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.

When Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu declared a state of emergency on oil-rich Rivers State last week, the issue took over every waking minute of Nigerians at home and abroad.

Someday, historians are going to make a meal of the various views, declarations and subterfuges at play. By the time the true story of what transpired is fully told, most, if not all the dramatis personae, would have been long dead. What will outlive them is the verdict of history.

But that is still, hopefully, a long way ahead. There is another state of emergency which has been begging to be declared for quite a while. It has festered because the attitude of those in government seemed to indicate that the monster would die a natural death if left unchallenged. Now, the monster of insecurity raging under the mask of armed herdsmen is sweeping from the North through the Middle Belt to the Southwest of Nigeria.

Undeclared War

There is an undeclared war going on in the Southwest between unarmed farmers and fully-armed bandits disguised as herdsmen. Before this current upsurge, conspiracy theorists had predicted that as the Southwest was the most peaceful and most economically vibrant part of the country, some hired killers would soon invade the region to, first, threaten food security and second depopulate the area.

Now, how would one describe the recent cold-blooded murder of five farmers by armed herdsmen at Aba Oyinbo in Akure North Local Government Area of Ondo State, two weeks after murdering 20 farmers in four farm settlements in the same local government area? The local community said they had had enough and invaded the governor’s office in Akure to seek answers.

If there’s a mastermind behind the recent scourge of banditry, kidnapping and outright mass murders inflicted on innocent farmers, rural folk, commuters and community leaders in the Southwest, that evil genius must rank very highly in Hades and counterpart infernal regions. It is all too well planned and executed to be accidental. Anyone with a little knowledge of geography will readily plot the graph of the movement of the killing bands from one part of the country to another. The ensuing pattern will reveal a carefully hatched campaign of violence by gangs of terrorists who have converted forests nationwide to their killing fields.

Three years ago, the innocence of Owo town in Ondo State was breached by mass murderers who invaded a Catholic Church on a Sunday morning and gunned down at least 40 worshippers. Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of blessed memory cast protocol aside as he stood dolefully on the altar facing the array of victims’ coffins and fired a teary salvo: “We have failed to defend these people… Not because we have not tried, but because these forces on the other side are evil and they have support. They will not triumph over us forever!” Akeredolu warned that the Federal Government’s inability to secure life and property in the country would soon leave citizens with no choice but to arm themselves in self-defence.

He later announced the ban on herdsmen and their cattle from Ondo State forests because of their engagement in criminal activities. The Federal Government, which had been helpless in protecting the people, suddenly found its voice. It cautioned that the state government could not expel Nigerian citizens whose right to reside and exercise their livelihoods anywhere in the country was protected by the Constitution. That posture has fuelled the agitation of several separatist groups in the Southwest who argue that the dismantling of Nigeria is the only way to ensure self-preservation.

Para-Security

Shortly after that massacre, the Amotekun security outfit was operationalised. As usual, high ranking officials of the Muhammadu Buhari government opposed the request of some states to establish armed security bodies of their own, claiming that there were already too many guns in circulation. But what manner of federation is this where some vandals are allowed to carry weapons as part of their costume while everyone else must simply run for cover or buy their way out when kidnapped?

In November 2020, in addition to the economic and security dimensions of the problem, marauding bandits further breached traditional mores and taboos with the slaying of a prominent traditional ruler in Ondo State, the Olufon of Ifon, Oba Israel Adeusi. The royal father was shot at Elegbeka community along the Ifon-Benin Highway.

Ondo State lies entirely in the tropics. It is bounded in the North by Ekiti/Kogi State; in the East by Edo State; in the West by Oyo and Ogun States and in the South by the Atlantic Ocean. Strategically therefore, it is a state that links the Southwest to the North and the Southeast and has the capacity for international commerce and maritime travel through the Atlantic Ocean.

The authorities are certainly aware of the gravity of the current situation as evidenced by the recent call by the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Olufemi Oluyede, on his troops to rise collectively and fight kidnapping, banditry, and other criminal activities which were becoming rampant in the Southwest as the terrorists migrated southwards.

Gani Adams, the Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland had called on the governors of the Southwest not to treat the security threats posed by the herdsmen as isolated incidents because there are no physical boundaries in the forests.

“Apart from the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC), there are still over 10 private security groups known as the Southwest Security Stakeholders Group (SSSG) under my leadership and we are ready to flush terrorists and bandits out of Yorubaland with the collaboration of all the governors in the region,” says Adams.

All the para-security organisations which have spoken to the media are also convinced that they can stamp out banditry and kidnapping if given the necessary legal and logistic backing of the state governments and traditional rulers.

Stop The Madness

The nation waits with bated breath for the federal government’s promised intervention with modern ranching to replace the medieval wandering from forest to forest currently practiced by the herdsmen. The establishment of state police is also still a dream.

All men and women of goodwill all over the country want the wanton killings orchestrated by bands of murderous bandits stopped nationwide – whether it is in Sokoto, Kano, Enugu, Owo, Yenagoa, Gboko or Ibadan. The danger of the continued terror of armed herdsmen outside their home territories is that as the years go by, all members of their tribe are unfairly profiled as terrorists and treated as such.

But not all Fulani people are terrorists! You try and say that to the indigenes of a town whose traditional ruler, second only to the gods, is picked up like a common dog on the highway, gasping in the pool of his own blood. This unspeakable horror is happening in the Yoruba region where the indigenes have historically had hundreds of years of interaction with cattle herding Fulani without stress. If you can’t read between the lines, may your soul rest in peace.

As popular singer, Asha, famously crooned:

There’s fire on the mountain

And nobody seems to be on the run

There is fire on the mountain top

And no one is a-running…

Before we all start running helter-skelter, I hereby beg to move for the declaration of a State of Emergency on Security.

One of the things I find most wondrous about God is the way He distributes children. Oh yes,  I’m a Christian and I strongly believe that God is the ‘giver’ of children. I do not believe that even IVF can work without God's say-so. 

Ask the gynecologists, they will tell you. Even they cannot explain why some couples have to try IVF five times while others are successful at the first attempt. Let’s even assume that you are a scientist and you have answers to the IVF question, can you explain why a woman living in the slum can naturally conceive triplets and deliver via the vagina, while the one living in the lap of luxury with all the necessary medical fixtures and fittings can’t successfully deliver a healthy baby even through Caesarean Section? 

A virgin keeps her body chaste, the marriage bed undefiled and yet, doesn’t get pregnant after 10 years of marriage. But a runs- girl who’s had three abortions has a baby within one year of marriage. The doctor gives a woman a clean bill of health and okays her husband's sperms, yet five years of consistent hard labour in the bedroom and there’s still no patter of little feet intheir home.  Did I hear someone muttering Juju and witchcraft? Should we go there? Because I don’t know how an Australian or American will be able to relate to how witches eat up fetus in Africa. But our belief is our belief. And it ain’t going away because Oyinbo people  don’t share our thoughts and logic on the topic. 

However, the questions running around in my head were actually started by a younger friend who just discovered she’s pregnant, shockingly, disturbingly and needed counsel to even accept it. 

Bose had lost out in two marriages by age 39 because she couldn’t conceive. Her two husbands have also moved on, or so we all thought. Now at 43, she’s pregnant and didn't know a baby was growing inside her until she vent to the hospital to ‘treat this malaria that wouldn’t go’. Do you get my drift? She was married to her first husband for 11 years and never conceived once and now, wait for it, an accidental Okafor's Law night and she’s now 16 weeks pregnant. 

Bose and Ayo, her first husband, met at an industry event in Abuja, found out they were staying in the same hotel. He invited her to share his early morning tea ritual like they used to. One cup of tea led to many things, and Okafor’s Law took over. According to Okafor's Law, once a man has had a woman, he can have her again. It is not a law that I like but it is what it is. Ayo had Bose. Bose had Ayo. Bose is pregnant. Whatever prevented the two of them from making babies in 11 years, somehow could not stop them that wet morning. 

Bose had given up on conceiving naturally. She had started an adoption process. She is a busy, very busy woman. Which explains why she explains her constant persistent feverish feelings away with stress and malaria. Should she have let her heart and body yield to the touch of Ayo's body and his Okafor finger? How would she have known she was still fertile or even ovulating at that particular period? Maybe this was her only chance of becoming a mother. Maybe she had been ovulating actually regularly but because she was no longer paying attention, years or months of opportunities had passed her by? Or was it only Ayo’s swimming soldiers that could find her uterus? 

Unexpected Pregnancies,  they leave you at the corridor of you-go-explain-tire. They leave the pregnant woman or couple puzzled, confused, asking themselves questions only God has answers to. For instance, how does Bose convince Ayo’s wife that she did not get pregnant intentionally, to trap Ayo and ruin his marriage? Should she tell Ayo, the accidental father? So she becomes what, a single mother, side chick or second wife?

The only thing an accidental pregnancy like Bose’s has an answer to is yes, she will keep the pregnancy. It’s a much awaited pregnancy, a miracle even if conceived in questionable circumstances. Bose, we have advised to keep the pregnancy, take good care of herself and then let tomorrow take care of itself. Easier said than done? Well, beggars can’t be choosers. 

A 51-year-old woman misses her period two-months after her newly wedded daughter announces she’s pregnant, how complicated is that? About to become a Grandma and pregnant. Her monthly period were irregular, very irregular. Her husband and incoming Grandpa is still very active in between the sheets but Mummy and Daddy had their last child 17 years ago and so they thought they were in the clear. Madam was sure that menstruating three or four times in a year meant that she was an old layer whose egg-laying years were behind her. What did they know?  God, the giver of children who does not consult gynecologists just showed up with a surprise package,  specifically wrapped for them. It is their year of multiple blessings. 

Incoming Grandma, according to quick EDD (Expected Delivery Date) calculation, will be due for delivery about the time she is supposed to begin Omugwo. 

What to do? She’s at crossroads, right? If you were offering her a map, what should she do? Go ahead and attend antenatal clinics with her daughter? Or take a long deep breath and have a face-saving abortion, then ask God for mercy later? What will you do if you find yourself on this corridor?

A passenger boards a bus. The city is a little rough but he has taken his customary precaution; there are two women on the bus. He turns into the gaze of a wiry man with a Bible and the man smiles and nods at him. He imagines he is a peripatetic evangelist biding his time before unleashing the word of God on some lost sheep. As the bus lurches forward, he prays the traffic is kind. His pregnant wife is waiting at the antenatal clinic.

As he scans the tributaries of cars and humans, he thinks about his failure to japa when he had the opportunity and wasn’t married. A billboard jolts him out of the reverie. The bus has deviated. All the faces around him are blank. As he glances about, wondering whether it is safe to ask a question, someone nudges him hard on the back of the head. “Lie down! Lie down! barks the wiry man. He hides his head in his hands and slumps to the floor of the bus. The man hits him with the Bible. Then, he knows he is alone. It’s his first time on a  ‘one chance’. 

The country has been through a lot. Hopes smashed by democracy. Locust years of military rule. And a return to democratic stagnation. Two years ago, it chose a pro-democracy activist for president. Many said the elections were flawed and badly rigged. But we ought to believe the courts so that we aren’t called fascists. The man had helped to push away the military. And as the governor of Lagos, he was comparatively good. He had championed the opposition and helped prevent the country from sliding into a one-party state.  His warts and conspicuous shortcomings not withstanding, he was the kind of man who could fix the country if he managed to fix his ego and appetite. 

His supporters said he was the most prepared. The man said he hit the ground running. Others said he hit it stumbling, implementing good policies haphazardly, concentrating power in his tribe unabashedly, and oozing arrogance. Indeed, he inherited a little mess. But he came without a vision.  And didn’t seem ready to submit himself to the rigours of the reforms he was dishing. 

Soon hunger seized the land.  Political leaders continued to live large. Hypocrisy was the rule. Inflation jumped through the roof. Hunger  Protesters were charged with treason. The children amongst them weren’t spared. Until they were arraigned. In court their startled eyes and gaunt bodies in tattered clothes tortured the conscience of the passive public and got them a reprieve from the stony hearts in government. But the decadence is systemic. The largest road contract ever went to the crony of the master strategist. Yet he said he was transforming the country and asked for patience.  The hungry have to be silent or they become saboteurs intent on dragging the name of the country into the mud because they ought to know that reforms come with excruciating pains. 

Now with the election drawing closer and the opposition gathering into a coalition, the government appears seized by another bout of anxiety. The statistics from the national bureau have started to become increasingly suspicious. They bear no resemblance to reality. The anti-corruption agency’s activities have started to reveal a curious pattern. Yahoo Yahoo boys and opposition state governments. Delta, Akwa Ibom and recently Bauchi. The opposition called it witch-hunting and said the president had become desperate for re-election. Remarkably, former state governors who had been indicted by the same EFCC but appointed by the president into his bloated cabinet have not been arrested and prosecuted. 

The suspicions of the opposition appeared confirmed when the president declared a state of emergency in a rich state held by the opposition. He suspended an elected governor and the House of Assembly and replaced them with a sole administrator. Only Tinubu, his advisers and some of his political associates believe he acted constitutionally. The National Bar Association described his actions as unconstitutional and reckless. The opposition said he had become a full-blown dictator. 

The frazzled people of Rivers, whose elected governor and legislature have been suspended, are still stunned. The illegal declaration needed the support of two-thirds of the members of both houses of parliament. It seemed impossible. While the masses were anticipating the imminent humiliation of the wayward president, the leaders of the national assembly used voice votes to determine a two-thirds majority. A head count was rejected to determine the quorum. Perhaps it would be too accurate. A suspicious attendance register was preferred. Many called it Yahoo Yahoo politics 

Elections are due in two years. But there is a clear and present danger. A sole administrator has been sent to Rivers. His six-month stay couldn’t be extended. They made him swear an oath. Nobody knows what part of the constitution demanded the oath from the illegitimate appointee. The retired Admiral is not perturbed about the constitutionality of the engagement. He is eager to step into the rich troubled waters. The implications are mind-bending. The entire southeast, where civilians and security agents have been battling an insurgency, could be ripe for this treatment. To nullify the president’s unpopularity in the region. All the governors could be sent packing by a presidential pronouncement backed by vague voice votes in the national assembly. Sole administrators could be sent in from Osun and Sokoto to take over the region. Little wonder opposition leaders called the president’s action a coup. 

The government is no longer afraid of the people. That was how Bishop Onah, the Catholic Bishop of Nsukka described the situation in Nigeria. He concluded that the country was doomed. If the constitution is raped while the lawmakers cheer, then the Bishop is spot on. The country is on  a ‘one chance’ bus careening down a one-party slope. All opposition governors are effectively at the mercy of the president.  With his whimsical emergency powers ordained by this ridiculous Rivers precedent, the opposition is now his footstool.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. It’s easy for any President to foment crises in a state or to let an existing one fester. Then, he can proclaim  and gazette a state of emergency ostensibly to prevent the breakdown of law and order. Then, of course, with the nefarious use of voice votes to defeat the mandatory requirement of an absolute majority of the totality of the parliament, he is the King of the Federation. Only the naive still have faith in the supreme court to stop the president. The country is on a ‘one chance’ . The bus of democracy has veered off. It’s  taking us to autocracy.