THE constitutional aberration last Thursday in which an indeterminate number of the National Assembly members ousted the provisions of the Constitution to please President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a reckless step in democracy worsened by the intentionality of its execution.
Section 305 of the Constitution interprets a state of emergency as a situation of “national danger, disaster or terrorist attacks in which a government suspends normal constitutional procedures to regain control.” There are parts of Nigeria that meet these conditions. Did the President impose a state of emergency?

The President has the constitutional power to declare a state of emergency in any part of Nigeria. However, this proclamation must be published in the official government gazette and ratified by the National Assembly, requiring approval from two-thirds of its members.

The President exceeded his powers and knew his men at the helms of the National Assembly will pass the proclamation suspending elected officials in Rivers State.

What stopped the President, who gloats about his democratic credentials, from building on the sound democratic and constitutional examples former Goodluck Jonathan laid when confronted with terrorist attacks in North East and North Central Nigeria?
President Jonathan on 31 December 2011 declared a state of emergency in Borno, Niger, Plateau, and Yobe States without removing elected officials. On 14 May 2013, Jonathan imposed emergency rule in Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe States with the elected government structures still intact.

President Tinubu should have used these most recent examples of interpreting the Constitution which aimed at heightening security in the affected States to regain control of the areas and stop the insecurity from spreading.
Tinubu’s reaction when Jonathan declared state of emergency without removing elected officials:
“It is 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,” Tinubu had said in 2013.

“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.
“No Governor of a State in Nigeria is 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.”

The same Tinubu 12 years on blames Governor Sim Fubara for not maintaining security in Rivers State as if there had been constitutional amendments awarding Governors such powers.
Godswill Akpabio, Senate President, and Tajudeen Abass, Speaker, House of Representatives were more interested in approving the declaration than following constitutionally stated procedures.

They would not allow debates. They did not permit “reminders” that members present needed to be counted to ensure, first that two-thirds of them was in attendance, and a count of those who voted for or against the declaration was needed to reach a decision, according to the Constitution.
An uncertain number of legislators in both houses of the National Assembly passed the declaration by voice vote.

How many members were present? Did the numbers reach the two-thirds required for the proceedings to continue? Where are the records of the attendance?
Akpabio and Abbas should explain to Nigerians what volume of voice votes represents the two-thirds of members which the Constitution requires. They may also need to tell us which Constitution they used or when they amended the Constitution to give them powers to opt for two-thirds of voice votes.

MultiChoice as FCCPC’s choice

THE Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, FCCPC, established by the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act, FCCPA, in 2018, is a very powerful Commission that should be working for the interests of Nigerians, all Nigerians, and residents of Nigeria.
Grand expectations from the Commission include to develop and promote fair, efficient and competitive markets in the Nigerian economy, facilitate access by all citizens to safe products, and secure the protection of rights for all consumers in Nigeria.

If one is to make a list of goods and services that benefit Nigerians, they would run into hundreds of thousands and their producers and providers could run into millions. What does FCCPC do about them? It does something.
The story was about recently of the Vice President calling Mr. Olatunji Bello, Chief Executive Officer/Executive Vice-Chairman of FCCPC, to re-open a shop that belonged to the Vice President’s friend. Whatever the offence was, the FCCPC clampdown on the shop was lifted.
Other times one hears about FCCPC are when it takes on MultiChoice, apparently its service provider of choice to exercise its regulatory authority which is still at most vacuous. What is so special about MultiChoice to elicit such attention? The question is pertinent because other providers of the services as MultiChoice do not undergo the same scrutiny.

The issue is always about price adjustments. Once MultiChoice announces a change in the rates for accessing its services, FCCPC bares its regulatory fangs as if its researches do not capture the increases in prices of goods and services across all sectors. Government agencies have been increasing from travel documents, cost of filings in court to petroleum products.
One never heard a whimper from FCCPC. Even shops that it insisted should display prices of goods, determine the mode of compliance which is not in the interest of consumers. FCCPC’s silence may be related to the Vice President’s calls and the fact that market forces are sometimes political forces – most big businesses know who to call.

Rising energy costs, whether petroleum products or electricity, and insecurity are driving high prices of goods and services. FCCPC knows this but maintains a grave silence about these service providers whose services are more critical to the survival of the economy and Nigerians than digital television.
Cost of financial services has gone up. Merely keeping a bank account comes with new costs. Medications and health services have higher prices daily. School fees are continously on the rise, including in government institutions. These are goods and services that are very important for the survival of the society.

How many million Nigerians subscribe to MultiChoice which keeps millions of Nigerians employed through the value chain of its service? Why is FCCPC not concerned about the providers of other services and goods that affect more millions of Nigeria?

Every organisation is also blaming the high exchange rate for high prices of goods and services. Is MultiChoice exempt from high foreign exchange costs when it pays for most of its programmes in foreign exchange?
How does FCCPC “promote fair, efficient and competitive markets in the Nigerian economy” which its mandate prices? Competition is supposed to propel market forces to deal with service providers whose services are beyond the reach of consumers.

Does FCCPC have the powers to determine the prices and services? What has it done with the airlines operators, producers of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, who increase their prices, particularly when demand is high?
FCCPC should stretch its attention to goods and services that are essential. Digital television is not an essential service. Those who can afford it should pay, others can go elsewhere.
Essential as foods are, many Nigerians are dropping some items from their menu. They cannot afford them. FCCPC should know about it or it does not matter.

FCCPC has gone to court to enforce its orders on digital television rates. When will FCCPC go to court over the rising prices of essential goods and services?

Finally…

TWO sets of Nigerians have to be commended for lessening the burden of an extraordinarily sad week of constitutional vandalisation, deaths from accidents and bandits:
Senators Seriake Dickson, Enyinnaya Abaribe, and Aminu Waziri Tambuwal who finally walked out as Akpabio pursued his determined outcome. Representatives Obi Aguocha and Fred Agbedi had their calls for constitutional procedures ignored. Abbas too was on a mission. There were others in both houses, who worked hard to rescue the Constitution. And the Super Eagles who turned in a 2-0 defeat of Rwanda in a World Cup qualifier, when they were hardly given a chance to win.

ISIGUZO is a major commentator on minor issues

Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka says President Bola Tinubu’s declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers state betrays the spirit of federalism.

Tinubu declared emergency rule in the oil-rich state on Tuesday over the political crisis and instability in the state.

He also suspended Siminalayi Fubara, governor of the state; his deputy, Ngozi Odu; and all members of the Rivers assembly for an initial period of six months.

The president immediately appointed Ibok-Ete Ibas, a retired naval chief, as the state’s sole administrator.

Speaking with The Africa Report, Soyinka said the Nigerian constitution gives the president too much powers.

Commenting on the legality of the declaration, Soyinka said there is a need to amend some sections of the constitution.

He also said it is debatable if the move was a wise one.

“If it is constitutionally right, then I think it is about time we sat down and amended the constitution to make sure that it operates as a genuine federal entity,” Soyinka said.

“The government is over-centralised. The debate will go on whether this (state of emergency) was, in the first place, a wise decision but in terms of fundamental principles, I believe that this is against the federal spirit of association.

“I find that the constitution has put too much power in the hands of the president. The system we are operating right now is not the best for a pluralistic society like ours. That is a fundamental principle I have always held.”

The playwright further reiterated his call for a national conference which he said would provide an opportunity to “really accord ourselves an authentic people’s constitution”.

“The federal spirit of association is a cardinal principle… right now, in principle, this action is against the federal imperative,” he said.

[TheCable]

Democracy is often considered the foundation of freedom, equality, and national stability. It provides a system where leaders are accountable to the people, laws are upheld fairly, and citizens have a voice in governance. 

However, when democracy is undermined or destroyed, the consequences can be devastating. 

Throughout history, many nations have faced severe political, social, and economic crises due to the collapse of democratic institutions. 

The lessons from these nations serve as stark warnings about the dangers of allowing democracy to erode.

One of the most infamous examples of democracy’s destruction leading to chaos is Nazi Germany. 

After World War I, Germany had a democratic government under the Weimar Republic. However, economic struggles, political instability, and public dissatisfaction created an environment where democracy was weakened. 

Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party exploited these weaknesses, rising to power through both democratic means and authoritarian tactics. Once in control, Hitler dismantled democratic institutions, silenced opposition, and imposed a brutal dictatorship. The result was not only a loss of freedoms for German citizens but also a catastrophic global war and the horrors of the Holocaust.

Similarly, the fall of democracy in Venezuela provides a modern example of how undermining democratic principles can devastate a nation. 

Once one of Latin America’s wealthiest countries, Venezuela’s democracy began eroding under Hugo Chávez and later Nicolás Maduro. 

The gradual concentration of power, suppression of opposition, and manipulation of elections led to authoritarian rule. 

As a result, the country suffered from economic collapse, hyperinflation, widespread poverty, and a humanitarian crisis, with millions of citizens fleeing the country. 

The destruction of democracy directly contributed to the suffering of the Venezuelan people.

Another critical lesson comes from the military coup in Myanmar in 2021. After years of progress toward democracy, the military overturned election results, arrested leaders, and reinstated a dictatorship. 

The consequences were immediate and severe: widespread protests, brutal crackdowns, economic decline, and global condemnation. 

The military’s actions not only crushed democratic hopes but also plunged the country into instability, highlighting how destroying democracy often leads to political violence and repression.

In contrast, nations that have upheld democracy through crises have often emerged stronger. 

The United States, despite facing internal challenges such as civil rights struggles, economic recessions, and political polarization, has maintained democratic institutions for over two centuries. 

By preserving the rule of law, ensuring fair elections, and allowing for peaceful transitions of power, the U.S. has remained a global leader and a symbol of democratic resilience. This demonstrates that even in difficult times, commitment to democracy can lead to long-term stability and progress.

South Africa is another example of how upholding democracy can prevent chaos. During the apartheid era, the country was ruled by a racist, authoritarian regime that oppressed the majority of its population. 

However, through democratic reforms and leadership, particularly from Nelson Mandela, South Africa transitioned peacefully to democracy in 1994. 

This transition helped prevent a civil war and set the foundation for economic and social progress, proving that embracing democracy can heal a divided nation.

The destruction of democracy often leads to widespread corruption, weakened institutions, and the loss of human rights. Without checks and balances, leaders can act with impunity, silencing critics and making decisions that benefit only a select few. In contrast, upholding democracy ensures transparency, accountability, and protection of citizens’ rights. History has shown that once democracy is lost, it is difficult and often costly to regain. Restoring democratic governance after authoritarian rule usually requires years of struggle, sacrifices, and rebuilding trust in institutions.

Ultimately, the lessons of history make one thing clear: democracy must be protected at all costs. The erosion of democratic values can lead to dictatorship, economic ruin, and human suffering. 

However, when citizens and leaders remain committed to democratic principles—such as free and fair elections, freedom of speech, and the rule of law—nations can thrive. Every generation has the responsibility to learn from history and safeguard democracy, ensuring that the mistakes of the past are not repeated.

Nigeria, as Africa’s most populous nation and largest economy, stands at a crucial crossroads in its democratic journey. Since returning to democracy in 1999 after years of military rule, the country has made significant progress in governance, civil liberties, and economic development. However, challenges such as electoral fraud, political violence, corruption, and disregard for the rule of law continue to threaten democratic stability. The history of military takeovers in Nigeria serves as a reminder of the dangers of losing democracy. Each time democracy was overthrown in the past, the country suffered repression, economic setbacks, and human rights abuses. Upholding democracy ensures that power remains with the people and that leadership is accountable, preventing a return to authoritarian rule.

For Nigeria to achieve sustainable development and political stability, democracy must always be protected and strengthened. This requires free and fair elections, judicial independence, press freedom, and active civic engagement. When democracy thrives, the rule of law is upheld, economic policies are more stable, and citizens have a voice in shaping their future. Conversely, undermining democratic principles can lead to dictatorship, instability, and suffering, as seen in other nations. Nigerians must remain vigilant in defending democracy, ensuring that leaders govern with integrity, and that institutions remain strong. Only by upholding democracy can Nigeria fulfill its potential as a truly great nation, offering prosperity, justice, and security for all its citizens.

— Hon. Obi Aguocha (Ogwumabiri) is the member representing Ikwuano/Umuahia North and South Federal Constituency 

The most recent judicial pronouncement in Nigeria as at today is the Supreme Court’s decision, a few days ago which reaffirmed the principle of Party Supremacy and directed the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to manage its own affairs. At the hearing of an appeal by Senator Sam Anyanwu who had been sacked as National Secretary of the PDP by the Appeal Court, Enugu Division, the Supreme Court unanimously re-emphasized that “political parties possess the autonomy to manage their internal affairs without undue interference from external bodies, including the judiciary, provided such actions align with their constitutions and the laws of the land.”Many Nigerians will not only agree with the Supreme Court but are likely to also urge Nigerian judges to leave our political parties alone.

The position of the Supreme Court is not new. It was the same when it allowed the All-Progressives Congress APC to choose Senator Ahmed Law an as its flagbearer, for the 2023 Senatorial Election in Yobe North constituency instead of the winner of the primaries, Bashir Machina. But it is simplistic for anybody to assume that what the Apex Court really meant was that political parties are free to handle their internal affairs. This is because over the years events have shown that what our courts say and what they mean are hardly ever same. Indeed, while empowering political parties to handle their affairs, the court also added that “provided such actions align with their constitutions and the laws of the land.” Can anyone in future stop some judges from looking into whether the actions of some political parties align with their constitutions and the extant laws?

Once such opportunity arises, the judges would then begin to look into cases which contradict the autonomy of political parties which the Supreme Court has affirmed. We all know that political parties by their own rules are expected to organize party primaries to pick their flagbearers. We also know that the electoral law provides for party primaries to be monitored by the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC. Why then did the Supreme Court allow the APC to substitute those who emerged from the party’s process with persons who did not participate in the process? Having done that, does the Supreme Court have the moral right to direct lower courts from doing same especially if the lower courts have the same motivation as their superiors? Do our judges not know that examples are better than precepts? 

It is also important to tell our judges that communication is not just the passing of information and messages from one source to another; the sender and receiver of such messages and information must in addition have the same meaning for them. Perhaps because our judiciary mix English and Latin quite often, not many understand the communication by the judiciary. But today’s judiciary is not same as that of the colonial government whose goal was to deceive the people. Our judiciary is now that of the people. It is a societal institution which relies on tax-payers’ money to survive. Accordingly, it is time for our judiciary to learn to speak to our people rather than to only lawyers and litigants. Our judiciary should therefore avoid circumlocution and speak clearly to its real owners – the Nigerian people. 

In so doing, it needs not be reminded that its decisions affect the entire society. For example, if it chooses to stop funds from going to a state because of the attitude of some leaders, the fate of many persons who are not before it that would suffer from its statements must always be taken into consideration. Besides, the judiciary must endeavour to engage in communication that would be easily understood by people just as it should be cautious in saying things that are capable of having several meanings. In the last 3 days, both Senator Anyanwu and the PDP have told the rest of the nation that they won the case, not only because they are bad losers but more because they are able to find in the judgment some statements that can be amplified to support their position.

One judgment that would have been difficult for ordinary human beings to understand concerns the order of an Abuja Federal High Court that certain lawfully elected delegates for the last Edo PDP primaries must not be excluded from the party’s primaries which had been held 5 months earlier. Similarly, it is not only the ordinary man that does not know which courts have jurisdiction in Nigerian cases, some lawyers and judges up to the level of the Court of Appeal do not also know. Hence, Senator Anyanwu’s case got to the Supreme Court before it was remembered that internal political party matters should not be entertained. Perhaps it is really difficult to remember things when they concern political cases that we hear are lucrative. The last time I raised this same issue at a public debate, I was told to go and find out why policemen are always at checkpoints notwithstanding the number of times their Inspector Generals had told the public that checkpoints are illegal. 

In the case of the judiciary, some of these bad habits can stop if the National Judicial Council NJC can be more decisive with erring judges. It is not possible to have a good judiciary if top Judges are as dishonest as ordinary persons. Some months ago, 2 state Chief Judges were found to have used affidavits to change their ages in order to remain in office. All that they got from the NJC was retirement from office. Is that the punishment for perjury? What would be the result if such judges have the opportunity to handle political cases? Can we distant such judges from the new trend of forum shopping in which cases emanating from other towns end up at the federal high court Abuja. Yet, there are federal high courts in such towns but those who tell others to go to court know where, when and how the cases would end. It is time for the judiciary to put an end to ‘go to court.’

Unknown to the judiciary, how it handles INEC has a way of making people lose faith in its decisions. At election tribunals, many petitioners always cry in vain over hurdles which INEC often places on their way to retrieve required evidence to prove their claims. In the last governorship election in Osun state, for example, the then governor Gboyega Oyetola cried in vain more than once to the relevant tribunal for help. If INEC belongs to us all, it should not be allowed to take sides by immediately standing with a winner during an election petition as if it has something to hide. The commission should also not be allowed to toy with court orders requiring it to bring certain information/documents to court – a conduct that is clearly regarded as contemptuous in other climes.

The argument by INEC that such data are in its state offices amount to hoarding of information. Are those state offices not part of one INEC? If INEC headquarters can access all the information it collated into a complete election result from all polling units, it should not become impossible to access materials when the request is from a party that participated in the election. The point to be made is that in an election-troubled society, people can become more convinced that an election tribunal has done a good job, if in addition to asking petitioners to prove their case, it also requires the body that conducted the election to establish her thoroughness. Our courts have no business protecting INEC which gets huge sums of money to procure technology and which later decides to distort, ignore or hoard digital information.

The saying that the decisions of the Supreme Court are final means different things to different people. To the ordinary man something is final only when it completes action on a relevant subject. If an opinion poll is done today concerning how the Rivers State controversial cases were handled, it would be difficult to find anyone who will agree that all sides to the case have actually ended. No one understands for instance how the purported defection of law makers of the state House of Assembly was concluded. If something remains undone concerning a subject, what does final mean to interested parties? The finality of the old case of the Imo State Governorship election in which the winner scored more votes as collated by the judiciary than the number of voters remains finally laughable. What was final about the case was that the Judiciary forgot that the person it declared winner was not the person the same judiciary accepted as the real candidate of his party.

President Bola Tinubu’s declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers State has whipped up a lot of passion and even some tension. This is not unexpected. Apart from oft-raised questions about constitutionality, process and partisanship, a state of emergency is an intervention that has far-reaching implications beyond the immediate actors, and can produce significant unintended consequences. Such consequences could include the needless widening of ethnic, regional and religious fault-lines, and even the seeding of future and more consequential instability. Since a lot depends on the judgement call of one man—the president, who can also be an interested party—this is a highly sensitive tool.  The declaration of a state of emergency should only be a last resort, invoked after all other good-faith interventions have evidently failed, and its use should be seriously circumscribed.

There are some safeguards erected in Section 305 of the 1999 Constitution. But it appears these may not be sturdy enough. There is the latitude about actual breakdown and potential breakdown of public order “requiring extraordinary measures to avert such danger.” Emergency rule, whether mild or maximum, by itself suggests the suspension of normalcy. The window to take unusual measures deemed necessary to restore order is, in my view, too much room. My sense is that the drafters of the constitution intended the legislative arm to provide appropriate and adequate checks. The threshold for legislative approval for emergency is deliberately set high, same as what is needed to approve changes to our rigid constitution: two-thirds of all members of each of the two chambers of our parliament (plus 2/3 of the states for constitutional amendment). However, the drafters obviously did not envisage the various ways in which these could play out in practice.

This is the fourth time emergency rule that will be proclaimed in almost 26 years of uninterrupted civil rule. Without fail, though not without some drama and minor amendments, the parliamentarians have always approved the requests by the different presidents. This is not necessarily because the legislators have been compromised or because they are always in bed with the executive but may be due to some other reasons that I will get to later. Many speak authoritatively that the emergency powers granted the president in the constitution do not include the suspension of governors, deputy governors and state legislators. They may well be right.

But in three out of four times, the governors and legislators have been suspended in the affected states, with approval by the National Assembly, because such suspensions were deemed by their promoters to have fallen within the scope of “extraordinary measures” required to restore order. The final authority on this should be the Supreme Court, and on two occasions the highest court in the land has dismissed suits brought by suspended governors, albeit on technical grounds: that the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction only in matters instituted by the states or the Federal Government and those governors were not in a position to institute cases for the states when they were under suspension.  

To refresh my memory, I have gone back to read media coverage of the three previous proclamations of emergency rule in the Fourth Republic: Plateau State in 2004; Ekiti State in 2006; and Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states in 2013. The details are different, illustrating the point that no two emergencies are the same. Taken together with the current case and the reactions to all of them, I can see some broad patterns. I will use relevant examples from the three cases to illustrate these patterns, without getting into the weeds of the present case.

Before doing this, a quick recap of the contexts. On 18^th May 2004, President Olusegun Obasanjo declared a state of emergency in Plateau State. That was the first in this dispensation. Plateau State had been rocked by ethno-religious violence that, by some account, led to the death of about 5000 people. In his broadcast, Obasanjo savaged the governor of the state, Mr. (later Senator) Joshua Dariye: “As at today, there is nothing on ground and no evidence whatsoever to show that the state governor has the interest, desire, commitment, credibility and capacity to promote reconciliation, rehabilitation, forgiveness, peace, harmony and stability. If anything, some of his utterances, his lackadaisical attitude and seeming uneven-handedness over the salient and contending issues present him as not just part of the problem, but also as an instigator and a threat to peace.”

Obasanjo suspended Dariye and the members of the state’s House of Assembly. (He initially didn’t suspend the deputy governor, but the National Assembly included this in their approval.) Obasanjo appointed General M.C. Alli (rtd.) as the sole administrator for a period of six months.

It was the turn of Ekiti State on 18^th October 2006. Prior to the proclamation of emergency rule in the state by President Obasanjo, three people were claiming to be the governor of the state: Mr. Ayo Fayose, who had been impeached in a controversial manner by the state legislators on 16^th October 2006; Mrs. (later Senator) Abiodun Olujimi, the state’s deputy governor, who was impeached alongside the governor; and Chief Friday Aderemi, the speaker of the House of Assembly, who had upgraded himself to acting governor.

It is worth adding that 24 of the 26 legislators started the move to impeach Fayose after they were repeatedly quizzed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). The legislators sacked the Chief Judge of the state, Justice Kayode Bamisile, when he set up a seven-member investigatory panel that they thought was loyal to Fayose. They appointed an acting chief judge who did their bidding; then they proceeded to impeach Fayose and his deputy to make the speaker the acting governor. Obasanjo said there was a breakdown of constitutional order which could lead to further violence and instability. He came hard on the state legislators for their overreach. He suspended the governor, the deputy governor, the acting governor and the state legislators for six months. He appointed Brig-Gen Tunji Olurin (rtd.) as administrator for the same period.

On 14^th May 2013, President Goodluck Jonathan proclaimed a state of emergency in three states in the North East after an escalation of attacks by Boko Haram on government targets and security forces in the affected states. The emergency was to ensure a surge in military deployment and to give the troops and other security agencies the latitude “to take all necessary action… to put an end to the impunity of insurgents and terrorists.” The governors and state legislators were not suspended, and rightly so—probably because they were not evidently part of the crisis (unlike the way Dariye and Fayose were in their respective states).

However, part of the approval that President Jonathan got was for the three governors and the legislators to take instructions on security issues from him or whoever he designated and to have power over the allocations to the states only for compensation and rehabilitation of those affected by the order. These too were extra-ordinary measures not expressly allowed in the constitution. If the gazetted proclamation had not been amended by the National Assembly, Jonathan wanted the governors and legislators to take instructions from him on all matters while their states were under emergency rule and for him to have the liberty to expend the allocations due to the states. The state of emergency in these states was extended twice but denied the third time. This was the only emergency that went beyond six months.

Now, to the patterns. The first is that there is always a sharp and strong difference of opinion anytime a state of emergency is declared. There has not been any time that a proclamation met with universal approval. Or disapproval. No matter the proximate cause and no matter how light or harsh the extraordinary measures deployed are, the declaration of emergency rule usually surfaces division. This division can take interesting turns. Obasanjo suspended Dariye and Fayose, both of whom are Christians, one from the North Central and the other from the South West. And both were governors produced from the same party as Obasanjo, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). That didn’t make the suspensions less controversial.

The leadership of PDP supported and lobbied for both suspensions. The opposition was divided on Dariye’s: the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) supported the suspension while the Alliance for Democracy (AD) and All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) strongly opposed it. The Conference of Nigerian Political Party (CNPP) accused Obasanjo of having a hidden agenda. The north was divided: the Christian north was against; while most from the Muslim north were in support. Middle Belt Forum described the emergency as hasty and unjust. The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) not only condemned the state of emergency as unfair but also called for same treatment for Kano State where there had been reprisal attacks. 

The emergency in Ekiti was opposed not just by the opposition parties but also by the Nigeria Governors Forum (then headed by Governor Lucky Igbinedion) and a group of parliamentarians mostly from PDP under the aegis of the 2007 Movement who alleged that Obasanjo was trying to resuscitate the defeated Third Term Agenda by moving to declare emergency in states and possibly in the whole country. This was the time when a legislative approval of the proclamation looked most unlikely. The states affected by Jonathan’s state of emergency in 2013 were opposition and northern states; and all Muslims while he is Christian. The fact that he didn’t remove the governors should have minimised the division. But most northerners, especially those from the North East, condemned the action. The main opposition parties, Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), naturally opposed Jonathan.

The second pattern, which is related to the first, is that political parties and prominent individuals pitch their tent based on their political alignments or interests. All Progressives Congress (APC) whose legacy parties stridently opposed earlier iterations of emergency rule and suspension of governors is now the leading advocate of what it used to oppose. In the same vein, PDP is now the leading antagonist of what it used to actively promote. There are also individuals who have taken interesting positions. The case of a certain Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as governor of Lagos State, is well known. On 19 May 2004, he issued a statement declaring the suspension of Dariye as unconstitutional: “there is no doubt that the proclamation…is a brazen breach of the constitution and portends grave danger to the republic.” He is now the same person who, as president, has imposed emergency rule in Rivers State and has suspended the governor, deputy governor and the state legislators.

Late Gani Fawehinmi, SAN, condemned Dariye’s suspension as wrong and “a violation of the constitution” and a throwback to 1962 (when the first state of emergency was declared in the Western Region). He asked Obasanjo himself to resign. But Fawehinmi expressly supported Fayose’s suspension, urged the National Assembly to ratify the presidential proclamation and called on EFCC to arrest and try Fayose for alleged corrupt practices. It is possible to square Fawehinmi’s position: he probably believed the president (and not the governors) should have overall responsibility for security in states but he would support any means to fight corruption. But how is one suspension inferior to another suspension? 

The 2013 emergency in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states had an unusual critic: Chief E.K. Clark. He said there was nothing like a partial state of emergency and that the three governors and the state legislators should be suspended. On 24^th April 2014, Chief Clark issued a statement that: “There is nothing like partial declaration of a state of emergency in the 1999 Constitution; what section 305(c) of the 1999 Constitution contemplates is the recourse to ‘…extraordinary measures to restore peace and security’ where there is ‘breakdown of public order and public safety.’ This in effect means that all democratic institutions should be suspended to permit the military exercise full control until peace and order returns.” It is conceivable that, were he alive, Chief Clark would have (for obvious reasons) decried the state of emergency in Rivers State. 

The third pattern is that despite the strident opposition, within and outside the political space, National Assembly members have always approved presidential proclamations of state of emergency. In some instances, there would be open debate; but in all instances, they go into executive sessions (including sometimes into more than one such session in a day) where they are possibly briefed on and where they likely discuss intelligence reports that cannot be put in the open. I don’t know if they find such intelligence reports convincing. But I reckon that legislators concede that whoever is the president has overall responsibility for national security and has more information than they could possibly have and they would therefore not want to second-guess him or stand in his way or give him an excuse.

I think this applies even when the president and the legislators are at loggerheads or have a cold relationship as in 2006 (when they threw out Third Term but still approved a state of emergency in Ekiti) and in 2013 (when Sen. Aminu Tambuwal as speaker and Jonathan were not the best of buddies and the House still approved emergency in the three North East states). This may also be the reason why the Supreme Court that found against the Federal Government on many issues would decline to rule that the suspension of governors is illegal.

Sometimes, there are other considerations such as small opposition parties going along with their bigger parties because of the day they would need them. Quid pro quo is part of parliamentary politics. Some of the legislators can also be conflicted: having openly supported state of emergency while in the ruling party, some may find it difficult to oppose just because they are now in opposition. So, after the huffing and puffing, the approval process usually becomes a way to fulfil all righteousness: the minority have their say while the majority have their way. Those opposed put their position on record and for those who look up to them. This is also probably why they don’t insist on division or actual counting of votes. Also, members pick their battles, as it is not every hill that is worth dying on. Only three members were seen on record to have spoken against the approval on Thursday and largely they focused on process issues: Senator Seriake Dickson and Hon. Fred Agbedi, both Ijaws from Bayelsa State; and Hon. Obi Aguocha, a Labour Party (LP) member from Abia State.

Another pattern is that though the constitution specifically prescribes ratification by two-thirds of all members of each of the two chambers, the voting is mostly done through consensus or results announced without actual tallying done. The closest to a vote was in 2004 when 95 senators were present on the day the proclamation was approved. After the executive session it was announced that 90 senators voted for and five voted against. The then Senate President, Senator Adolphus Wabara, asked those against to move to a side of the chambers reserved for minority parties: four from AD and one from PDP (Sen. Uche Chukwumerije). Senator Tokunbo Afikuyomi, one of the four AD senators, protested, asking for a proper division where each senator would stand up, mention their name and signify how they vote. He was overruled. In the House of Reps, it was reported that 261 members voted in favour and 30 against. But there was no record of actual tallying. In fact, Hon. John Longhor, spokesperson of the Plateau State caucus they had a list of 59 people against.

The situation was the same in 2006 and 2013: either those opposed failed to turn up or just allowed the majority to have their way. Sometimes, a number would be announced (as in the total of members that signed the attendance register that day). In 2013, for example, it was announced that 100 senators and 253 members were in attendance when the harmonised version of the proclamation was passed in the two chambers on 24^th May 2013. Sometimes, these numbers are contested, but feebly. Even for constitutional amendment, which equally requires two-thirds of all members, there is no evidence that actual rollcall or headcount takes place even when there are mechanisms for electronic voting in the chambers now.

There is a special buzz about inappropriateness/inadequacy of voice vote/community voting for approval of the state of emergency in Rivers State. A solid case can be made for this. The fact that approval was done unanimously/collectively in the past does not mean such a practice should become the norm. The fact that questions were not asked before does not nullify the need for the current questions. Today should be better than yesterday. Especially on contested issues, the threshold for transparency and accountability should consistently be high. I have gathered that some of those opposed to the state of emergency believed that the supporters did not have the numbers for legislative approval. They may or may not be right.

The way to check that would have been to actually test it by doing the heavy lifting of mobilising the applicable party and zonal caucuses before and during the vote for approval. You can’t change a system if you don’t understand its workings or you are not ready to do the work that can move the needle. Imagine if the leadership of the opposition parties had met with their parties members (and even sympathisers in the ruling party) and taken a unified positions before Thursday, had secured a list of those who would be voting against, had all gathered in the gallery to monitor proceedings and to provide guidance and support to their members, and if the opposition parties had insisted on division or actual headcount or had threatened to walk out en masse if that was not done. That is the realm of real politick. The majority could still have had its way, but would have had to sweat really hard for it. Such an approach would have been more meaningful than vacuous and performative acts like addressing the press while the voting was going on or releasing statements or sowing threads on social media after the fact.

President Bola Tinubu has dealt a fatal punch on Nigeria’s democratic prospects. As the head of the executive branch, he has injured the judiciary and subverted the legislature in what promises to be a dangerous drift towards authoritarianism.  On the Rivers crisis, the Supreme Court ruled on the side of deploying democratic methods to resolve outstanding issues in the crisis. The embattled Governor, Mr. Siminalayi Fubara, was in the process of obeying the Supreme Court when Tinubu struck a lethal political blow. The path of democratic resolution was shut in preference for the President’s preference for authoritarian fiat.

An untidy State of Emergency was declared to the astonishment of the nation. The President hastily announced a suspension of the governor and his deputy as well as all democratic structures in the state. He appointed a sole administrator for the state and inaugurated Mr. Ebas, a retired Navy Chief to run the oil rich State as he deems fit for the next six months. With literally no immediate national security concern, the  Attorney General of the federation tacitly admitted that the presidential action may have been somewhat hasty but was in a bid to avert an anticipated ugly security situation in the future;  the fear of what had not yet taken place. But the constitution provides for real credible security threats or real insecurity, not speculative fears of dangers lurking in the unknown future. You cannot invoke a constitutional measure against an anticipatory risk!

The expectation that the National Assembly could overturn the strange emergency declaration has also been dubiously subverted. Instead of a straightforward electronic or manual vote count followed by a numerical count to determine two thirds majority on either side of the proposition, the two arms of the National Assembly adopted a nebulous voice vote to hastily and sheepishly approve the presidential declaration of an emergency over Rivers state. There was hardly any informed debate on such a serious matter took place on the floor of the National Assembly. There was scarcely any review of the security situation in the state to necessitate the emergency declaration. Just a robotic rubber stamp “yes” in a manner that has become signature for the Tinubu era legislature. No one has yet verified the veracity of beer parlor rumours that the parliamentary rubber stamp came at a prices ranging from $25,000(for senators)  and $10,000 (for representatives)!

Prior to this sorry rubberstamp endorsement, national outcry against the declaration of the emergency had gone viral and widespread. Informed voices in Rivers State had cried out. So also had the leaders of the South South region, the Ijaw ethnic nationality and opposition political figures in the state. Governors of the South South zone had unanimously opposed the president’s declaration and suspension of Fubara and his Deputy. Notable lawyers in the nation have either as individuals or associations punched legal holes on the process and substance of the emergency declaration.

More significantly, key national opposition figures have since been screaming themselves hoarse on the illegality of the path taken by the president to arrive at this curious emergency declaration. Messrs Atiku Abubakar of the PDP, Peter Obi of the LP, Nasir El-Rufai of the SDP and a host of other smaller party voices have screamed out at the illegality and unconstitutionality of the entire process. It has been reported that the main opposition PDP has headed to court to challenge the emergency imposition.

Ordinarily, a security deterioration in any part of the nation that could warrant a State of Emergency ought to be self evident. The danger to national security ought to be so self-evident that the public mood would in fact demand that the president declare a state of emergency. None of that was evident in Rivers state in the last one week. But the president went ahead to make his curious declaration, giving the judgment of the Supreme Court or the democratic process no room to resolve the issues in question through dialogue. Instead, the President assumed the role of grand arbiter by declaring governor Fubara guilty on all counts. He accused the governor of willful damage to public property through the malicious demolition of the State House of Assembly. He equally accused the governor of single-handedly precipitating the political crisis in the state and rebuffing earlier peace overtures towards a resolution.

In its totality, the presidential broadcast making the emergency declaration was anything but statesmanlike. It was one-sided. It failed to balance the blames between Fubara and his traducers, especially the bullish FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike. It hardly mentioned Mr. Wike who is clearly the architect of the entire Rivers crisis. In assuming that Wike is innocent, the president was taking on a partisan stance that vilified the PDP and exonerated his own APC. The trouble though is that his man Wike is neither in PDP nor in APC. He is a political bat that can only happen in the Nigerian political landscape. It is a matter of serious concern that the president of the federal republic of Nigeria seemed too afraid to mention the name of Mr. Wike who is commonly known as the author of the crisis in Rivers State.

Not in one instance did the president mention the nefarious role of his Minister of the FCT and de facto Warrant Chief, Mr. Nyesom Wike, who has made the political destabilization of Rivers State an adjunct of his role as FCT Minister. It is road side knowledge that since he was appointed FCT Minister, Mr. Wike has spent more time fomenting political trouble in Rivers state than ensuring tolerable governance in the disorderly Federal Capital Territory which has recently become the crime headquarters of the nation.

On a political scale, the entire declaration of an unwarranted State of Emergency in Rivers State flies in the face of all sensible definitions of statesmanship or adherence to constitutional democracy. Its political undertone is implicit in Tinubu’s inclusions and exclusions in the text of the broadcast.

The move increasingly resonates with the President’s anxiety about his political future in 2027. It is common knowledge that in order to win a presidential election in Nigeria, a candidate needs to win the majority vote in a number of key population centres and states: Lagos, River/Port Harcourt, Kano and Abuja. In 2023, Tinubu nearly lost the presidential election because he was trounced in his Lagos home base, Abuja and Kano. He only ‘won’ in Rivers because Wike was on ground to allegedly manipulate the votes in  his home Obio Akpor Local Government area of Port Harcourt to deliver Rivers to Tinubu. This feat and fiat by Wike added to what sold Wike to Tinubu as a political contractor of immense value coupled with his use value as a permanent destabilizer of the opposition PDP and neutralizer of the Atiku Abubakar threat.

As things stand today, Wike remains Tinubu’s most valuable political  asset outside his South West home base where his stronghold has narrowed to the Lagos and Ogun areas from where the majority of his political appointees have been drawn. The other major vote catchment centres are all up for grabs by strong political opponents.

Beyond this nefarious investment in Wike as a dangerous geo political capital, Tinubu recognizes the strategic importance of the Niger Delta in the nation’s economics and politics. It is a zone of sleeping instability  that can alter –for good or ill- the context of the nation’s economy and security architecture. The heavily armed miscreants in the Ijaw creeks can negate the billions of dollars annually budgeted on defence spending by the Nigerian state Those rough kids in dugout wooden boats can alter the calculations about the global energy outlook and even determine oil prices in far away Vienna. It is therefore quite possible that Mr. Tinubu may have erred on the side of political caution by this hasty declaration to avoid security embarrassment should the Rivers situation get out of hand.

Whatever may be his prompting on this disastrous State of Emergency declaration, Mr. Tinubu has walked into a political minefield of multiple bad possibilities. By failing to name Wike as a wrong egg in the pack, he has consecrated the man into a political Warrant Chief of sorts who can hardly be touched without grave harm coming to the political calculations of the president towards 2027. By single-handedly suspending or impeaching Fubara, Tinubu has made himself a partisan  in  the political fight in Rivers. And to the best of my knowledge, Rivers is a precarious place to declare your partisanship so early in a brewing political fight.

As things now stand, it would be difficult to dissuade the common people of Rivers state from feeling a sense of victimhood. The Supreme Court had ruled against their entitlement to their constitutionally guaranteed federal revenue  because of disagreements among politicians. Now the president has declared an emergency garrison rule over them thus placing them under an implicit military rule, thereby reducing further their freedoms and rights as Nigerian citizens. The ordinary Rivers person in Port Harcourt or Bonny is bound to ask: “What have we done to deserve this treatment?” Do the peoples of the South South region have a right to feel that Tinubu is treating them like a zone of conquered people? Such a feeling of alienation has political consequences which I am sure both Tinubu  and his handlers fully understand.

Worse still, by taking unconstitutional steps to declare and sustain his State of Emergency, Tinubu may have walked in the direction of early steps towards unconstitutional and authoritarian rule. On that route, his highly informed opponents in the race for 2027 are waiting with a public that is already weaponized and angry against him for reasons of economic desperation and hardship. A largely unpopular president would be taking a big risk by taking actions  that alienate significant populations.

A slide towards naked authoritarianism and unconstitutional rule cannot possibly enhance the re-election chances of an unpopular president who is merely surviving on a tenuous mandate.

“Everything is my business. Everything. Anything I say is law…literally law.” Barbara Geddes, et al in their How dictatorship works (2018) quoted Malawian dictator, Hastings Kamuzu Banda, as having once said the above.

In Nigeria of a little more than a week ago, they all came in quick successions: A National Assembly where libido ran riot; a son who said his father was Nigeria’s best president; a corps member who condemned that same father as terrible and that president, when he wakes up and looks at the mirror, sees himself as “the law”. In the hands of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Nigeria appears to have become one complex, complicated web of mess and intrigues. When a people suffer such plague of multiple, endless afflictions, my people deploy a phrasal description to denote it. So, they compare such situation to an “egbinrin òtè ”. Egbinrin òtè is a situation that defies solution. It scorns the biblical exhortation that affliction would not rise a second time. Under Tinubu’s egbinrin òtè  Nigeria, afflictions come in multiple folds. Literally, egbinrin ote is leaves of conspiracy. In usage, however, it is a scary, endless tale of repetitive sorrow. The affliction is sustained by a coldblooded-ness or bloodlessness. When you cut a leaf out of the branch of this tree, another sprouts immediately. In manifestation, you can compare an egbinrin òtè situation to the biblical cursed fig tree, doomed to bring out a sap of sorrow. 

Son of Nigerian president, Seyi Tinubu, was in Adamawa State last week. As he spoke, arrogance dripped out of him like foul-smelling bead of sweats. Except for the bombastic claim that his father was “the greatest president in the history of Nigeria,” which empirical facts do not support, every other claim in that address lacks collocation, context or even logic. Who are the “they” who keep coming “for your father” and for “me”? Whose father is “Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu”? Did Seyi mean that fatherhood in the sense of Tinubu being the Nigerian president?

Fatherhood requires responsibility. It is not by a seminal fluid accident. Not every person who occupies Aso Rock is the Nigerian’s father. Children must see themselves in their father and vice versa. Nigerians will indeed desire that Tinubu ‘fatherlizes’ them, in which case, he will act like a father in all material particular. To the millions of Nigerians who go to bed hungry every night, and the democratic tenets that Tinubu stomps upon like a matador, he is better described as a dictator next door.

If you attempt to overstretch blood ties but fail in family responsibility, my people will stop you in your strides. They then will tell you that, when issues get to the brass-tack, a “mother-of-all” can identify her biological children (Ìyá ẹgbẹ mọ iye ọmọ e). If Seyi needs to hear the truth, what Nigerians see in Tinubu isn’t a father and that is why his other claim that the Tinubu economy has “benefited all” must have rankled suffering Nigerians. When he now said his father was “the only president that is not trying to enrich his own pocket,” many Nigerians must have fainted.

In Nigeria of close to two years now under Tinubu, we are faced with what, in grammar, is called irregular comparative and superlative adjectives. They are adjectives that don’t follow methods. When you conclude that a thinking coming out of Aso Rock is bad, wait for the next minute, worse one will follow. When you begin to lament the worse situation, then the worst happens. And this trajectory happens endlessly, like Sisyphus’. When Nigeria’s senate president was accused of a riotous libido some weeks ago, Nigerians thought their Sisyphus ruling elite had rolled the boulder up hill. Then we watched as the tail began to wag the dog and the antelope pursued the hunter. We thought wonders had ended. Wonders came out a while later to announce that it was yet to begin. 

As Seyi was waxing illogical in his mis-canonization of his father in Adamawa as “one who gave the youth the wing to fly”, another egbinrin ote was billowing. Ushie Rita Ugamaye, a serving corps member, was literally told that in Tinubu’s Nigeria, the youth can only fly if they grovel by the president’s feet. In a social media post she made, Ugamaye lamented the excruciating existence Nigerians live under Seyi’s father’s government. Speaking directly to him, she said: “I don’t know if there is any other president that is as terrible as you… you are such a terrible president.” Thereafter, NYSC authority subjected Ugamaye to threats and eventually got her to apologize for her views on the gruelling economic life Nigerians live under Tinubu.

Ugamaye’s tortuous week in the hands of Tinubu’s hirelings is a mirror of the kind of life citizens live under repressive governments. A major example of this kind of rule was under the Malawian and Zimbabwean presidents, Hastings Kamuzu Banda and Robert Mugabe. The people of these countries lived in palpable fear of their presidents. Not only was dissent criminalized, condemnation of the Fuhrers was treasonable. Both men began with negligible cases like Ugamaye’s and gradually harvested a captive citizenry from whom they wrung cult-like devotion under an atmosphere of fear. In Malawi, national grovelling and beatification of Banda were the norm. It was so bad that in June, 1967, Banda was awarded a honourary doctorate by a university with the epithet that he was a “… pediatrician to his infant nation”! Rather than a “terrible president,” the clowns at the NYSC would rather Ugamaye thumbed up Tinubu as the “ngwazi” – “saviour” or “conqueror” with which Malawians addressed Banda.

Then, another billow of a smouldering egbinrin ote oozed out. On March 18, Tinubu wielded the big stick. He imposed a state of emergency on Rivers State, suspending the governor, Siminalayi Fubara, deputy and the House of Assembly for six months. In my last week instalment, I referred to Tinubu as a partial judge. With the proclamation of emergency rule, he earned another infamous medallion. In his nationwide address which read like a coup speech, without any remorse or pretence, Tinubu unapologetically removed the veil of his partiality in the Rivers imbroglio. A few hours after, allegedly under heavy disbursement of grafts, the two national parliaments gave his coup against democracy legislative imprimatur.

I think, judging by his almost two years in office, there is an urgent need by Nigerians to begin to assess the psychology that underpins Tinubu’s actions in power. We can do this by conducting a post-mortem on his words and actions in private. This will enable us to know how tortuous the road with Tinubu as Nigerian leader would be in the years to come. In a bid to forewarn that the character in a duel is a principality of  humongous evil, Juju maestro, King Sunny Ade, once warned, using the Ijesa dialect as a kicker, that, “Wé m’ẹni o kó, Paddy…” I think, in Tinubu, Nigerians do not realize what principality in power they are entangled with.

So, it brought me to critical questions about Tinubu’s persona. The first is, when God’s-creation-Bola-Ahmed-Tinubu wakes up every morning, does he think there is God? Or, put differently, doesn’t he think he is God? Or, more explicitly, that he is the Nigerian God? Simulating the craft of anthropologists who gather information through fieldwork and participant observation, I have spoken with those who sat around Tinubu before he became president. They believe Tinubu has a God mentality. For instance, they cited him telling fawners who gathered round him in his Lagos Bourdillon court at wee hours of the night, when he was ready to go and sleep, that, “Èkó fẹ lọ sún – Lagos wants to go and sleep. Forget the arrogance in that word, it explains the God that Tinubu thinks he is.

Again, those who witnessed the Nigerian president’s youth period in Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State, told me he went through a challenging time. He had to cobble together bric-a-brac for existence and learnt rough tackle tactics of the street. He emerged therefrom a street folk to the hilt, with his unorthodox survival methods. Decades after, the man who would be Nigeria’s president had had mastery of the colour of roughness and the language of manipulation. These have proven to be handy and essential tools in the Nigerian gangbanger political underworld.

The street has taught Tinubu to become so versatile in persona code-switching. It is such that, at one time, he is at home in the rough world of the MC Oluomos and musician, Wasiu Ayindes and at another, he blends perfectly with the varnished world of international leaders. He has faced life tribulations that drowned Goliaths, walked through landmines that made mincemeat of the brave and emerged therefrom unscathed. These experiences can get a man to do either of two things: become the staunchest atheist who is persuaded of his own ability and scoffs at the God factor in human affair. Or, become the most supine God worshipper. I think these harsh life experiences and his conquest of battles through street shenanigans must have scarred the president’s soul irreparably. The scar must have made fellow human beings appear as tiny as gnats in his estimation.

Tinubu is one of the boldest leaders in the history of Nigeria. He possesses a chest wide enough to damn consequences. I seem to think that he has swallowed the Devil. With his raw hand, he can pull chestnut from red-hot furnace. He is not afraid to bite any bullet. The world may be on the verge of being incinerated but the street folk looks at the end game. It is a trait you get on the street. Street people are Machiavellian. To them, the end justifies the means. Unlike him, virtually all Nigerian military rulers, who were equally bold, got theirs consummated in fiery military traditions, especially grueling military training. Tinubu’s was weaned from the furnace of a heartless street.

The proclamation of a state of emergency in Rivers State by Tinubu should tell Nigerians that what we have today is personal rule disguised as civil rule. In such rule, the people are forced to swallow dosages of authoritarianism. As consequence, gradually, national public politics wither. Tinubu’s palace politics makes the future of democratic government look bleak in Nigeria. Barbara Geddes, et al also said that a major feature of personal rule is that the ruler conscripts the judiciary, castrates the political system and gets a pliant legislature. An icing on the cake of this infamy is a captive populace. Tinubu has all these by his palm. In the voice vote of the two parliaments last week, a somber Nigeria should not just see a grim democratic future but a gradual incubation of a Kamuzu Banda in Nigeria in the shortest possible time.

In his oxymoronic authoritarian-democrat posture, Tinubu is gradually morphing into the Banda model. He is the law. He is the legislature. He is the Fuhrer. So when Lateef Fagbemi, his Attorney General, came out to read an address which reified Tinubu’s earlier rough stomp on the Nigerian constitution, all seems set on this road to Tinubu’s personal rule. Banda also had executioners who helped him dig the grave of Malawian democracy. Fagbemi had threatened Nigerian states that the cudgel with which Tinubu lashed the buttocks of democratic government in Rivers State is on the rafters waiting for any other governor who fails to grovel before Banda. Soon, this same legislature, with Fagbemi’s cavalier lending of self to autocracy, would land us in Malawi of 1970. That year, a congress of Banda’s political party, the MCP, declared him president for life. In 1971, Malawi’s Godswill Akpabio and Tajudeen Abass as heads of the legislature did this. I guess a Fagbemi was there for Banda, too. For the next quarter of a century, it was criminal not to address Banda with his full title, “His Excellency the Life President of the Republic of Malawi, Ngwazi Dr. H. Kamuzu Banda.”

NIGERIA is touted as the second most religious country in the world; after the Taliban’s Afghanistan. Similarly, it is said to be the second most impoverished; again, after the same Afghanistan! Be they Christian or Muslim, religious Nigerians wear their religion like a badge. Outwardly they are pious; but inwardly they are worse than whited sepulchres, just like Jesus Christ bemoaned in Matthew 23: 27: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness”. This is the period of the Muslim Ramadan; it is also the Christians’ Lenten season. Ongoing is the 100 days of fasting and prayer declared by the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), perhaps, the country’s most celebrated pentecostal church.

 Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, which is observed by Muslims worldwide as a holy month of fasting, prayer, reflection, and community. Considered as one of the five pillars of Islam, it started here in Nigeria this year 2025 on February 28th/March 1st and is expected to end on March 30th. Ramadan is the month in which the Quran, the holy book of the Muslims, is believed to have been revealed to Prophet Muhammed. Because the spiritual rewards of fasting are believed to be multiplied during Ramadan, Muslims generally refrain, not only from food and drink, but also from all behaviour deemed to be sinful, devoting themselves instead to prayer and study of the Quran. In my secondary school days when we observed the Ramadan, you would often hear from someone observing the fast but who has been offended say to the offender: “You are lucky it is Ramadan! But be sure we shall revisit after Ramadan!”

 On the other hand, Christians begin Lent on Ash Wednesday and it runs for 40 days, leading to Easter Sunday, during which period Christians remember the events leading to, and including the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, whose life and teachings are the foundation of Christianity. This year’s Lent began on 5 March and runs till 17 April. For Christians, it is time of solemnity and sober reflection on the sacrifice Jesus made for mankind on the cross at Calvary; it is also a time of asking for forgiveness; and when Christians prepare to celebrate Jesus’s resurrection and the feast of Easter, which comes up at the very end of Lent. Why 40 days’ fasting? According to some scholars, this is done as a sign of sacrifice and to test or build up one’s self-discipline; representing Jesus Christ’s own sacrifice when he went into the desert to pray and fast for 40 days, where he was tempted of the devil and overcoming the temptation, he went there from to lay down his life on the cross.

 As we speak, millions of Muslims and Christians in Nigeria are in the thick of Ramadan and Lent. In addition, the 100-day fasting declared by Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye, General Overseer of RCCG, commenced on January 11th and ends on April 21st because, according to him, 2025 is a landmark year of grace and glory and there was no better way to begin it than setting aside a special time for fasting and prayer. Nigeria, undoubtedly, is a religion-inclined country but whether the people are truly religious or pious remains to be seen. In times past, periods of Ramadan, Lent, and fasting and prayer sessions as decreed by Pastor Adeboye would be seen as periods of abstinence from sinful conducts; from war-mongering and shedding of blood; from controversies, conflicts, confusion, and acrimony; they would be periods when every heart, spirit, and soul would, in penitence, point skyward in the direction of God. Even soldiers on the war front and in battle fields ceased hostilities to observe and honour the occasions. No more!

 In Nigeria, it has become the most appropriate season to create what social media sarcastically described as Nigeria’s 37th State – the State of Emergency in Rivers State! It is a time for discord and strife; for confusion and conflict; for flexing of muscles; and for rationalizing the irrational. It is another season for unending controversies over trivialities and trifles while serious matters are left unattended to. Witness, for example, how my beloved Ondo State has become the killing field of Fulani herders while the authorities, like King Nero, fiddle! Do we need or must we wait for the Supreme Court to tell us that there is absence of governance in Ondo State before we act? This is a season to plunder the treasury; to give and receive bribes; to speak from both sides of the mouth; to go back on one’s word; to trample justice and throw equity and fairness out of the window. This is the season of might is right. The powers-that-be have their way; the weak, poor, and downtrodden suffer their fate! All of these in the holy month of Ramadan and Lent running concurrently with Adeboye’s 100 days of fasting and prayer! None of the protagonists in the crises that befuddle us is an advertised pagan, idol worshipper, Isese person, or even an atheist. They are mostly advertised Muslims and Christians, with chains of religious titles and decorations to boot!

 In Rivers State, the governor (godson) has been punished; the House of Assembly members (the willing pawns in the chess game between godson and godfather) have been punished; what – and where – is the punishment for the godfather, seen by many as the big masquerade behind the imbroglio? That is the question many are asking. Had he been allotted his own portion of blame as was done to the governor and the House, many commentators’ angst would have been assuaged and the state of emergency bitter pill would have been sweeter to swallow for many. Leaving him out smacks of undue favouritism and hatchet job which, to many, leaves much to be desired. If Wike was not part of the problem, as the Minister of Justice appeared to have reasoned, why was he a recurring decimal in all the peace meetings called by Mr. President? But it is not rocket science to understand why he has been left unscathed! Can we expect a man jealously guarding his own political structure in Lagos to frown at another person fighting tooth-and-nail to keep his in Rivers? 

 But let me say from the onset that I do not pity the estranged godson. He deserves his fate. What I detest is how it was served. Mr. President should have allowed the child to die from the mother’s hand. Since the House of Assembly members have already initiated impeachment proceedings against the governor, the law ought to have been allowed to run its course if, truly, we are a country under law. That is how our democracy can grow. Aborting the process is what has now entangled the President in the controversy of the constitutionality of his action and the altruism of his motive. Was there a suspicion that the Chief Judge of Rivers state would not play ball? If he rejects the House’s instruction to set up a panel to try the governor, like the then Chief Judge of Ondo State did when the then Gov. Rotimi Akeredolu tried to impeach his deputy, Agboola Ajayi, that could be the end of the road.

 Simply put, the state of emergency went rogue, fishing in troubled waters. A belated argument that it was done to save Siminalayi Fubara from impeachment is bunkum! An afterthought! Jejune rationalization! They should tell that to the marines! What has Fubara done to deserve being saved? Is he their friend? Na today day break, as they say? A better way – in fact, the only way – to save him, if really they had meant to, was to clip the wings of the godfather, which was within their powers to do! Why have they left him untouched? Permit me to liken this situation to what Ibrahim Babangida did while stepping aside from office in August 1993: He left Sani Abacha behind to watch over the Interim National Government of Chief Ernest Shonekan! Leaving the cat to protect the rat! The rest, as they say, is history!

 Knowing how deputy governors are maltreated here, is it not possible that the Rivers State deputy governor had no hand, and no say, in the godson/godfather tango that led to the declaration of state of emergency? If the governor was the problem and had to be removed, why was his deputy not allowed to take charge? Why we have deputy governors and vice presidents is because we believe that in the absence of the principal, the subordinate can step in and do a good job.

 The House of Assembly members, in my view, have also not been fairly treated. They wanted to work but it was the governor that did not let them. Their place of work was demolished. Rather than engage in self-help as we have seen others do in other parts of the country, they took their case to court and won. The Supreme Court had harsh words for the governor and not for the House. So, why penalise them? Simply because we want a so-called level-playing ground? Again, permit me to liken this issue to the “resolution” of the political impasse that attended the criminal annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election won by MKO Abiola. Once Abacha died (or was got rid of?) on 8 June, 1998, to balance the equation meant that Abiola had to follow a month later on 7 July, 1998). What differentiates a democracy, especially representative democracy, from other forms of government is the parliament, which is made up of elected representatives of the people. Without it, democratic governance is absent in Rivers state.

 Back to the godson. Why did I say he got what he deserved? To start with, he chose to ride on the back of a tiger into office. Getting there, he decided to disembark and trash the tiger! Use and dump! But we all know where he will end up if he is not strong and smart enough! Was he the most qualified when he was railroaded into office by the godfather? Did he win the election on his own? How dare he then think he could govern on his own terms? Biting the fingers that fed you! Grandma taught me that when someone invites you to come and eat, it is sacrilege to remove his hand from the pot. Shifting the goalpost!  Fubara was an apprentice who was too hasty to declare his freedom when he had not learnt work finish, as they say! Greed! Utter folly!

 I have read and listened to many viewpoints on this matter: Constitutionality, Supreme Court judgment; 2027; the defence of the state of emergency by the Minister of Justice; the governor’s demolition of the House of Assembly building; Fubara running the budget with a four-member Legislature (as if the immediate past Edo State governor, Godwin Obaseki, didn’t act similarly!); the past stance of Tinubu against state of emergency; the past of the newly-appointed sole administrator; his perceived chubby (?) relationship with the FCT minister, Nyesom Wike, etc. When some commentators advocated for the National Assembly to shoot down the state of emergency, I laughed! Which National Assembly? Rubberstamp? Are they living in this country or in a fool’s paradise? And do they understand what is at stake?

Whether intentionally or by coincidence, militants allegedly started attacking the oil pipelines and Nigeria’s oil production as the House served impeachment notice on Fubara; the pot of soup of the political class was thus put in jeopardy. The moment this was hung on Fubara’s neck – whether it was calling a dog a bad name to hang it or the embattled governor was guilty as charged – I knew he was as good as gone. Whatever any member of the ruling class is saying now – Atiku, Obi, South-South governors, PDP, even Labour – is merely winning political points for optics. Whoever touches the goose that lays the golden egg touches the apple of our political elites’ eyes!

 For it is written: ”He suffered no man to do them wrong: yea, he reproved kings for their sakes; Saying, Touch not my anointed, and do my prophets no harm” (Psalm 105: 14).

 Crude oil is the “anointed” of Nigeria’s ruling class; and the petro-dollar that flows from it is their “prophet”. Touch not! 

If anyone had told me in 2004 that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu would one day, as president of Nigeria, declare emergency rule in a state and suspend a governor because of a squabble between a godfather and his godson, I would have said: “Stop it! Tinubu would never do that!” But you should forgive me: those were the days I still vehemently believed the battle for the soul of Nigeria was between the good guys and the bad guys, the forces of good and the forces of evil, the progressives and the reactionaries, the heroes and the villains. I was a sympathiser of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) and Afenifere. I loved their rhetoric about “principles”, democracy, rule of law, justice and all.

But I gained my freedom from the fantasy sometime in 2006 when I saw the “progressives” and the “reactionaries” romancing each other on the podium “to fight President Olusegun Obasanjo’s dictatorship” and “rescue our democracy”. In an article titled ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, It’s All Politics’ (THISDAY, 15/04/2007), I wrote: “Each time I see Tom Ikimi and Lam Adesina stand by each other on the Action Congress soap box, something dies in me. I easily remember the Sani Abacha era when Chief MKO Abiola was clamped into detention and Lam was taken as ‘prisoner of war’ by the military. Ikimi, then foreign minister, went around the world justifying the murderous reign of Abacha…”

That was when I gained my freedom — both as a political animal and a writer. Many people who used to read me before and after 2007 started accusing me of “sitting on the fence”. I laughed. No, I wasn’t sitting on the fence: I only stopped being an idiot. I only overcame deceit and naïvety. As Igbo elders would say, what a dog saw and is barking is the same thing a goat saw and merely grunted. If you want to fool yourself, keep propagating the belief that the battle in Nigerian politics is between the good guys and the bad guys. I started seeing clearly a very long time ago. People will commend something today and condemn the same thing tomorrow depending on their biases. So it goes.

That was why when the All Progressives Congress (APC) was formed in 2013 “to rescue Nigeria from bad governance” and “save our democracy”, I chuckled — but I was still happy that the opposition was finally getting its act together to take on the PDP. In an article titled ‘Every Reason to Cheer’ (THISDAY, 01/12/2013), I wrote: “I do not believe PDP is a party of sinners and APC is a party of saints. I do not believe only PDP rigs or only PDP is filled with corrupt and inept leaders. I would love to say that in order to earn some applause, but my conscience will not allow me. Nigerian politicians, no matter their party, language and religion, are basically the same. Let’s not kid ourselves.”

Let’s now travel back to May 2004 when Obasanjo declared emergency rule in Plateau state and suspended Governor Joshua Dariye. Tinubu, then governor of Lagos state, was politically opposed to Obasanjo and had survived the 2003 governorship election by the skin of his teeth. In fact, on the INEC website, PDP’s Funsho Williams had been declared the winner even before the votes had been collated. Obasanjo and the PDP had taken the governorships of the other five south-west states in an operation executed with military precision. How Tinubu survived the blitzkrieg is a story to be told another day, preferably by him. The long and short of it was that Obasanjo could not take him out.

But Tinubu still felt very vulnerable with the Plateau development. He condemned Obasanjo, declared the suspension of the governor as illegal and unconstitutional, and raised the alarm that he was also a target. AD leaders condemned Obasanjo’s action as well. The “progressives” rose up against Obasanjo. Respected constitutional experts, including the late Prof Ben Nwabueze, told Obasanjo he did not have the right to suspend an elected governor. Senator Tokunbo Afikuyomi, representing Lagos West, told reporters in Abuja: “This is a sad day for democracy. It’s a day we should hang our heads, not celebrate.” However, Obasanjo’s men and lapdogs supported the action.

It’s been well recounted how President Goodluck Jonathan came under fire from Tinubu in May 2013 for declaring emergency rule in three north-eastern states — Adamawa, Borno and Yobe — to tackle Boko Haram. Jonathan did not even suspend any governor, yet Tinubu took him to the cleaners, describing the action as “a deliberate ploy to subvert constitutional democracy”. Yes, he said it. Hear him: “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 [these] elected governments for… diabolic partisanship geared towards 2015.” It was all politics!

Mr Mohammed Bello Adoke, then attorney-general, said he had advised against suspending the governors because no single constitutional provision gives the president such powers. If the framers wanted the governor suspended, they would have so stated. Suspending a governor is too weighty to skip the minds of the framers. A basic interpretation principle is that what the law does not provide for, you cannot import into it. Adoke said what Obasanjo did in Plateau in 2004 — and repeated in Ekiti in 2006 — was unconstitutional. They don’t make attorneys-general like Adoke anymore. He was hated by the PDP hawks for this but he stood his ground. Credit to Jonathan for standing by him.

Well, the PDP is long gone — since May 29, 2015, to be precise — but the APC that fought “for democracy” is now doing the same things they used to criticise. All the acidic statements issued against the PDP back in the day by the APC, usually signed by Alhaji Lai Mohammed, are still valid — all you have to do is delete anywhere “PDP” appears and replace it with “APC”. Bizarrely, it is now the turn of PDP (or SDP or whoever) “to rescue Nigeria from dictatorship” and “save our democracy”. I laugh! I am not saying our politicians should not talk a good game. I am only saying I’ve seen enough not to be deceived into seeing it as a game between saints and sinners. The APC is my witness.

After the protracted face-off between Governor Simi Fubara and Chief Nyesom Wike, Tinubu finally gave Rivers the Obasanjo treatment on Tuesday by declaring emergency rule. He suspended Fubara and the house of assembly for six months. First, let it be on record that I am against the fact that Fubara started fighting with Wike so early. He was naïve to think he could take out Wike so easily. That was tactless. A Yoruba proverb says a child does not start investigating his father’s death until he can handle the sword. Let it also be on record that I am against how Fubara bulldozed the assembly complex and started presenting bills to just four out of 31 lawmakers. What is wrong is wrong.

That said, Wike himself is too intense in his desire to control his political base. I know that no politician wants to be muscled out in the game. He will be aware that the day Tinubu drops him from the cabinet, he will become stark naked without controlling his Rivers’ base the same way the president sits on top of Lagos state. So, I can smell Wike’s anxiety and insecurity. But he has been picking fights with too many of his friends and allies. He needs to pause at some point and rethink his politics. No doubt, he is an achiever: nobody can go to Port Harcourt or Abuja and deny his footprints on those cities. But he risks sacrificing everything and everyone on the altar of political nerves.

Are we really surprised at Tinubu’s action? He is a godfather himself and has quenched every rebellion in Lagos, including the recent attempt to remove the speaker without his express approval. Wike is not only his minister but also played a key role in weakening his own party, the PDP, in the 2023 presidential election to help Tinubu. Wike is also holding down the party ahead of 2027, so there are no prizes for guessing why Tinubu is in his corner. And as Olusegun Adeniyi, the frontline columnist, wrote, Fubara and his advisers failed to reckon with federal might in picking this fight. In the words of Bolaji Abdullahi, the former youth and sports minister, “Nigeria will always defeat you.”

I am aware of the argument that there was a breakdown of law and order in Rivers. But it was a crisis that could have been resolved with sincerity and without a state of emergency. Fubara had started retracing his steps after the Supreme Court ruling. There were no other issues that could not have been resolved over dinner. I am also aware of the news that a pipeline was “bombed” supposedly by militants loyal to Fubara — a perfect setting to justify the declaration of emergency rule a few hours later. We know all these things. With all the huffing and puffing, we know that the whole drama is not about food, shelter and clothing for the poor people of Rivers. Fellow Nigerians, it is all politics.

AND FOUR OTHER THINGS…

‘AYE’ SAYERS

Someone said if they explain Nigeria to you and you understand, then they didn’t explain it well. Aware that it was going to be difficult or even impossible to get the constitutionally stipulated two-thirds majority to approve the emergency rule in Rivers, the leadership of the national assembly chose to do “voice vote”. Did they even form quorum? Why not do a headcount for the sake of transparency if they were really sure of themselves? Then, how will saying “aye” and “nay” give us the accurate figure of those who voted for and against the motion? Our lawmakers have never covered themselves in glory but they took duplicity to a higher level on Thursday. Abracadabra.

EMERGENCY LAWYERS

Some commentators have tried to justify the emergency rule in Rivers by referring to the Emergency Powers Act 1961 that the Balewa government used to suspend the Western Region government in 1962. They contend that the law is still valid. The late Prof Ben Nwabueze addressed this issue as far back as 2004 by explaining that the law lapsed under section 65(2) of the 1960 Constitution which defined its lifespan. It was no longer in force thereafter, he wrote, and it was not even reproduced in the Laws of Nigeria 1990. That apart, I think the framers of the 1979/1999 Constitutions would have incorporated the provisions under section 305 if they wanted the laws and regulations retained. Easy.

CRUDE ARRANGEMENT

When you think it is all calm and quiet, then another eruption. The naira-for-crude deal between the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Ltd and local refineries seemed to be going well, at least in my reckoning. Then we woke up one day to learn that it had ended and a renewal was being negotiated. In the meantime, the Dangote refinery has stopped loading products for local markets, a situation that could cause shortages and hurt the economy. I have lost interest in the underlying politics but whatever the issues are, they have to be sorted out. Why do we wait till the end of a deal before renegotiating? Why create an avoidable lacuna? Why are we always like this? Ridiculous.

NO COMMENT

Has anybody heard former president Olusegun Obasanjo comment on the state of emergency declared in Rivers state by President Bola Tinubu? Did I miss it? I have been googling without success. This is very unlike Obasanjo. He usually has an opinion on every national issue. He is not known to be a fan of Tinubu and they have been having a cat-and-mouse game for as long as I can remember. You would expect Obasanjo to be the first to comment on such a critical matter. Let me be fair to him: what would he say? Let me guess: “What Tinubu has done by declaring a state of emergency and suspending the governor is unconstitutional and an act of dictatorship.” Hahaha.