No to Imposition of State of Emergency in Rivers State:
Working People Should Reject Tinubu Government’s Growing Descent to Civilian Dictatorship
No Illusion in Any Capitalist Politician. For a Mass Working People Political Alternative
Statement of the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM)
The imposition of the emergency rule in Rivers State is the latest of the anti-democratic actions from the stable of President Bola Tinubu. Recently, he forced 36 legislators of the 40-member Lagos House of Assembly who had democratically removed their speaker to reverse their decision because they did not have his blessing. Though, now in Abuja as the President, he still calls the shots in Lagos, where is a former governor, like the lord of the manor. Besides, his government regularly attacks democratic rights of working people and youth including rights to freedom of expression and protest.
Clearly throwing his official heavyweight behind Nyesom Wike, who is in political standoff with his estranged political godson Governor Sim Fubara over the control of the soul and resources of the oil-rich state, President Tinubu on March 18 suspended the Rivers governor and the State House of Assembly and appointed former Chief of Naval Staff Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas (rtd.) as the sole administrator for the next six months. In other words, with the earlier dissolution of the local government councils on the order of the Supreme Court which nullified the process of their emergence, there is no semblance of democratic institution in Rivers State. So, what obtains at present is reminiscent of a military rule.
According to Tinubu in his national broadcast over the state of emergency, the administrator will not make new laws but he is free to formulate regulations as may be found necessary. However, such regulations are subject to the consideration and approval of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) where Wike sits as a Minister. Though, the House of Representatives passed a resolution that the National Assembly should take over the role of the Rivers State assembly, it does not really reduce the direct influence of the FEC on the Sole Administrator. In other words, Wike, the leader of a party to the conflict that purportedly prompted the suspension of the governor, will be involved in running the state as a FEC member. Though, the conflict is officially between the state governor and the vast majority members of the state House of Assembly, it is Wike who is pulling the strings of the latter.
To be clear, it should be stressed that Fubara, who as Rivers State Accountant General was shielded by Wike from arrest by the EFCC over corruption allegations, is not a saint in this conflict. Fubara callously demolished the Rivers House of Assembly complex and prevented the majority of members from sitting apparently to avert a possible impeachment. He derecognized 27 members in a 31-person assembly and was undemocratically dealing with four members with whom he was governing the state including on laws, budget and appointments.
It was a judgement by the Supreme Court delivered on February 28 which tilted the scales against the governor as it favoured the 27 legislators. The judgement reversed all the undemocratic actions of the governor. Therefore, after the initial grandstanding, Fubara began to make move to play ball most likely on the terms of the assembly members. For instance, following the order of the Supreme Court, he dissolved the local government councils and made a move to re-present the 2025 budget proposal which had been earlier approved by his 4-member assembly.
Therefore, there was no immediate basis for the impeachment process that the state assembly initiated against him shortly before the declaration of state of emergency. Rather, it was the resolve of Wike and his sidekick assembly members to get even with the governor that prompted the plan to remove him.
Indeed, it was not impossible that the notice of impeachment itself was a calculated tactic from the Wike camp with the support of Tinubu to create a basis for the imposition of the emergency rule. It was not likely for the impeachment plan to succeed, if it had gone ahead, as the Chief Judge of the state, who is required by the constitution to set up a panel to investigate the allegations leveled against the governor, is an ally of the governor.
No doubt, Governor Fubara fell for the trap. At a gathering shortly before his suspension, he had made a speech which only thinly veiled his endorsement of a threat of attacks on oil and gas pipelines made by some Rivers state youth should he be impeached. However, it is not yet clear whether any of the pipeline explosions that took place in the state recently had any direct link to the threat or the political crisis in the state. Indeed, according to media reports, findings have shown that some reported explosions at oil facilities were false. “For instance, the viral video on social media alleging that suspected militants bombed two Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) flow stations at Cawthorne Channel in the State was false. It was confirmed that the explosion was an old clip from a February 19, 2025, explosion at Cawthorne Channel 1 in Iloamatoru, Bonny, which claimed three lives” (Guardian March 23, 2025).
Nonetheless, Tinubu cited “disturbing incidents of vandalism of pipelines by some militants without the governor taking any action to curtail them” as one of the grounds for the imposition of the state of emergency. However, typical of bourgeois politicians, this is a demonstration of blatant hypocrisy by Tinubu who as an opposition figure in 2013 had in condemnation of the state of emergency on Borno, Adamawa and Yobe by the then President Goodluck Jonathan, argued that state governors had no real power to guarantee security. Then in his words Tinubu said: “No Governor of a state in Nigeria is indeed the Chief Security Officer. Putting the blame on the Governors, who have been effectively emasculated, for the abysmal performance of the government at the centre which controls all these security agencies, smacks of ignorance and mischief.”
Truly, it was political mischief, not the “actual breakdown of public order and public safety” or the danger of it, that prompted the removal of the state governor. While it is for Wike to regain his fierce hold on the state and its resources, to Tinubu, it is a cold move and desperation to have an ally or a weakened opposition figure in control of the state ahead of the 2027 presidential election. It should be recalled that the local and international observers expressly believed that 2023 presidential election in Rivers State was brazenly rigged in favour of Tinubu by Wike as the then state governor. And, Wike, who was rewarded by Tinubu as the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja and who has his ‘yes men’ in the national leadership of the PDP, has in further return of favour helped cripple that party such that it is unable play any real or seeming opposition to Tinubu.
Tinubu, with the lowest ever share of votes to become a President in the history of Nigeria, has even had his limited electoral support originally based on ethnic and religious affiliation eroded because of his unabashed, anti-poor neo-liberal capitalist policies which have had devasting effects on the vast majority. Therefore, it is not out of place to conclude that to him his re-election bid will be a do or die affair. In other words, he is prepared to do anything no matter how undemocratic and unlawful in order to be officially declared the winner of the 2027 presidential election.
So whichever way one looks at it, Tinubu’s declaration of State of Emergency in Rivers State stands as an assault on civil rule. The process of the implementation of the declaration itself which saw both chambers of the National Assembly approve the undemocratic policy without first ascertaining quorum and amidst allegations of bribery is an additional indication of the absurdity of the all exercise. Therefore, the working class, the youth, unions, social movements and all credible forces must condemn and reject this development. To this extent, we welcome a joint statement of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) in which they “unequivocally condemn Mr. President’s hasty and unconstitutional declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers State.”
However, we disagree with them that “beyond the political and legal implications, this unjustified state of emergency will … lead to job losses, wage cuts, and economic hardship for thousands of workers in both the formal and informal sectors”. This is because the assertion gives an impression that job losses, wage cuts, and economic hardship were not a feature or reality in Rivers State, nay Nigeria, already long before Tinubu’s declaration of emergency rule. The fact is that as a result of the neo-liberal capitalist policies of Tinubu, which are supported by all the governors including Fubara and which the leaderships of the NLC and TUC have failed to seriously oppose or fight against, the economic hardship and poor economic indices, which preexisted the Tinubu government, have been greatly worsened. Indeed, the national minimum wage of N70,000 won by the NLC and TUC in 2024 is actually a wage cut if compared with N30,000 minimum wage won in 2019 as a result of inflation triggered by the anti-poor capitalist policies of Tinubu.
Nonetheless, we call on the NLC and TUC not to limit their opposition to the state of emergency in Rivers to a mere statement. They, together civil society organizations, should also organize a nationwide mass protest and other legitimate actions in order to make a bold statement against an action of Tinubu they describe as “not only unlawful but a direct assault on democracy”. But it should not also be lost on the organized labour that Fubara in the course of the conflict was also a culprit of “direct assault on democracy”.
Good enough, the Rivers State councils of both the NLC and TUC have already indicated that “the organised labour may be compelled to take strategic union actions which might disrupt national economic activities if our demands are not met within a reasonable timeframe.” However, this must not be a mere hot air.
Moreover, the protest we have proposed and whatever action Labour may plan must not be limited to rejecting the emergency rule in Rivers alone but generally include all the attacks on democratic rights of working people and youth and the descent to civilian dictatorship, something which has become a feature of the Tinubu government. In order to ride roughshod over the working people with its anti-poor policies, stifling of democratic rights including freedom of expression and criminalization of protest have become a state policy of the Tinubu government. For instance, over 2000 persons including minors were incarcerated for about two months in police detention and prison in connection with #EndBadGovernance nationwide protest against mass hunger and economic hardship in August last year. Not done, Tinubu government has preferred trumped-up charges including treason which carries death penalty, before Federal High Court Abuja, against 11 activists including Adaramoye Michael Lenin, National Coordinator of YRC and a member of DSM because, according to the police court paper, they carried placards with inscription: “End Bad Government”! Many young people and bloggers have also been detained or made to face sham trial on undemocratic, fraudulent cyber laws.
The latest action of President Tinubu represents a concrete escalation in the situation in Nigeria. More and more, Tinubu regime is acting like a dictatorship in a bid to push through its anti-poor economic reforms and maintain political control while in the process undermining civil rule in the eyes of the masses especially the youth. This may have implication in the near future. At the moment, the truth will not be lost on many – that an ‘elected’ president enlisted elements of the military (even though retired) in an attempt to take control of an opposition-rule state ahead of the next general elections.
Going forward, while working people must resist attacks on democratic rights and any action or measure that tends to further erode even the limited democratic space which has been won, they must not have illusion in any capitalist politician or line behind any section of the capitalist ruling elite. The experiences since the return to the civilian rule in 1999, for instance, have shown that all capitalist politicians at all levels are prepared to unleash “direct assault on democracy” to advance their self-serving interests, and they all carry out anti-poor policies as a logical consequence of their inequitable, profit-first and greed-enabling capitalist system. Therefore, in order for the working people and youth to really enjoin what is popularly termed in Nigeria as “dividends of democracy” there is need, in addition to consistent struggle against anti-poor capitalist policies, for a mass working party that could wrest power from the thieving capitalist ruling elite and begin to organize the country on the democratic basis of socialist planning.
Peluola Adewale
Organising Secretary
For Democratic Socialist Movement