President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s recent declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers State and the appointment of Vice Admiral Ibok-Ette Ibas (rtd) as Sole Administrator, following the suspension of all elected officials, has sparked controversy, NTAKOBONG OTONGARAN examines the issues involved
The crisis in Rivers State cannot be divorced from the power tussle between Governor Siminalayi Fubara and his predecessor in office and Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike. The latter was the state’s governor from 2015 to 2023. He handpicked Fubara as his successor in 2023, expecting a loyal echo. Instead, the protégé rebelled, igniting a feud that spiraled into chaos. Fubara and Wike belong to the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the oil-rich state.
Indications that all is not well between the two political actors emerged in October 2023 when 27 lawmakers loyal to Wike purportedly defected to the ruling party at the centre, the All Progressives Congress (APC), and subsequently threatened to impeach Governor Fubara over fiscal defiance. Three months after, Fubara’s faction, with four rival lawmakers, allegedly demolished the assembly complex following an explosion. It was ostensibly to prevent the lawmakers opposed to the governor from sitting and making good their threat.
The climax came on March 17-18, 2025, when militants struck the Trans Niger Pipeline and Soku oil facility, which generates about $14 million daily to the country’s purse; a development which prompted Tinubu to act by suspending Governor Fubara, his depty, Mrs Ngozi Odu and all members of the Rivers State House of Assembly. These developments came after the Supreme Court ruled on the crisis, reinstating the 27 lawmakers and decrying the absence of a functional government as Fubara flouted their budget mandate.
Speaking on the matter, a political analyst, Peter Aka, blamed a “corrupt electoral system” for the crisis. Another commentator, Jerry Chukwueke, echoed this sentiment emphasizing Rivers’ strategic importance to the nation. He said, “It’s not just politics—it’s national security.”
Observers blame the degeneration of the crisis on the nature of the country’s federal structure and the weak institutions that were supposed to act as checks and balances within the polity. Realist theorists, drawing from the stern pragmatism of Thomas Hobbes and the cunning of Niccolò Machiavelli, view the state as a Leviathan tasked with imposing order amid fragility. In Nigeria—a nation stitched together by ethnic diversity, resource conflicts, and faltering institutions—this perspective casts emergency powers as a necessary shield against collapse.
Prof. Claude Ake, in his seminal Democracy and Development in Africa (1996), argued that African states often prioritize survival over democratic ideals when faced with existential threats.
Rivers State is no ordinary patch of land—it’s an economic jugular, pumping 40 per cent of Nigeria’s crude oil, the lifeblood sustaining a nation of over 200 million. The pipeline bombings and governance paralysis, realists contend, are not mere local squabbles but tremors threatening national stability, justifying President Tinubu’s intervention as a sovereign act to restore order.
Jerry Chukwueke, a public policy analyst and former advisor to the Imo State Governor, embodies this realist stance with a fervour that cuts through the noise. He declared: “Rivers stands apart—it’s a strategic linchpin. We’re talking about massive investments in hydrocarbon infrastructure—export pipelines, storage facilities, crude production.
“If Nigeria is to repay $15 billion in forward-sale debts accumulated over years, supply crude to local refineries like Dangote’s, and earn dollars to keep the exchange rate from spiraling into chaos, the president has no choice but to act decisively.”
Chukwueke framed the crisis as an “existential threat” to Nigeria’s one-dimensional economy, brushing aside constitutional debates with a pointed question: “What’s the alternative when oil theft and vandalism imperil the only resource keeping us afloat?”
For realists, the appointment of Vice Admiral Ibokette Ibas (rtd) as sole administrator is not a “power grab” but a bulwark, a necessary measure to protect the nation’s economic heartbeat.
However, critics argue this pragmatism risks legitimizing a perpetual executive dominance, a shadow that has loomed over Nigeria since its military past, threatening to trade democratic vitality for a brittle, enforced peace.
As expressed in the philosophies of John Locke and Montesquieu, the two other arms of government, the judiciary and the legislature, are institutions that are expected to act as checks and balances to the power of the executive in a liberal democracy. The voice of the people, as expressed during periodic elections, is also part of the checks and balances to the power of the executive.
However, in Nigeria, such institutions are weak and often yield to executive fiat rather than stand as guardians of democratic checks and balances. In the Rivers saga, this lens casts President Tinubu’s emergency decree as a rupture in the constitutional fabric, a move that sidesteps the very mechanisms meant to preserve governance by consent.
Afam Osigwe, President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), articulated this critique with a clarity that reverberated through legal circles. He said: “Let’s examine the foundation of this emergency. Two explosions tearing through pipelines and a political feud between a governor and his former mentor—these are the threads the president has spun into his justification.
“But turn to Section 305, subsection 2, and you’ll find a far loftier threshold: war rending the nation’s seams, invasions breaching its borders, or a collapse so profound it shatters the state’s bedrock. What we have in Rivers is a storm. But it is leagues away from the cataclysm the law demands.”
Osigwe added: “The suspension of Fubara, his deputy, and the assembly is a manoeuvre that finds no sanctuary within our legal framework, no matter how you bend the text. Look to Section 11, subsection 4, and you’ll see a steadfast barrier, explicitly denying the National Assembly any authority to oust a governor during an emergency.
“Turn to Section 188, and you’ll search its provisions in vain for any whisper that a state of emergency justifies stripping an elected official of their mandate. This isn’t a gray area—it’s a transgression against the democratic edifice we’ve vowed to uphold, a breach that echoes through our legal heritage.”
Osigwe painted President Tinubu’s haste—24 hours from blasts to decree—as a reckless lunge. He said: “Like swinging a sledgehammer at your skull to ease a nagging headache.”
He called for Fubara’s restoration, saying, “He should still be steering Rivers through this tempest—the Sole Administrator’s oath is an alien artifact, unrecognized by our Constitution.”
Itse Sagay, a constitutional lawyer, has long warned that “emergency powers must not decapitate democracy,” a sentiment bolstered by the Supreme Court’s February 28 ruling ordering legislative function in Rivers.
Femi Falana (SAN) notes that President Tinubu chose suspension over enforcement, a pivot he labeled a precedent for “executive override at will”. Similarly, Peter Obi called it “reckless,” a cry echoed by liberal theorists who see institutional erosion.
PDP governors and the nonprofit, nonpartisan, legal and advocacy group, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), have filed lawsuits to pursue the matter in court. Osigwe foresees a Supreme Court showdown. “This will test the very bones of our democracy,” he said.
The spectre of authoritarian drift, drawing from Max Weber’s bureaucratic dominance and Carl Schmitt’s state-of-exception, casts a darker shadow over Rivers. This lens sees emergencies as gateways to tyranny, where crisis becomes a pretext for executive overreach, echoing Nigeria’s military-era decrees—like Decree 2 of 1984 under Buhari, which Tinubu once resisted.
Wole Soyinka, in his work, The Open Sore of a Continent (1996), cautioned against Nigeria’s slide into “dictatorship by stealth”, a warning that resonates as Ibas, a military figure, rules without a constitutional oath—Osigwe dubbing it “an alien artifact haunting legitimacy’s corridors”.
Ibas’ recent dissolution of the state cabinet and Council of Traditional Rulers deepens this unease, prompting Yakubu Maikyau, former NBA chairman, to call it an “aberration”, with Yiaga Africa warning of “democratic backsliding”.
Olusegun Obasanjo’s 2004 suspension of Plateau State’s Governor Joshua Dariye, a gambit later denounced as unconstitutional, looms as a spectral reminder, its ghost whispering of past overreaches that echo into the present.
Nigeria’s federalism, as Eghosa Osaghae argued in Crippled Giant (1998), promises state autonomy, a vow strained by colonial centralization and ethnic diversity. In Rivers, this lens frames the emergency as a federal assault on that promise, with Ijaw leader Benjamin Okaba declaring on March 20, “This is 1962 redux—a death knell for our self-governance.”
Okaba sees Wike’s Ikwerre influence and Tinubu’s Yoruba base tilting against Fubara’s Ijaw-led PDP, a power play masked as necessity. Falana blames the 1999 Constitution. He describes the constitution as a “unitary relic,” ill-equipped for such tensions.
The Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) warns of renewed militancy if the situation persists. The IYC fears were stoked by an incident witnessed on March 19, when Ogoni youths blocked Aba Road in Port Harcourt and set tires ablaze, shouting, “Tinubu, hands off!”
Federalism’s lens probes: Is this economic salvation or ethnic domination? Chukwueke’s call for a “reset”—“a chance to calm all sides”—clashes with Okaba’s dread of lost autonomy, a fracture Nigeria’s federal pact struggles to bridge.
As Rivers State navigates the uncharted waters of emergency rule, Nigeria stands at a pivotal juncture, its democratic future hanging in a delicate balance. Will President Tinubu’s decree forge a stable tomorrow, or will it unravel the threads of a democracy already frayed? For Rivers and beyond, the road remains uncertain—stability’s allure wrestling with liberty’s cost.
