hide and seek games with each other. While Sim Fubara apparently played to the gallery on the subject matter of presenting the 2025 budget to the authentic House of Assembly, the members of the Assembly themselves were making moves to resume impeachment proceedings against the Governor.
As the Rivers Assembly began posturing towards an impeachment of the governor and his deputy, Gov. Sim recklessly told youths supporting him to be on standby and await “instructions” when the time comes. This was apparently an open declaration of intention to activate violence if the lawmakers go ahead with their impeachment move.
Immediately, the State Assembly issued Fubara and his deputy an impeachment notice outlining his many gross misconducts, a major oil pipeline in Bodo, the trans Niger pipeline was blown up. This was followed by another destruction of oil installations around Omwawriwa axis of Ogba-Egbema-Ndoni Local Government Area.
X-RAYING TINUBU’S DECLARATION OF STATE OF EMERGENCY
President Bola Tinubu convened a national security council meeting on Monday night and on Tuesday evening during a national broadcast declared a state of emergency in Rivers State in line with Section 305 of the 1999 constitution in order to forestall total breakdown of law and order in the state. The President did not stop there, as he ordered the suspension of the two warring sides – Governor Sim and his deputy as well as the Rivers State House of Assembly for a period of six months.
This declaration instantly threw up debates on the validity of such a declaration and also the legality of suspending a democratically elected Governor or State Assembly by a democratically elected President. Many lawyers and commentators held that the President has no constitutional right to suspend a governor while declaring a state of emergency in any part of the country. They contended that section 305 does not donate such powers to the President.
Some also argue that the events in Rivers State does not warrant the declaration of a statement of emergency by the President and certainly not the suspension of the governor and his deputy to make way for a Sole Administrator. I will address this second argument before dwelling on the validity of the President’s proclamation.
EVENTS IN RIVERS WARRANT A STATE OF EMERGENCY PROCLAMATION
Section 305 subsection 3(d) of the constitution clearly allows the President to proclaim state of emergency if “there is a clear and present danger of an actual breakdown of public order and public safety in the federation or any part thereof requiring extraordinary measures to avert such danger”.
In this Rivers State case, even before the explosion of oil pipelines in Gokana and Ndoni axis, there was already a beating of war drums by many youths threatening destruction of oil installations if the Rivers State House of Assembly proceeds with the impeachment process against Fubara and his deputy. The pro-Wike lawmakers on their part were on a singular mission of removing the Governor. When you recall that the bombing and subsequent demolition of the Assembly complex in 2023 by Fubara was in response to an impeachment attempt by the lawmakers loyal to Wike, then it is easier to see that state was headed for a bloody confrontation between the two camps if this latest impeachment attempt continues.
Secondly, one aspect of the crisis often overlooked by people is the impact of the Supreme Court order, freezing FAAC allocations to Rivers State on the overall governance in Rivers State. The 2024 budget presented by Fubara to a 4-man assembly was declared invalid. The 2025 budget needed to be represented to the Martin Amaewhule assembly, unfortunately both Fubara and the assembly were playing hide and seek with no hope of a compromise anytime soon. The assembly wanted Fubara to first present his list of commissioner nominees (since his most of his present crop of commissioners did not pass through the confirmation process of Martin Amaewhule-led assembly) before any discussions about budget presentation. Fubara on his part was toying with the assembly and playing media games with them.
Even though the CBN in obedience to the Supreme Court judgment would not release FAAC allocations to Rivers State, this has not prevented Fubara from continuing to spend Rivers money without appropriation. That is an abuse of the rule of law and a hit on the democratic principle of checks and balances. Under these emerging circumstances, with no solution in sight, the best option is to declare a state of emergency and suspend both parties – an extraordinary measure that will forestall anarchy and further trampling of the rule of law by the Governor who had been spending without a valid appropriation for 14 months and counting.
If the situation was allowed to fester, the Governor cannot lawfully authorise release of funds for payment of salaries, contractors or even for the conduct of a new local government election already scheduled by RSIEC for August, 2025 without a valid appropriation law by the Rt. Hon. Martin Amaewhule-led assembly. With this state of emergency proclamation, it will pave the way for the release of funds both from Rivers FAAC purse and its IGR purse without appropriation since the Sole Administrator has been vested with special powers to make interim regulations that can be approved by the President within the emergency period. So, the situation in Rivers clearly warrants the state of emergency proclamation and suspension of the Governor and the Assembly since they are the warring parties in this case, which was making governance in the state almost legally impossible.
THE PRESIDENT HAS POWERS TO REMOVE A GOVERNOR DURING EMERGENCY PERIOD
The major contention since the proclamation of state of emergency in Rivers State has been the legality of the President’s suspension of the governor and the house of assembly and the appointment of a Sole Administrator to govern the state for six months. Yes, it is true that section 305 of the constitution did not expressly empower the president to remove a governor, however subsection 2 of that section gives room for such an action.
To start with, section 305 did not go into details on how the President should go about ensuring that the factors that created a situation requiring a declaration of emergency are tackled or remedied in order to return to a state of normalcy. That is left for the President to outline in the details of the emergency he would transmit to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives and consequently left for the NASS to agree with the President via a resolution backed by 2/3 majority of lawmakers.
A state of emergency declaration is meaningless if it cannot remove the problem that was creating a clear and present danger of an actual breakdown of public order so that normalcy can return. In this Rivers State case, the factors causing an imminent danger of breakdown of public order and safety are the impasse between the Governor and the state assembly. Suspending them temporarily will therefore halt the deterioration of the crisis to a point where there may be total breakdown of law and order.
Crucially, the emergency proclamation will also allow the state to benefit from its FAAC allocations and independent revenue without the need for an appropriation law since both the Governor and the assembly that would have worked together to have a valid appropriation law are out of the way temporarily. The sole administrator can then make a request to the President under extraordinary circumstances seeking release of funds to the state for the purpose of maintaining government activities pending the return of normalcy or normal conditions in the state.
WAY FORWARD
The unfortunate crisis in Rivers State was heading for a climax that would have seen the impeachment of Governor Sim Fubara by the resolute State House of Assembly for various well documented gross misconducts, which the Supreme Court has laid the foundations. That would have plunged the state into a cycle of violence whose end is unpredictable. The intervention by the President was therefore a huge lifeline to Sim Fubara. It is now left for the Governor and the Minister of FCT and their various loyalists including other players in the Rivers political space who had taken hardlines to use this emergency period to seek reconciliation or an acceptable compromise for the interest of the people of Rivers State who just want to enjoy peace and development. The time for reckless rhetoric by either side of the divide is over.